Another Week in Warwick

                                 Our full day p-day with President! Ipswich West zone!! haha
3/20/2017
Dear everyone,

This past week has been a pretty good week! So we didn't get back to Warwick until Wednesday afternoon because we were still in Ipswich for full day p-day and zone meetings and what not. But it was really fun to be in Ipswich because it is very similar to what Camira is like :) nice and dodegy! haha 

But now it is good to be back here in Warwick! I think the highlight of the week is that we found this Chinese lady, Esther (that is her English name because we couldn't pronounce her Chinese one...) She is a young mom with one daughter who is just over a year old! She and her husband have been Australia for two years because her husband has a job here working with I think crop yields and what not. But we have been teaching her, and while we were in Ipswich we got a bunch of stuff in Chinese so we could give it to her. So the way that we have been teaching is that we give her the Chinese pamphlet and we use the English one and read and discuss (and she understands about 70% 'ish I would say). She has such sincere questions because in China they teach them in school that God is not real and that it is just you. So we are having to teach pretty much everything! It has been so cool talking about the plan of salvation and teaching about Eternal truths that we take for granted. Like when we told her that even her own ancestors would have a chance to hear the gospel she was like, no way! 

Also pretty cool is that our ward is going to be singing in stake conference and being that both Elder Tewes and I are musical we are going to sing a song in a quartet and be in the ward choir! which is awesome because I love being in choirs!! 

But I think that that is about it... I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

-Elder Pierce

** Side note: This is Noah's message to me (Mom) about our recent health scare and 9 day hospital stay with Tanner (our 13 year-old).  Noah's faith lifts me up and gives me strength, I'm sure he wouldn't mind me sharing...

WOOHOO Tanner is home!!! That is really good! I sent you and dad and email for him! Let him know I love him! I wish I could do something more... but all I can do is pray and I KNOW that Heavenly Father hears every one of my prayers, so I am trusting it in our Heavenly Father's hands! There are just some things that only God can do for us and our family! love you mum! Have a great week!

G'day Y'all

3/14/2017
Dear everyone,

First I realize that I still say y'all and also G'day so now a lot of people can't actually tell where my accent is from?? A lot of people think I'm from western Australia or NZ and then the rest of them think I'm from America. (and one drunk guy thought I was Irish...) 

My prayers go out to Tanner! I hope you get feeling better and that our Heavenly Father will inspire us to know what to do!

But this past week has been another good week up in the bush of Warwick! A bit busy but good! I'm getting to know the members better which is good and it is pretty easy because there are not that many so that means less names to try to remember.. haha But since Thursday we've been doing your normal missionary stuff just working hard and praying hard!  We've had some dinners in members' homes with our investigators Robert and Shonna (the ones who want to be married). We are still working on when they want to be married but they are taking to the gospel like a fish to water which is awesome! 

On Sunday we saw this less active guy (who has many mental health issues like schizophrenia and what not) but he is really nice and has been teaching us these cool games that he makes up out of Uno cards some of them are really fun and really creative! And then Monday was a zone conference so we drove down to Ipswich (1 1/2-2 hours) and we stayed in Ipswich because it takes up too may of our k allotment to drive back and forth so we have been helping our zone leaders in their area by knocking on doors and what not!  Then today which is Tuesday our zone has a full day p-day with President which is awesome!! and then we will drive back to Warwick tomorrow (Wednesday) but lots of good things! 

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

-Elder Pierce

A picture Elder Meyer sent of Jamie and Kim Lee visiting the Brisbane Temple! :)

 I bought some American treats from an American shop on my year mark day! haha 

Warwick part 2

3/9/2017

Dear Everyone,

So I didn't know what to put for the subject title so ya... first sorry I am emailing late because today is our zones temple p-day, but we don't get to go here in Warwick because we are too far.. (about a 2-3 hour drive to the temple) But this past week has been a pretty good week! it feels like I've been in Warwick a lot longer than I have but then again it also feels really short. Just funny how our perception of time works. But today is Thursday here, and coincidentally it is my one year mark! which is pretty crazy it feels like I've been out for ages while at the same time it feels like time has flown by SO fast. But i'm really glad and grateful that i am still here serving the Lord :) 

But I'll get into the email. So About Elder Tewes, Warwick is his first area and I am his second companion. He has been in the mission two transfers so he still has what we call that golden spirit! haha He is 19 and just came out on his mission right after high school. but ya he is a cool Elder and we get along pretty well. But the week like I said was good it was so weird because Elder Tewes is driving and leading the area because he knows all of the people which is different where I was running the show pretty much in Pimpama.

The master at work- Elder Tewes is an excellent piano player

Warwick is a pretty small town kind of place and the chapel is in an old house in downtown Warwick they call the type of house a Queenslander (maybe you can look it up on google because I forgot to take a picture of it) We have about 60-80 people that come so it is very similar to my first area Camira in that sense. And everyone is Australian which is much different.. haha big change to see none of my Polynesian people.. haha But we have been doing lots of door knocking (even on the farm houses because it is very rural in some parts) but we have already had some cool miracles and tender mercies. Such as we have an investigator couple who want to join the church but they have to be married and we were worried for the lesson.. but when we got there they were like ya we want to be married but we had no church to do it in.. so we married ourselves in our backyard between us and God. haha So they are keen to have our bishop marry them. And then one morning after a lot of trying to follow up with potential investigators and what not and former investigators we stopped by one more and of course he wasn't home but I felt impressed that we should knock on more of the doors on his street, just after we had been talking about how there was no one home and lo and behold a Chinese lady answered the door and let us teach her a short lesson and she said that she wanted to know and believe in God but it's hard because in the schools in China they teach them that there is no God. But it was really cool to follow a prompting and it work!! :)

I love ya all it has been awesome and I hope things start to clear up back home it sounds like a lot of crazy stuff is happening.

Love you all and have a great week!

-Elder Pierce

A really big spider we saw!

This is district meeting.. we live too far away so we Skype in using a members i-pad.

Out with a BANG and Germany part 2

                                                                    The Baptism 
                      (sorry the picture quality is a little bad but we kind of look celestial.. haha)
2/27/2017
Dear everyone,

So legit, so many things have happened that it is crazy! haha I'll try and capture it all. Also I forgot to mention but this past week was the last week of the transfer..... But the week was bitter sweet but mostly sweet! 

The first part of the week was normal stuff p-day as normal. Tuesday we had a district service for this old guy in our district leader's area where we cleaned his house. Wednesday we did some more service for Sister Rodriguez the older sister in our ward (the same one where i cut my wrist and had to go to the hospital) and then we had a meeting with our brand new ward mission leader who got called on Sunday.  Then Thursday was the day of baptismal interviews. We had our district leader come and do Anthony's interview and he will be baptized this Saturday upcoming ( but I won't be there....) and then later in the day we had our mission president come and do the interviews for Jamie, Kim-lee and Atlanta.  It was so cool they got to meet our mission president and he is such a great guy! The interview went well and they were all set for Saturday! But we had to make the baptismal program and they had the hardest time deciding who was going to baptize them either me or Elder Meyer so we ended up deciding to split and let one do the girls and the other do Jamie but then we actually had to flip a coin to decide who did what... haha and Kim was like WE ARE BETTING!! haha  So it came out that I did Jamie and Elder Meyer did Atlanta and Kim and the bishop did all of the confirmations at church! It was SOO awesome! 

Right after the baptism we had our ward activity which was a karaoke night which was so fun and of course since they were all Maori they were mean singers!

Also Elder Meyer has been feeling pretty sick the last few days which means that we are only able to go to our set appointments and the rest of the time let him sleep.. I feel bad for him but it is the way it goes sometime I guess. But then on Saturday night we got the call to tell us if we were getting transferred or not and they said........................... Elder Meyer staying and Elder Pierce going! .............................. but they didn't know where?? So it was really bitter sweet to have such cool amazing experiences and then to have to get up and leave. But I will go and do the things the Lord commands! Then Sunday was our last day and it was ward conference so I didn't get to give my testimony in the meeting and then we tried to say goodbye to as many people as we could but the time just kept slipping away but at least I got to say goodbye to Jamie and Kim and also Tenille. I know the Lord will continue to look out for them!

Saying goodbye to Tenille's family

Well I don't remember giving Nevaeh my camera but here is a picture she took with our car

Now I found out that I got transferred to Warwick (pronounced without the w in the middle) which is out in the bush... middle of no where! haha but it should be awesome! And my new companion is.......................... Elder Tewes (pronounced weird... kind of like Tay(but no so hard ay) vus) and guess what? he is also from Germany! haha Now I have had all the Germans in the mission for my companions! haha  Elder Meyer and I were cracking up when we found out he was going to be my companion. He is from the more southern part of Germany called Stuttgart and I checked neither Elder Meyer or Elder Tewes live near where Dieter F. Uchtdorf lived... oh well.. haha  We have already connected pretty well, we both love choir music and music and he is an amazing piano player! 

The drive up to my new area Warwick - it's such a pretty drive very bush and mountainy!

My new companion Elder Tewes (pronounced weird... kind of like Tay(but no so hard ay) vus) he is also from Germany

But I am excited to do the work here in my new area and I will tell you more about it next week!

Love, Elder Pierce

How'sitgoin?

                                           The wonderful wedding of Jamie and Kim'lee
2/20/2017
Dear everyone,

First, the subject of the letter is like a traditional Aussie greeting.  It should be "how is it going?" but they smash it all together really fast. 

But this past week has been awesome!! So other than the wedding on this Saturday, not much happened. We had a trade-off with our zone leaders on Thursday and it went pretty well it's always nice to have a switch up every once in a while!  After that Elder Meyer has been pretty sick for the week and we stayed in the flat some and let him get some rest.. because he has been throwing up a little bit and just not feeling great.  So we went to the doctor to get him checked out and the doctor said that he probably just has the flu but it was pretty cool because the doctor knew how to speak German so that was a cool little tender mercy of the Lord.

Other than that the wedding was really awesome!  It was pretty cool because we were in charge of like none of it so we just had to show up and be there! But it really was awesome they are making such awesome progress. I also was the witness for their wedding so I had to sign these legal forms! Pretty crazy!  We also gave some speeches as the best men but it was a good time overall!

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

 -Elder Pierce        

So I have heaps of videos but I can't send them because it takes to long for them to load.... 

the bishop and his family and a few other kids from the bishopric's family did this really cool Polynesian dance show but I only took videos so yup sorry.. haha 

But here are some pictures I got:

                                                                  Wedding Photos

                                                              Jamie and Kim'lee

                                               This is Jamie and Kim'lee's whole family-

 one of the sons was flown in from Darwin (the older boy who has brownish hair) to get to the wedding

                                                  The Wedding Party with the Best Men :)

                                                       I thought this photo was pretty funny :P

Can I be a best man...??

                       The Coomera Stake Center Chapel            

2/14/2017

 Dear everyone,

   To start sorry that I am emailing a day late, it is because we had interviews with the mission president so they made today p-day for us. But I feel like the Lord is continually blessing me and Elder Meyer! Other than the heat because there has been a heat wave that has made it no lower than 37 (99 'ish degrees Fahrenheit).... haha that is the real deal heat. 

But I'll just get into some of the stuff that has happened this past week. Last Monday was really fun because we went to President's house and played games and what not and had dinner not to mention

My Zone at President McSwain's house

it was sister McSwain's birthday so we got to sing to her! But then this week was super good because we finished all of the missionary lessons for Jamie and Kim'lee! and on the last lesson we brought the bishop and his wife on the lesson and it was soo good because we taught about temples and family history and it was really cool to once again hear how the aboriginal culture mixes with the church! They talked with the bishop and the final plan is this: that they will be married this week on Saturday and then they will be baptized with their 11 year old daughter Atlanta next Saturday! And to top it all off Jamie asked me and Elder Meyer if we could be the best men of his wedding! and he was like can you do that? and we were like......... uhh I don't know if we can but we would honored to! so i asked president in my interview yesterday and he initially said no but then he was like, well there is nothing in the rules that say that you can't do that.. so I will call you if I find out if you can't but if i don't say anything then.... just do it. haha And i reminded him how we were agents unto ourselves and he laughed haha. 

Other than that we are just moving along and we also found out that Tenille's oldest son Anthony went to mutual last week and just announced to everyone that he wanted to be baptized! So that will be good when we can set that up.  I think it's also been a really cool blessing to stay in this ward so long because we have been able to see the progress of it and our recent converts, Tenille and her family. They have so many friends in the church and it is just so awesome! 

Sorry I don't have any more time to email but the week has been good and I know the Lord is watching out for us! but I love you all and hope that you have a great week!

-Elder Pierce

                                                       Some pics from Elder Meyer's camera

Time flies!

                                                        Elder Pierce and Elder Meyer

2/6/2017

Dear everyone,

So the week has been pretty good, man I tell you time flies!  I feel like I was just writing an email to y'all yesterday. 

But I'll get into the week, So Monday was really awesome because our ward mission leader invited our investigators Jamie and Kim'lee to a dinner at their house and invited the bishops family as well. So that was really awesome and it was sooo good because Jamie and Kim'lee are aboriginal and so is Sister Matenga, so she was able how to tell that their culture mixes so well with the church! Sister Matenga said that even in their history that there was a white god with a beard that came down and ministered to them and taught them! Way cool to see about how Christ ministered to his lost sheep! 

I was also able to go on a trade off on Tuesday with some other missionaries that are not leaders because they are teaching a German investigator so Elder Meyer was allowed to go with them and I was with Elder Tiahou (I don't know how to spell it) but he is Tahitian so it was cool because he even knew Elder Parker (my first companion/trainer) before his mission. 

But I feel like there is too much to type it all but it has been good! Jamie and Kim'lee are thinking to get married and baptized on the same day on the 18th so we are pretty excited! Also today is a full day p-day because our zone hit our goal for baptisms so tonight we are going to go to President's house and have dinner with them! Pretty awesome! 

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

-Elder Pierce 

                 

        (here are some pictures sorry I don't have time for descriptions but hope ya like them)