New Chapel Opening!

10/31/2016

Dear everyone,

   

 I hope all of y'all are doing great and enjoying the Halloween fun! It doesn't really look like Halloween here in Australia because there are like no houses decorated but all good. Some of the members have told me that there will be some kids who do trick or treating, but we will have to see. 

This past week was a pretty good one! It was a little tight because we are pretty much out of Kilometers or K's to drive our car with... but ya.. haha so because of that we have been out doing a lot of door knocking, like heaps! We have meet a few potential investigator but we also had the chance to do a lot of service moving some peoples stuff into new houses and doing some garden work (for some reason people in Australia call their yard a garden). We were able to witness a few cool miracles! like on Monday we had a family home evening with one of the members of the bishopric and Tenielle in his home so that turned out really well!  We recommitted Tenielle and her family to be baptized for the 19th of November. So there is a lot to be done but we know if she puts her efforts forth and faith in the Lord it can be done! We also held a baptism for one of the kids in the ward and Tenielle was able to come to it and she told us that she loved it and couldn't wait until she could be baptized. Unfortunately some of her family was in town so she didn't get a chance to make it to sacrament meeting... but we will keep pushing forward! 

We also met this one lady that we found after church while knocking on some doors nearby the chapel who said that her life was falling apart and she just finished talking on the phone to her parents and had said how they needed to have God in their life, then nack-minute here we are, the missionaries from the new chapel (which she can see from her house) asking if she needed help but that was pretty cool :)  So we will continue to follow up!  

The new chapel was awesome to be able to go to and our ward was the first ever ward to have a sacrament meeting there!  Really cool :)   Lots of good things!  Also one last thing before I finish, something that one of the Assistants to the President said that has been really sticking with me recently was, "How much comfort can the Comforter give you if you are in your comfort zone?" but love you all and have a great week!

-Elder Pierce

Transfer News... Sweet as bro!

Our flat is right in front of an amusement park so we took a picture.

10/24/2016

Dear everyone,

Drum roll please................................................ me and Elder Meyer are both staying in Pimpama!!!! We are both excited to be companions again and we also have some really exciting news that the new chapel that was being built to be the new stake center in this Coomera stake is finally finished!!!  So the church is now only about 5 minutes away vs like a 30 min drive.  We are expecting to see some cool miracles happen here with missionary work due to the new chapel opening!! So all should be good with that. 

This week will be busy with us going around telling everyone about the new chapel. The only problem is that we don't have very many kilometers to use in our car for the rest of the month so it will be very tight this week how much we use our car... but oh well, the Lord will provide.  We just have to plan better and not get lost while driving. 

The week was very full with it being the last week of the transfer and having to do our flat deep cleaning, but we were still out there trying to get as much work done as we could. We weren't able to see our investigator Tenielle much this past week but when we did go, we went with one of the counselors in the bishopric Brother Berkett (a really tall Maori guy) and that lesson went awesome and he invited Tenielle to his home for dinner today so that should be really good! We are trying to follow the counsel that our mission president gave about packing the ward around her and giving her as much support as possible. It was also pretty good because on Wednesday we had a trade off with our district leader and I went to another area to be with the district leader's companion, so that was kind of nice to not have to be running the show but to let him take lead and such. 

a district photo (minus one Elder because he was too slow to get in the picture * notice arm to the lower right corner,haha)

Overall a pretty good week and we are sad to say though that the Elders that lived by us both got transferred out and there are no missionaries coming in so it's sad to see them go because we all became pretty good friends -but it is the Lord's way! Sorry I don't have any stories for the week. But I know that the Lord lives. The church is true, the book is blue, and we gonna baptize you! haha 

Love you all and have a great week!

-Elder Pierce                      

                                       Sweet as bro= Kiwi (New Zealand) slang 

"Sweet as" said when something is rather good instead of just "good" or "OK". Often followed by "bro". 

A Fast Week

Missionary life: We took some pictures with the Elders that live like 2 minutes away from our flat,    

we play basketball with them every morning.

10/17/2016

Dear everyone,

   

 It was another good week here in Pimpama still plugging away doing the Lord's work and trying to build the kingdom. But the week went by really fast because I feel like I was just emailing yesterday. 

A couple cool things I guess that happened, one was that on Thursday we had our mission president interviews which went awesome because he gave us a big training and such about yoking together with our members and packing the ward around our investigators. It was nice because it was my first ever like normal mission president interview since all of my other interviews have been like either a welcome interview or a farewell interview... haha. So it was cool to feel the love from our mission president and his wife :) 

A lot of the week was filled with canceled appointments.. but such is the way missionary work goes sometimes.  We are slowly but surely trying to build up our teaching pool so that we can be teaching and helping more people. But I guess I'll share a quick story: while we were following up with a former investigator whose name was Boudaine (I just refer to him as Bo) well when we got in there with him he was randomly talking about all this crazy conspiracy theory stuff and it was like what?? haha  So then I started praying and asking the Lord what I could say or do to help him and then all of the sudden a couple scriptures came to mind and I had the thought to ask him what was his purpose here in this life. Well, his countenance changed and he just started telling us all of these concerns and stuff and he was like I have been seeing so many signs from God that I need to go to church and we were like, yes. But coming out of that I can definitely say that none of that was me but the spirit working through me. Just pretty cool.

But ya, a pretty good week and it is crazy because it is the last week in the transfer. Elder Meyer and I doubt that either one of us will be transferred, but who knows.. I hope not. But yup I love you all and hope that you all have a great week!

-Elder Pierce 

Being silly

#ldsconf

10/10/2016

Dear Everyone,

  

  Wow, well today the time ran away from me while emailing and downloading some talks from conference.. but I hope I can share a few good stories or something.. haha 

Well this week went by extremely quick I literally just felt like yesterday was last p-day. But the week went well. To start it though on last p-day while I was playing basketball with all of the other missionaries in the zone, I jumped and then accidentally landed on someone else's foot. I think I might have torn something or other but I called the doctor of the mission and he said to just rest it up... but there is work to be done in the Lord's vineyard so I rested it up for that Monday.. hahah.  But it isn't too bad it doesn't really hurt at this point now and I can put normal weight on it so it should be all good.

I think I tore something while playing basketball (but it looks worse than how it feels)

After that it was a week of trying to catch a bunch of people and no one being home.. but we did get to do some service for an older sister who has cancer. She is from Argentina which was pretty cool. We followed up with some potentials and former investigators so now we have a little bit bigger teaching pool which is really good. We are still having some bad luck trying to catch Tenielle with all of the crazy things happening in her family and she didn't get a chance to come to conference even though we texted her and she said she would be all good for it... haha (face palm). But we are keep on keeping on because this work is the most important thing in her life so we won't ever give up! 

We also had a mini trade off with the assistant and one of the office elders only for about an hour but I went with Elder Fa'alogo who was my first zone leader so it was really good to catch up with him and we had a lot of fun!  Then of course on Saturday and Sunday we had awesome General Conference that was sooo awesome! I loved it so much because you get to hear from the apostles and prophets that we talk about so much as missionaries. Unfortunately we didn't get anyone to come to the sessions.. but we keep on trying. 

This week is looking like it will be a good week. Sorry if the email is a little haphazard.. but I love you all and have a great week!

-Elder Pierce

Work,Work, Work :)

                                             Elder Pierce and Elder Meyer- treat time. :)
10/4/2016

Dear everyone,

    This past week was pretty crazy. Also, sorry for the late email it is because yesterday (Monday) was a public holiday for Australia.  Apparently it was the Queen's birthday! So ya, today we have p-day though.

Dinners with the members are the BEST!

I can't remember if I said but recently like within the last two weeks our mission president changed the dinner rules so that we as missionaries can have a dinner with members any day of the week! We also have to teach a 30 minute missionary lesson along with the dinner. (sorry if I already said that but I can't remember) But we really are liking that new rule because we meet the members more and also have more dinners so it is working out very well :)

This past Thursday and Friday was the Golden Orientation for Elder Meyer so we had to go and drive down to the city in order to let Elder Meyer have some awesome training and such for all of the new missionaries. It was cool because while Elder Meyer was in Brisbane, I stayed the day with another missionary who's "golden" (new missionary) was at the training as well.  So we were in Logan zone which is a little closer to the city than our area is.  That was cool to be in another area for a day. The Elders were actually moving flats though, so for a few hours what we were doing was packing up boxes and moving stuff, but it was pretty fun. Also, I got to see Elder Nemeth (my companion from the MTC) because the Elder I was on exchanges with shares a flat Elder Nemeth.  So it was good to catch up with him. On Friday we had some good trainings and such that president McSwain gave so it was pretty good! 

About our investigator Teniele and her family:  Satan has been attacking them hard because almost all of last week we didn't get to see them until Saturday because they all have been very ill with a virus and even some of her family members were in the hospital.  So we are still going to try and help her out the best we can!

Love you all !

-Elder Pierce

  Family Home Evening with the Tapaitauuah Family:

(photo credit to Sister Terry Tapaitauuah who posted all of the pics on this blog post and more to the "Missionary Mommas" Facebook page- THANK YOU Sister Tapaitauuah!! <3)