Hello everyone!
Because I am back up in Sydney for the day, and have to pay for the internet, this week will be a shorter email. We have another Mission Leadership Conference, so we enjoyed a nice drive up last night and will be having the conference today then return tomorrow morning. Oddly enough, driving in Australia is a beautiful thing. So many amazing things to see in the environment as you drive over 300 kilometers. Here is the email:
What another great week down here in Canberra! The weather has finally warmed up (perhaps a bit too hot on some days) but I won't complain because of the miracles we keep seeing! We keep accomplishing several of our weekly goals, and for what I can remember as the first time ever in my mission have exceeded the Member Present Lessons goal that my companion and I have set for a month. We really have focused on having more effective teaching, and so we have continued to push to the very end to bring a friend along to help our investigators feel fellowshipped and welcome. We have had a great response as we have done this. Members now come to us and are offering their schedules for when they are available and are asking for us to schedule appointments during when they are available so that they can help teach our investigators. It has been great to see the ward continue to grow closer together and come to continue supporting missionary work more and more every week. This week we saw a great miracle in using the phone more. We have hundreds of numbers that are saved in our phone that are either potential investigators that previous missionaries have talked to, or former investigators. Everyday we try to make some "miracle calls" We will say a prayer and then one of us will start just scrolling through the numbers until the other one says stop. Even though it may seem silly, we have seen some intense miracles by doing this! This week when we tried it, my companion spoke to Dominic. He mentioned it had been a long time since he had talked with missionaries but he would be keen to meet us. We scheduled an apt and invited him to bring any of his friends along. The 2 days later we met him and his classmate named Tam. Though they are quite opposite, they get along pretty well and we struck up some great discussions with them from How to Begin Teaching and then shared with them how they could know that God really does exist. Dominic has a hard time believing in anything that cannot be proved by science, but Tam already believes In Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, he is just not sure where he exactly stands in regards to faith. He goes up and down as I believe all of us do, but lacks a strong testimony. Though teaching them seperately would be help them to overcome their concerns because they are quite different, I feel we did a great job in trying to teach to both of their needs. They committed to come to church the next day, and Dominic said the first prayer of his entire life to end the Lesson. We are meeting with them again this coming Wednesday and are really excited to continue to share with them more about the restoration. Tam asked such a great question that we will love to answer more fully on Wednesday. He asked "which domination of Churches do you fall under?" After a simple explanation of the restoration, I think his interest was definitely perked and I wished that we would have had more time to fully explain, but this Wednesday we definitely will answer his question. Such a great miracle from a small and simple thing as a phone call
Also, we had the opportunity to meet with Richard Morutu, the Referral you gave us this week. We had plans to meet him eariler, but he had to cancel because his wife was sick. We texted him on Wednesday just to say we wished his wife well and to ask if there was any way we could help, and he called us out of the blue saying he would like to meet on his lunch break that day in just over an hour (thankfully we didn't have another apt scheduled at that same time!) So we met with him and he is great! He has done so much personal research and has actually read the Book of Mormon since he was a little kid. He has great memories of reading it and looking at the pictures that were included in the childrens edition. He said he would prepare himself for baptism since he knows it is God's will to do so. He is a man that is very, very obedient to God's will. On our first meeting he talked about that for about 10 minutes- of how even though he doesn't want to do some of the things because it would be difficult or uncomfortable etc, he feels that it is right and so he proceeds to do it. He has had some really interesting spiritual experiences that he shared with us, to where he knows God is real and can't deny it. We look forward to continued visits with him. He lives about an hour away from our flat and the chapel, but works down in woden area, which is just 20 minutes from us, so it is convenient for us to meet him twice a week on his lunch break. Thank you so much for the trust you have placed in us to teach him.
This week, from Chapter 10, I have learned more about How to Begin Teaching, making sure that we really teach to someone's needs and discover those needs as early as possible. I think a great example of this was meeting Tam. At first, I thought that he would be against the church just because of some of his initial comments, but as it turns out, once he saw that we are there to help him grow closer to Christ and not to tear down the faith he has, he was much more open with us. He mentioned that he really hates when Religions or churches talk negatively about other faiths and so he was happy to hear that we agree that all men are free to worship according to the dictates of their own conscience. He is an honest seeker of truth and is quite excited to continue to meet with us. I am glad that I had reveiwed points about how to begin teaching before meeting with Him and dominic because we definitely needed to establish a relationship with them before they would feel open to talk with us. I am so grateful for Preach My Gospel!! I can't imagine how I would function as a missionary without it
Also, we had the opportunity to meet with Richard Morutu, the Referral you gave us this week. We had plans to meet him eariler, but he had to cancel because his wife was sick. We texted him on Wednesday just to say we wished his wife well and to ask if there was any way we could help, and he called us out of the blue saying he would like to meet on his lunch break that day in just over an hour (thankfully we didn't have another apt scheduled at that same time!) So we met with him and he is great! He has done so much personal research and has actually read the Book of Mormon since he was a little kid. He has great memories of reading it and looking at the pictures that were included in the childrens edition. He said he would prepare himself for baptism since he knows it is God's will to do so. He is a man that is very, very obedient to God's will. On our first meeting he talked about that for about 10 minutes- of how even though he doesn't want to do some of the things because it would be difficult or uncomfortable etc, he feels that it is right and so he proceeds to do it. He has had some really interesting spiritual experiences that he shared with us, to where he knows God is real and can't deny it. We look forward to continued visits with him. He lives about an hour away from our flat and the chapel, but works down in woden area, which is just 20 minutes from us, so it is convenient for us to meet him twice a week on his lunch break. Thank you so much for the trust you have placed in us to teach him.
This week, from Chapter 10, I have learned more about How to Begin Teaching, making sure that we really teach to someone's needs and discover those needs as early as possible. I think a great example of this was meeting Tam. At first, I thought that he would be against the church just because of some of his initial comments, but as it turns out, once he saw that we are there to help him grow closer to Christ and not to tear down the faith he has, he was much more open with us. He mentioned that he really hates when Religions or churches talk negatively about other faiths and so he was happy to hear that we agree that all men are free to worship according to the dictates of their own conscience. He is an honest seeker of truth and is quite excited to continue to meet with us. I am glad that I had reveiwed points about how to begin teaching before meeting with Him and dominic because we definitely needed to establish a relationship with them before they would feel open to talk with us. I am so grateful for Preach My Gospel!! I can't imagine how I would function as a missionary without it
Love,
Elder Shafer
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