February 3, 2013
Hey there! Ah, the Super Bowl, that makes sense that Dad wrote first, that would explain why his passage today was way longer than usual! :) real quick, 20 foot ice castle?? you HAVE to send pictures of that! This week has been pretty unusual.
We had zone leader council on Monday, special zone training on Wednesday, and then zone meeting on Friday, so we only had like 2-3 full proselyting days, we still managed to get a lot done though. So the story of Miriam is pretty dang cool. She found out about the church while she lived in Sierre Leone and then moved to Papa New Guinea because it was too dangerous to stay in Africa. I found out that her husband and both parents have died but I don't know the full story there. She has two sons, one is with her here, and the other one she is working to bring over from Africa. We found her one day when we were going to visit a less active member. We kinda got lost and realized we were walking down the wrong street so we started back to the car to try again. On the way back we saw this cool alley staircase thing that just went back through a narrow pass in the shops so we walked back there just to be curious. When we walked out on to a side street I saw Miriam walking a little way off and our paths were almost going to cross. I felt the impression that there was something special about her so I slowed down and said Hi and started to talk to her. We then found out her story and that she had been here for 3 years and couldn't find the church. When she saw us she immediately recognized that we were from the church. We later found out, that day she had gotten home from work, was about to fall asleep and then got the urge that she should go buy some bread. She thought that was weird because she didn't even need bread but the urge was strong enough that she just went and did it anyway and on her way back to her place, confused why she just went and bought bread, she looked up and saw missionaries! She was baptized 3 weeks later! What a miracle! The lord really does look out for his children and places them in the right place at the right time. She is so funny, I could recognize her laugh anywhere!
I do write in my journal. Before I came to Bankstown I wrote in it every night but since then I have been pretty bad. I'm just so busy and have so much stuff to do as a zone leader that my journal gets neglected. I have been writing in it like once a month but am making a go at doing it every day. I could probably spend like the first 10 minutes of each personal study doing it :)
So Australia day is kind of like Independence day except for the fact that nothing significant ever happened historically on that day. I guess they just decided that they had too big of a gap between holidays so they threw in a day called Australia day. It falls on the 26th of January, which last year was my second day in Australia. This year however it was on a Saturday, and seeing how that doesn't benefit them with a day off, the country decided to celebrate Australia Day on Saturday and then deem Monday the Australia Day Public Holiday so that they could actually put the holiday card to use, and not go to work. Basically it's a day where everyone goes to the beach or has a BBQ or plays footie or something. We used to do our emailing at the mall every week but then switched to the library because it was free and quiet, even though the computers are slower and have less features.
We got to have an experience with the Primary too! I knew they learned about Joseph Smith and the gold plates because one of the Primary teachers had us come in as special guests for a minute of the class and sing the first verse of Joseph Smith's first prayer for the 4 and 5 year olds. They were so cute and all waved and said goodbye when we left. So funny about the barrel of beans, I didn't even know about that and last week a little girl told me all about it. Apparently that's what sticks out to them hahaha!
Not sure who I want to win the superbowl. If I was watching, I would proabably just root for whoever is loosing at any given time. That way it's more back and forth and more exciting. I am probably hoping the 49'ers take it though. They deserve it. and that would also mean that the Packers lost only to the Superbowl champs again. Well, today we are going to the Koala park so I will probably get to hold a Koala bear and pet it and stuff. I'm pretty excited :) Alright, have a great week!
Love, Elder Thompson
PS I sent a package home with a few priceless things in it
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