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)

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