Week 9

Well this week has been busy, but both our investigators seem to be progressing.

The one [Fahad] has agreed to be baptized December 5th, but we will have to push the date back closer to Christmas just because we don't have enough time to teach him.

And the other one we have had a little trouble with. She has been learning from the missionaries for 3 years, and she is still on the first lesson just because she doesn't retain the information that we give her and that might be because she doesn't speak English very well. So we had the Chinese elders come and teach her, and the first lesson went great. The second lesson we had them come and teach her again, and it didn't go so well. But we did have a member there with us, and the member kind of saved the lesson.

The whole time we were trying to teach, the investigator didn't want us to. She kept saying that she is sick of the missionaries and that all she wanted was friends. She was sick of the missionaries because we had to keep teaching her the same lesson, and so she was sick of the same questions. The reason she wanted friends is because she moved here from an Asian country [Taiwan], and she doesn't have very many friends. She feels like the missionaries are a burden to her, so she doesn't want us to come back, so we ended our visit right there. We said a prayer and left, and the member stayed behind and talked with her. They kind of became friends, and they exchanged information and kind of talked. I don't know what the member said to her, but somehow the member got her to come to church, something the missionaries haven't been able to get her to do for the whole 3 years we have been teaching her.
We have two really good potential investigators so we should be able to contact and teach more people—
So that was mostly what happened this week. I love you all. I hope you have a good Thanksgiving. There is an American family that is fixing us Thanksgiving Dinner.

Love Elder Newman

The body [on this spider] is about the size of a quarter. They jump, and they aren’t scared of you. They aren’t poisonous, but they hurt when they bite you, or so I have been told. And I guess that’s a small one. Haha

Week 8

Everything is going good over here. It’s starting to get really hot, but it’s not too bad. I love the warm weather.

The teaching is going good. We about had our investigator drop us because he was going to move to another area for work, but he flies back every weekend to take the lessons from us. I think he is going to be a great member someday, but it will just take a lot of time because he has a lot of questions.

Mission life is going great. My basic everyday goes kinda like as follows:

6:30 Wake up, exercise.. We have been playing tennis and basketball, and we have a lot of gym equipment that we use, so it’s pretty easy to exercise.
7:00 Breakfast and get ready for the day
8:00 Personal study
9:00 Companion study.. We usually prepare lessons during that time.
10:00 Language study.. My companion is Japanese so he needs this time to study English, so I usually either do laundry or another personal study.
11:00 12 weeks, which is a training program for new missionaries.
12:00 Lunch
1:00-9:00 is [spent] looking for people to teach and also teaching members, non-members, and less actives; and basically talk to anyone that will talk with us. Dinner is somewhere in there if we have time or an appointment. It is usually around 5:30 when we eat.

That’s basically what we do every day besides Preparation day and Sunday.

This is now my second transfer. I am staying in the same area with the same companion, so it’s going to be about the same for the next 6 weeks. I look forward to hearing from you all. Thanks for everything you do for me.

Love, Elder Newman

Week 7

Well this week not a whole lot happened, but I am having lots of fun, and I am enjoying it. It is becoming a lot easier to talk to strangers, and I see the growth in my testimony and the affect the mission is having on me. It took a whole transfer, but I am getting into the routine of missionary work.

I am loving it in Australia. Right now we are just focusing on finding new people to teach. It hasn’t been working too well. A couple days ago we knocked on like 30 houses, a whole street, and nobody wanted to talk to us. The longest conversation we had was like ten seconds.

But this week I had the opportunity to speak in Sacrament [Meeting]. I had a couple hours to prepare. Luckily it was an easy topic. It was about preparing for a mission. I think it went great considering I had only a few hours to think of stuff to talk about. But yeah, that’s how this week has gone.

I love you all!

Love,
Elder Newman

Birthday celebration for Elder Iino!

Week 6

We are teaching two people. I asked one to be baptized, and he said yes. It is Fahad. He is very curious and very smart. He has some tough questions, but it’s all good. We set a baptismal date for December 5th, but we might have to push it back a little farther than that just because it’s hard to teach him with his schedule. But he hasn’t missed a day of church since we met him, so that’s really good.

This Sunday a guy that we never met before came to church. He was deaf, but it was pretty easy to communicate with him. He could really feel the spirit. It was a great meeting for him to show up to; it was fast and testimony meeting. This guy (Paul) loved how he felt there. He couldn’t hear the testimonies, but he could feel them. And I thought that was really cool!

So this Sunday we had three investigators come to church. Two of them now have a baptismal date, and it’s going great! I can’t wait to hear from you guys.

Love,
Elder Newman

A blue tree at Mount Annan Botanic Gardens.