God hit me a little...we were angels sent from heaven!

Email #80
Area: Oaklands Park
Companion: Elder Turcotte

Excerpts from Mom's email:

Hey mom!

Well this week once again in Adelaide has actually been very good! Still each day is an adventure and have different things that you wouldn't expect occur. Once again having a zone leader assignment, but this time around it is a little different! It feels more natural then before and doesn't feel as demanding. I can still fully focus on my area and purpose while still having my other additional responsibilities. I also have my new companion training him how to be a zone leader. Something that president said I'm leadership training however is that most likely, nobody will finish their mission as a leader, however will finish fully in the field. He makes no guarentee that say I won't finish as a leader, but most likely this transfer or my next will be my last as a leader. It's been such a blessing to learn as much as I have in these experiences here! I know they will continue to come! Man time is flying by to fast though.

This past transfer was so crazy that we are still trying to figure things out! Almost everyone was flushed in so everyone doesn't know exactly where to start. It was a slow week figuring out what the last elders did here, because I know they were having more success then we have right now haha. The smart phones are helping a little bit with following up. On Friday, we  texted over 100 people that were in record, but not to many replies as of yet. We probably will be calling heaps of them this week and going by there homes. The biggest help is the map on the phone that shows us where everyone lives! It has made planning a lot easier, but still building the area at the moment.

Something that came to a surprise is that the assistants are in our ward and district now! So we work really closely with them and hear from President much more as well, even saw him at church this week. It's good to be working with them. More because I'm good friends with Elder McDonald (who is from South Africa by the way) because we came in together.

To answer your questions, I didn't know that many areas closed, but it doesn't surprise me it was a crazy transfer for sure! Over 80 of the 110 missionaries here moved areas! That won't happen again for sure though! A missionary I know that owned a company back home and is a CEO explained to me that often times when someone takes over a company they take down a lot of things and build it the way they want it to be. I think that is kind of what president is doing now, but if course the way God wants it to be instead.

Love you heaps!


Excerpts from Dad's email:

Hey dad!

Sorry I am so late to emailing, we decided to go to the mission office first to get all the business we had done there, but it took longer then I thought haha. Yeah I am loving it this transfer! I can tell it will be a fun one and won't have a boring moment at all.

A cool experience was this week when we were riding back to the flat before the close of the night, we saw this old lady pushing a cart seeming like she was struggling with it. My first thought was to go and help her, but then second thoughts like "we are gonna have like 10 minutes to eat dinner" and "she will be fine" cake to me. I think God hit me a little (I hit a low tree branch) and that to me was God saying "think straight and help that poor lady". So we crossed the road to see if she needed a hand. At first she was startled and wondered what the heck we were doing, but after a second or two she understood who we were. She talked to us for a couple of minutes and began to cry. She has been struggling lately really bad and has been praying that she may know God still cares or if he has forsaken her. When she saw Jesus Christ on our badge, she just opened up like we were angels sent from heaven! It is one of the most powerful feelings to be an answer to someone's prayer! Just humbling to know the Lord can use someone like me, as stubborn as I can be to follow prompting sometimes, to answer this women's prayer. We should always follow promptings even though it may not be exactly what we want to do at first! We referred her to the sisters and hope to see her progression soon!

Well all I got for now.
Love you heaps!