G'day!

                                                      Some district p-day bowling!                                 
1/30/2017 
Dear everyone,

So since there hasn't been many days since I have written y'all... there hasn't been too much that has happened. But I will just give y'all the run down. 

So on Saturday we were able to do a service project for Tenille by helping her clean all of her walls with some help of the elders quorum because she is going to have a house inspection and being a single mom of 5 kids who works full time, we were glad to help out where we could! We also had an awesome lesson with our investigator Jamie where we brought the bishop along and discussed him and his partner getting married and baptized. Unfortunately Kim'lee, his partner, was not  there but it was still very good! Jamie has had some awesome spiritual experiences and in his own words has become a Mormon Message fanatic, haha. Then on Sunday it was awesome to see Jamie, Kim'lee and two of their children at church as well as Tenille and her kids!  It has been so awesome to see that since she has been baptized she makes it to church every Sunday where before it was always a struggle to see if they were going to come or not. Also pretty cool because the bishop met with Jamie and Kim'lee and in the interview they said that they all wanted to get married and baptized so that will be way cool we just have to pick a date and teach the rest of the lessons:) so we have had a pretty good few days here in Pimpama and we are looking forward to keep working hard! 

But as for the changes to schedules announced a few big things (I mean they are big to me because I am a missionary) But one thing is that we plan in the morning now instead of in the evening and we also are suppose to go out working at 10 and at 12 we come back and have a 30 minute lunch and do our companion study and language study then so that we are not out and about in the hottest part of the day because recently the past few weeks it has been in the 35-40 degree range (95-104 degrees F)...... so you could say that it is a little warm and it's humid like in North Carolina as well.. haha.  And then they shortened our list of key indicators to only be 4 of them. Pretty crazy but it is definitely inspired of the Lord and it is cool to be able to see the work of the Lord progressing and hastening! 

I love you all have a great week!

-Elder Pierce

I Love to See the Temple

                                         Feeling inspired at the Brisbane Australia Temple :)
1/27/2017
Dear Everyone,

So this week has been really busy but super awesome!  I will try and cover it all but we will see what happens. 

So this Monday was just a normal working day for us because we had a temple p-day today(Friday) so that is why I am emailing late... sorry for no heads up but I didn't really know it was going to happen until it was too late. Tuesday we had a trade off with our district leader so I was in my area and I had his companion with me who is an awesome Samoan elder, Elder Paramore, sorry I didn't get a picture but that was good fun.  We did a lot of knocking on doors and what not because we had some of our appointments fall through. But it was a nice switch up for the day. 

Then on Wednesday we had the amazingly awesome opportunity to be able to go to the temple with Tenille and our ward mission leader and some of his family to do baptisms for the dead and Tenille loved it and it was just such an awesome thing!!! It was so cool because when we asked President for permission to go he was like, "of course you can go!" haha 

Tenille's first trip to the Brisbane Temple

Then On Thursday we had the world wide missionary broadcast and it was so awesome! We gathered together as a mission at the Karawatha chapel (same place as the Christmas conference). So much revelation it was just amazing! I will share a few things I learned, Elder Bednar talked about how the missionary purpose or the steps of faith repentance and baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost are all made one in Christ, ie. we have faith in Christ, we repent to become like Christ and we are baptized to follow Christ's example and just one of these steps by themselves has no power but when they are combined in the purpose of Christ they have all the power they need! But other things, they made some changes to the missionary schedule (huge one in my opinion) and they emphasized the importance of becoming agents unto ourselves. And then today we had an opportunity to go to the temple so overall it was a great week :)  

But I'm out of time so I love you all and have a great week!

-Elder Pierce

A funny car sticker (fyi: top black/red/yellow flag is the Australia Aboriginal flag)

Tenille's bird (it's a picture that Naveh, Tenille's daughter, took) it's a blue Indian Ring neck

Awesome!!!

                                                            Awesome Baptism Day!!
1/16/2017
Dear everyone,

So first things first, some crazy information is that Elder Meyer and I will be staying together in Pimpama for at least another transfer! Wow, we were both pretty shocked because it will be 4 1/2 transfers after this one that we have been together, as father and son, trainer and golden! haha But that's all good we get along pretty well so I don't mind and there is definitely work to be done here in the Pimpama area! And that was an answer to a few of our investigators' prayers! haha Tenille said to us that we better not leave and that she had many prayers for us to stay. haha 

This past week has been a good one! Probably the high light would be that we were able to witness the baptisms and confirmations of Tenille Robyn Te matetu-O-Rihi Hepi and Lionell-Tane Atua Jason Wellington and finally Tobias Perenara Warren Wellington... just to show you how crazy NZ names are.. haha (and you may not be able to tell from the picture, but just to let you know in real life they are all really smiley happy people.. haha) .  It was such an awesome experience with a lot of bumps in the road to get there.. we almost called it off a couple of times due to different problems with family and such (saying that they have been 5th Generation Catholics her whole family all 16 of her siblings... except for her now) But Tenille knew what she wanted for her family and she had an amazing amount of faith to take this awesome step! So we had the Baptism on this past Tuesday Jan. 10 and she obviously couldn't choose one of us to do the baptism so she had me and Elder Meyer and our ward mission leader all do a baptism each! haha  Never heard of it being done like that but that's all good!  The baptism had an amazing turn out, we had a whole chapel full of members from the ward turn up and it was just so cool to see :) But a lot of the week was getting that ready and filling out forms and what not.  

We are also still making some really good progress with our other investigator family Jamie and Kim'lee.  Just to show y'all how keen they are, Jamie was feeling too sick this Sunday to come to church so what his family did was stay home and sing the hymns and read the scriptures off of the gospel library app! haha  That was so funny because they were telling us their favorite songs especially "I am a child of God" and "Heavenly father are you really there?" (I don't remember the name of that one) But other than that it was pretty busy with things like cleaning the flat before transfers and just end of the transfer stuff. All in all it was a great week! And I am excited to still be in Pimpama and just smash the work! 

But I love you all and hope you have a great week!

-Elder Pierce 

Pictures from the rain forest of Mt. Tamborine!

(Our Zone P-day-last Monday)

Elder Pierce- Representing home in his new Carolina shirt he got for Christmas <3

Kookaburra- the bird that sounds like a monkey

(Click on the link below to hear)

if-you've-never-heard-the-kookaburra-bird-before

A Week of Many MIRACLES!

1/9/2017
Dear everyone,

So this past week has been a busy one as usual and of course this week is the last week before the transfer so we will see how that goes... but as for now it's been really cool to see some of the fruits of our labors! For instance after all of the craziness, Tenille and two of her kids Lionelle and Tobias have decided to be baptized!   And following the last baptism's pattern, the date is very close like this Tuesday.. or tomorrow! haha  It was really crazy to see how Satan was trying to keep her from making these decisions. At first we came by with the Bishop and set the date but then as Tenille was going around inviting all of her family (their family is like 5th generation Catholics)  her mom was bringing up some trouble and her sister as well but as we know no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing! So she is still going to be baptized Tuesday and she has already passed her interviews so we are all good to go we just need to get the program ready... still working on that. But we are super excited for that :) 

We also have been making some good ground with another one of our other investigator families Jamie and Kim'lee and to top it all off we had 10 investigators show up to church! I was sitting there in sacrament meeting so happy and I was thinking to myself "is this what the celestial kingdom will feel like with our family and friends!?" haha  We also have a few really good referrals from the members! 

So we are happy to see the work of the Lord moving forward, just a little sad that it is moving forward so much right before transfers.. haha, but we will see anyways. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week!  And keep enjoying the snow!

-Elder Pierce

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays from the Land Down Under!

1/2/2017
Dear everyone,

   

As the disclaimer to start, sorry I am emailing a day late because yesterday was a public holiday (New Year's holiday). They had us go out and work. But here I am today! So Christmas was great I loved being able to see all the family on Skype! Great to hear your voices and see your smiling faces :) 

So you can say the past however long it has been since I emailed has been crazy. So I will just have to try and cover a couple things. Christmas and Christmas Eve went well.  On Christmas eve we had to go and dedicate a guy's home who showed up to church one Sunday saying that his house was possessed and that he needed some holy water (of course the ward sent him to us, haha, it reminds of that one general conference talk "ask the missionaries they can help").  Then on Christmas we got to Skype and we visited a few members and had a few meals... needless to say that we were very full. But the family that we Skyped at they got me and Elder Meyer presents and everything so that was really fun haha.  Also by the way I loved the package!  Very appreciated and also the lanyard is perfect! because my last one was very broken.. But it was also good to have American candy and such :) 

 I'm a real Aussie! 

haha that is a worker shirt that a lot of people wear and one of those wide brim Australian straw hats

                                                            Christmas Package :)

                   (so they opened their presents on Christmas Eve which is tradition in Germany,                          
home of his companion Elder Meyer)

Then most of the week after that was normal missionary work until New Year's Eve but needless to say it has been very hot.. on New Year's Eve it was 38-39 Celsius (100-102 F)... and we were out knocking on some doors. Needless to say our brains were a little fried but all is good in the Lord's vineyard! Sometimes we have to show the Lord we are willing to work. But unfortunately last Thursday while we were doing a service for an older sister in our ward, we were helping her change some light fixtures and clean them. But one of the light fixtures I didn't put in properly and it fell and out of instinct my hands went out to catch it and it exploded on my wrist and cut it pretty deep. So the rest of that day consisted of us going to the Gold Coast hospital and waiting in the emergency room for about 4.5 hours to get seen by one of the doctors to see if it needed to get stitches. Which it ended up that it did need stitches, I had to get 3, but don't worry because very luckily(I know it's not luck but the Lord looking out for me) no major veins were cut and all of my nerves remain completely intact! The only thing was that it was a deep cut. So I am very blessed, it reminds me of when Alma and his people are in captivity and the Lord lifts their burdens and says that He will always visit his people in their afflictions. But that is enough about my wrist, it sufficeth me to say that it is fine.. haha 

Then New Year's Eve we had to be in the flat by 5:30 to avoid any problems that could possibly occur. And then on Sunday we were able to see more really cool miracles because one of our investigators and his daughter came to church and we also had a random person turn up to church with this senior couple and they said that this lady, Annette, had read the Book of Mormon 2 times and has taken a lot of the discussions with missionaries and she finally decided to come to church! So we will see how that goes :) It is always cool to see the many blessings the Lord is willing to give us! 

But I love you all and I wish you a happy new year!

Elder Pierce

Christmas Skype

                                                                    #LightTheWorld

One Happy Missionary!