A New Mission President

7/25/2016

Dear everyone,

     This past week has been pretty good, I'm still learning heaps! It was really cool because we met the new mission president, President McSwain on Wednesday and I can already tell that he is going to be an amazing mission president!! 

Mark E and Yvonne B. McSwain

I'm excited to work with him throughout my mission. He gave us some really cool insights because before our interviews he like gave an introduction to him and his wife/ a training. One thing he said was if you remember the scripture in D&C about if you shall labor all your days and bring one soul unto me how great shall be your joy. He said that one soul is ourselves! He also said that Preach My Gospel is the second most correct book on earth and that we needed to live by it. 

He also talked about in my interviews to make sure to set specific goals to baptize and then take them to the Lord because when we give those specific goals to the Lord, He can more fully direct us! 

* a small thought from a letter to Mom I'm sure he wouldn't mind me (Mom) sharing:

 I know the Lord does have his timing, this is actually making me think of a talk by David a Bednar called "Ask in Faith". I'd give that one a look*. But I know that if the Lord can move mountains He can shape our lives in the midst of our trial.  

*Click on the link to read the talk: Ask in Faith- Elder David A. Bednar

But ya love you all! Sorry the email was short it was a pretty good week. Improvements still to be made but there is progress!

Love,Elder Pierce

Click on the link below to take a look at this video/ treasure on the Australia, Brisbane Mission website!  You can see Elder Pierce as he first arrived in Australia!!

2016 March Golden Orientation- Australia, Brisbane Mission

Pondering Patience

                                    Temple Day at the beautiful Brisbane, Australia Temple
7/18/2016

Dear everyone,

     

I will have to be quick because most the computers in this computer lab are broken so we are all like sharing the computers that do work.. I would have to say that this week has been long, but it has been good. It feels like last Monday was forever ago.

Companions enjoying the temple

We have been working with this Cook Island family with some unbaptized kids and they have been really good to work with. Their name is the Taoro family and they have some active family members in our ward. We played a game with them and we had Alex Togia with us and he has been helping us with our teaching skills and he has really been a big help. I have learned a lot from him so far! 

But we have been trying something new in a couple of things. One thing we have been trying is praying with the members before we go out and go tracting on a street and we ask for them member to pray for our efforts and for the people on the street. (We have only done it once so far..) But when we did it we found 2 potentials and 1 new solid new investigator from NZ and she is really religious and when we shared about the Book Of Mormon she was like can I have that book? and we were like yes!! We are excited to start teaching her this Wednesday. Also this Wednesday we are having the first interview with the new mission president. That should be really good!  

Something that I have been pondering and that keeps coming up is about continuing in patience. I recently listened to a talk by Dieter F. Uchtdorf about continuing in patience because we cannot be perfect right now. But what we can do is progress.  

I love you all and have a great week!

Elder Pierce

Also, I finally saw some kangaroos!  The story behind the kangaroos is pretty boring actually... haha I was just riding my bike on the trade off on that Saturday and BAM there were some Kangaroos :) So I obviously had to take some pictures!