Gladstone Wildlife

Hello Father and Mother and the rest of the world!!

This week was just lovely. I would like to start out with a segment on wildlife in Gladstone:

1. Swooping Magpies. Never have i wanted to harm an animal but let me tell ya....these birds are PUSHIN IT!!! They are black and white magpies that swoop from the sky and click their claws right next to your ear while you are just minding your own business walkin down the road or biking.......so fun!

2. Rainbow parakeets! At least i think they are parakeets. They are the colors of the rainbow and so pretty. I will try to send a pic.

3. Cockroaches....three inches long! Crawling on my shirt....that was an experience. And the spiders are king size!!

4.  They also have little sun flies that are microspopic...(seriously) and they bite you and it itches. But you cant see them!

 

5. Pythons. Yup. You read that right! Okay they dont have pythons everywhere but me and sister Kyaw were tracting one night and felt this feeling we should GO HOME. So we did of course. Then we went back the next day and this lady we were visiting was like "oh yeah they found a PYTHON here yesterday!!" Good GRIEF people! Good thing we have the spirit!!

Sister "Wulf" and Sister Schaelling holding aloe vera "sticks/branch/sword?"

Okay but Gladstone really is the place to be!! We get to teach lessons up the yin yang! Lots of teaching, lots of investigators come to church we are so blessed! So i have been trying to really listen to the Spirit and do things even if theyre uncomfortable or hard. A lot of times i have noticed on my mission that things just "work out." Like, i dont see a vision or anything but ill jsut think, ah just one more house. Then that house turns out to be a potential or someone we help, but its just a normal thought. and plenty of times ive thought things that havent worked out, but we tried anyway. Trial and error. Resilience. Things work out!

Funny story. Me and Sister Kyaw were tracting and saw a mango tree. I really wanted to eat a mango even if it was green. So here we are leaping trying to grab a green mango and we see a man walking by on the other side. We look like total egg-heads! But we waved and laughed and continued mango grabbing and got one. Then later we were tracting and about to head back but decided on one more house. A man come out and invited us to sit. We sat. We taught a quick version of Plan of Salvation. We asked questions, got a return appt, and said the closing prayer. And then he looks at us and say..."So....did you enjoy that mango?" And then we laughed. It was him we saw!!

Sister Schaelling studying hard

I am learning so many things on my mission, about the Spirit and inviting people. I realize there is no reason to be afraid. I was sitting next to Phillip in church, our kiwi Moari investigator who has read the book of Mormon twice in two weeks!!!! we just taught him briefly about the Book of Mormon and didnt see him for two week because of work and he left town. And i thought, Phillip needs to be baptized. So i just asked him when church was over, and we worked out a date. It was simple. We dont need to be complicated about these things...the Lord knows who he wants in His Church. 

We had a branch bbq and their were more investigators than members there almost! it was awesome :) Joann and Nino came. We are teaching them as a family now with the Fentons, (sr couple.) I hope they accept baptism. I love their family. Joann has come twice to church with her kids and Nino should start coming soon. Teaching families is a hundred times harder and more stressful to me than teaching individuals...but so rewarding!! Mark and Tabitha passed their baptism interview like champs and are excited to be baptized this Sunday.

Little Fort and Sister Schaelling

Im not sure if any part of being a missionary is easy for me. Its still hard to teach and invite and be urgent all the time and the list goes on....im not a natural at this. But its worth it! I love it. The Lord always helps those who incline their hearts to him. I feel myself being stretched every day....physically, emotionally, spiritually. How lucky we are. :)

I love you all. This week i have particularly come to appreciate more the Spirit that i feel in my home. (As in my actual home in Utah.) There are some parts of this area that walking through the streets the Spirit is just not there. There is so much darkness in the world. While the people in Australia are kind and laid back, most of the country is aethiest....wierdly, I can feel it. The emptiness of unbelief, ah what a sad feeling it is. I hope me and SIster Kyaw can bring a little hope to these people every day. Oh that i were and angel......

Story time, just a quick one. About the Spirit. Sister Kyaw and I were planning on teaching Dilys Word of Wisdom. That morning i studied "The Savior Wants to Forgive" by elder Cardon and loved it. (Go read it.If youd like.) We biked over to Dilys and we both coincidentally forgot our WoW pamphlets. We thought that was wierd. We went in the lesson and we had tithing pamphlets so we thought maybe we would teach that...then we got talking with Dilys. She asked the question we have all pondered..."how can i know when im forgiven?" For our lesson we had a lovely discussion about repentance and forgiveness. Make plans, then follow the Spirit.

Sister Kyaw and Sister Schaelling

Also we are teaching our investigator Ken, we skype with the Mandarin elders who teach him in Chinese. On thurdays we went over to his house to say hello. We met his boss and bosses wife, Josephine, from china. They were so nice and tried to be very warm and loving. Turns out now Josephine wants me to teach English to her little boy! Ah, foot in the door! That house is full of Asians. We will convert them all and have an Mandarin branch, just you wait :)

I love you all!!!

Sister Schaelling

Another great week in GLADSTONE.

Hello dearest friends and family!

What a week it has been!!! To answer your questions mother, i use a computer at the library for email and only have one hour. For exersize we go walking or running or tackle a beast hill outside our flat we named Rasputen. Like the Russian terrorist. :)

This week i had some amazing experiences that brought me closer to my Savior Jesus Christ. The one that sticks out to me the most happened in a lesson with Dilys, our investigator. Her father is recent convert and has the darkest skin i have ever seen. And the coolest accent!

So we taught Dilys the ten commandments and she was so into it. When we were talking about keeping the Sabbath Day Holy we talked about church and why we go. I remember saying that we go to church to repent and be healed by taking the sacrament, and why cant we just sit at church and cry? We dont go to look perfect for others. She agreed and we had a great discussion. Then at the end, after the closing prayer she said she wanted to ask us something. She told us she was going to live the commandments so she could be baptized. She just started crying in front of us saying since reading the Book of Mormon she just feels how important it is to be baptized and make that covenant. She said she kept thinking, "what am i doing? i could die tomorrow, why should i choose earthly pleasures over God?" It was so amazing. We set a date with her for October 19. I will always remember her humble example of how important it is to repent. More important than anything else.

Also we had a lesson with Mark and Tabitha who are preparing for baptism on the 28th of September. They are truly golden. We talked about temples and boy the spirit was sooooo strong. The Fentons and their friends from Wyoming came and we all taught together about tithing and fast offerings and some other commandments and they took it like champs. Mark and Tabitha told us how they want to go to the temple and be sealed with their little Tiana, their 3 year old daughter. It was amazing, i just sat there and enjoyed feeling the spirit. I noticed before we taught i didnt have a lick of nerves, which usually are killing me. How awesome!!

We go and visit a Filipino lady named Joann and her family. We stopped by on Saturday night to invite them to church. Nino, (ninyo) is the father and he always invites us in and gives us food. "Food is for everyone," he always says. They are so nice. They said they couldnt make it to church because Nino had work. We shared a message with Joann, Nino and their 8 or 9 year old son Arkinz. He wasnt really into it when we were trying to teach him about prayer. We left and the next day, Sunday, in comes Joann with her three beautiful boys--Arkinz, Tres and Fort. They are so cute. Joann said it scared her that Arkinz cared so much about games and not about God. They loved church and want to come next week. That was so special!!

The best things about Gladstone are the people! They are all so kind, and our teaching pool is like the size of the pacific ocean. Very diverse and wonderful! Also my companion who is just awesome. I also lovvve the four way i'm with (meaning the four of us sisters that live in the flat)--Sister Wulfenstein from my MTC distict and Sister Watson who is so wise. Me and Sister Wulf both have companions that are wayyy older than us so we come home and just goof off with each other and laugh our heads off! The hard parts about Gladstone are the same trials in every area, seeing people reject us, and in turn reject their Savior and eternal life. 

i love you all! 

Sister Schaelling

Gladstone life!

Hello dearest friends and family!

This week was splendid as always! I shall start with tuesday, we taught Ken Tim who is from Malaysia and we actually skype the elders who speak Mandarin and they teach while we smile and nod. Oh my goodness i cannot imagine learning Mandarin. Good grief! We had some english class after which i always love.

After Ken we also went to follow up with a potential, Celeste, and her friend Rosie was there. We sat and talked together and taught about how God is our Loving Heavenly Father and prayer. I felt the Spirit a lot when we talked about this. We prayed at the end and all just looked at each other after. Are you feeling what im feeling? Love it.

We also got to teach Niki this week, her son is autistic and dealing with a lot of bullying at school. We listened to her struggles and then shared a message about the power of prayer and scripture study. So many times when people share their own very hard trials there is little i can say to relate. Thank goodness for the Atonement of Christ, there is someone who knows everything we go through, even when others dont. 

We are teaching Leyoni, a Shrilanken lady about the gospel. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and about baptism. She talked about how she was baptized when the was four months old and her children also. We asked why. She said, (we have a little language barrier with her) that the priest always told them when we are born we are full of sin. Man, that is a soft spot for me. Little children full of sin? Whaaaat? Where is the logic in that?? We talked to her about how we are pure and clean before we know good from evil. She said she would ask her priest about it because she admitted it didnt make sense. We suggested she ask God Himself. She is lovely and has a little girl with the most beautiful brown eyes i have ever seen.

From her mom--All RIGHT!  Since Carly has not sent pics in a while (because she lost her battery charger...)  I thought I would give you a couple of pics of her in her younger life.
Here she is about 6 months old.

We are continuing to teach Dilys, (from Papa New Guniea) and she said she prayed about the Law of Chastity and feels she needs to get married. She is humble. Her little daughter is sooooo adorable. We read 2 Ne 31 with her and talked about the importance of baptism, the Holy Ghost, enduring to the end. Peter Sepe is her father and he is a recent convert. He is awesome. 

Tabitha and Mark- we had dinner with them and the Fentons and they are progressing along beautifully. Such a lovely family. Mark's back got thrown out so he was kindof in pain the whole lesson poor guy. They are so kind and receptive to the gospel. Once the Fentons start fellowshipping theres no going back! they are so sweet and kind and experienced. i love working with a senior missionary couples, it helps the stress because they are so much older and wiser than us little full time missionaries. :)

We are also teaching a Filipino family, Joanne and Nino. They invited us and the Fentons over for a birthday, it was so fun, we ate lots and then intro'd the book of mormon. They are splendid parents. Nino, the father just wants to be a good dad. He told me he could tell i had a good dad by the way i was. Good job dad! (and mom.) He always gives me his slippers when we walk in their house so my feet dont get cold on the tile haha.

Carly showing her enthusiasm for LIFE, age 4 1/2.

Phillip, the kiwi that lives away from home, called and told us he is reading the book of Mormon and it is helping him a lot!!! man that is music to my ears!! i dont even care if investigators remember what i said or did, i just want them to turn to the book of Mormon, because it will always be there for them. That book is amazing.

This week i studied repentance and the atonement. I decieded that repentance is more important than anything. "Say nothing but repentance unto this people"..."mercy claimeth the pentitent." 

My time is up! i love you all and am having a joyful experience here in Gladstone!! I love my companion with all my heart, she is amazing. There is something different about her, she is so much stronger and wiser and humbler than me. i love it! she is also a master chef and teaching me how to make curry!!!

biking in a skirt is......an experience. :)

love you all

sister schaelling

GLADSTONE (pronounced Gladstun)

Dearest family and friends,

Allright first off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND JENNA!! Forgive me for not saying anything last week Jenna! Me and my beloved companion definitely sang happy birthday to both of you on the 29th. I hope you heard it :) 

This week has been lovely! So time to update you on my new companion Sister Kyaw! So its pronounced Jaw. She is from Myanmar and is a convert of now three years. They dont even have missionaries in Myanmar just a senior couple and a tiny branch! So get this, when she converted she didnt really speak english so she read the book of mormon with an english to burmese dictionary. In like a month. whaaaaat?? She is the bomb! She is 27 and very loving and kind. She is still learning English.  We get to do language study together which is fun for me :) And she teaches so simply and lovingly. I have learned the power of teaching the doctrine simply. We dont need to use big words or perfect English for the Spirit to testify of what we are saying, that its true. :) I love Sister Kyaw. She is like my little mother, always worried about me getting sunburned or if i am tired. "Is you okay Sister?" She always asks in her adorable accent. :) 

The Fentons! They are the senior couple that lives right next door to us. They are so lovely. Sometimes we teach lessons with them, and they are just so nice. We plan together who we will see and what we will teach. Love them.

My area! Gladstone is an industrial town so everything is expensive. There is a coal mine/big idustrial factory thing on a little island that we can see that everyone goes to work on. Its dusty here :) But not too dusty. It has kind of a country feel. I feel like i am in a new mission, far away from the rest of the world. Its awesome. I also feel like a hard core missionary because we bike everywhere. Wow im not sure if i have ever been so tired. :) Its a good tired :) The people here are nicer than in Park Ridge, less door slams, more polite declines. Thats nice, i guess.

The people! The people we are teaching are great. Bree has been coming to church for seven months and is living with her partner and three kids. Let me tell ya im gonna start handing out Chastity pamphlets at the door! Everyone lives with their partner here haha. We are also teaching her daughter Mia who wants to learn more. She is a little eight year old. I love teaching children because they seem to understand so much better and just accept Gods commandments. I remember studying 2 ne 31 this week where it talks about Christ's baptism, and how he was baptized to fulfill all righteousness, to show an example, and most importantly to humble himself before the father and show that He would be obedient to Him. Um, hello, this is Jesus Christ, who is perfect. Know ye no that he was holy?? The scriptures say. How much more need have we to keep the commandments!! I love it because we dont always need a reason to be obedient, we shouldnt need to be persuaded by logic or emotion. We should just obey for the sake of obeying. 

We are also teaching Dilys who faithfully comes to church :) She also has a partner who lives in PNG. (Papau New Guniea) We are teaching Arnelson, a Fillipino who is living here to work and his family is back in the Phillipines. He misses them so much. We went to knock on his door for his appointment and heard someone was inside. So we just kept knocking. We were about to leave and get lunch and come back but we knocked a little more and finally he came out. We were able to talk about the plan of salvation and the doctrine of Christ. He loves his family and misses them

We also are teaching Phillip, a kiwi (new zealander) who is living away from his family and working. He works so much and is getting sick because of it. He is sad and misses his four daughters. We gave him a book of mormon to read and pray about. So many people in this area and in the whole world are sad a lonely. I am just one person. I cant be there all the time to comfort them and try to help them. But i can give them the word of God. The book of mormon, which will always be there. I love the scripture in Jacob 2 that said the word of God healeth the wounded soul. Isnt that so true?

We have seen many miracles this week. Fast Sunday was so hard for me. I was so tired and hungry. Tiredness is probably my biggest....stumbling block i think on the mission. Its so humbling being a missionary, because we have appointments we need to get too and it doesnt matter if i am tired and hungry. i just have jump on the bike and make it. Many times a day i pray for strength and help and i know that these prayers are heard. The Lord helps us just enough to make it to the end :) 

much love,

Sister Schaelling

Here I am in GLADSTONE!

Dearest family and friends! hello!

I am emailing from my new area, Gladstone 1. I dont have long! So heres what happened: On saturday i get a call from the ASSISTANTS. Calling me to tell me i was getting transferred to the North! So the ABM covers all of Queensland state in Australia, and Gladstone is in the very north of Queensland. So i caught an hour long flight (by myself) up to my second area in Australia and here i am!

I havent gotten to work yet here in Gladstone but i can tell its gonna be amazing! Its just a small branch apparently and everyone is so nice. It is like the country and its and industrial city. We have a senior couple that takes care of us because we are....an hour flight away from the rest of the mission! 

And my companion.....ah she is so cute! Her name is Sister Kyaw (jaw) and she is from Burma! She is 27 and so adorable and humble. i am so excited to get to work with her here in Gladstone. And we get to do language study:)  Also we are on bikes.....and only bikes! No more driving for me! (praise the heavens for that! :) Sister Wulfenstein from my MTC intake is here with her comp Sister Watson and we are all in the same apartment. And its just us here up north! No district meetings, zone meetings.....all quiet on the western front :) well, northern. 

I am so happy to be here. It seems every transfer i am just packing my bags to get on a plane all by my lonesome! I was sad to leave Cherilee and worried how she would take it but she took it well. I didnt get to see the Virtue family before i left. Or Candy but its okay. I loved Sister Cocker so much and will miss her! But i am so excited to be here in Gladstone. I will most likely be up here for about six months or more because of the expense of flying missionaries to their areas. So cool!

The Park Ridge ward was the bomb. I loved eating with the Tongans :) And the members were all so lovely. It reminded me a lot of Pioneer Park ward because it was about the same size. I am excited now to work in a little branch :) i feel so lucky and blessed. 

How amazing is our Heavenly Father. "Ponder anew, what the Almighty can do." I love that line in the hymn, "Praise to the Lord  Almighty" He is our Father and the King of infinite space and everlasting time...yet we mean everything to Him. On my mission something i have learned is that i am so....weak! There is so little that i can do alone. But my Heavenly Father is almighty! And he is the one who listens to every prayer we say. So why should we worry? We know who we have trusted. :)

I love you all so much. I feel like i am in a new mission because we are so far away from everything else! Its so cool to be here up North. I love you all! The hymn i have loved this week is appropriately, "Ill go where you want me to go." I love the line "Perhaps today there are loving words which Jesus would have me speak,.....there may be somewhere in the paths of sin, some wanderer whom i should seek." It is so important to leave the 99 to find the one. I really know that every person we meet means everything to God :) I love you all!!

much love,

Sister Schaelling

Hello Again from Park Ridge!

Hello dearest family! 

Sounds like the last week has been a success! Congrats Dad on winning third place in your age division of the 5K race! That is awesome! :) And all the pictures are lovely :) Scott i love your hair like that with the side swoop! It looks awesome!

Local wildlife in Park Ridge

 So this week has been lovely. On Wednesday we taught Anne, an investigator about praying often. i love the feeling of the Holy Ghost working through me to testify of truth to another child of God. I wish i always taught like this but i am still working on it, but when we taught Anne about prayer i really felt the Spirit in me as i told her how much prayer has helped me and one of my favorite times of the day is nightly prayer when i can kneel down and be close to God.

We are continuing to teach the lovely Cherilee! Sister Alifipo came with us and we shared about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. it went great, at the end we sang "Lord I would follow thee" and the Spirit was strong, it was lovely. Cherilee wants to be baptized but she still smokes and isn't married to her partner, but she has a testimony of what we teach her. She always comes to church now and always speaks so lovingly and highly of Sister Cocker and I. But i was thinking the other day in church, when Jesus came, how some listened and some didnt, and how he said so boldy and simply, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." We can praise the Lord all day but if we arent trying to really do what He asks, we dont truly love him. What a hard and amazing truth.

That night we went and taught the PM Maile family. The kids are great :) Sister Maile is a member but less active and Brother Maile was baptized a long time ago but now he drinks and doesnt attend. He was so nice to us. He came in at the end of the lesson and told us how much he appreciates and loves missionaries and his own children and how he wants to give up drinking. He is Tongan and all his kids have super tongan names that are hard for me to say haha. Kafoa, Tokie, Ate, and Loka. And Maryanne. Lovely family and home.

On Thursday we taught an investigator Colin who has been having lessons since the dawn of time. The lesson was all over the place but he talked about how the Lord has blessed him with peace of mind which he hasnt had for a long while. We committed him to ask in prayer if the Book of Mormon is true and he did.

We also saw the less-active Elkington family! Man less actives are like my favorite for some reason, i love sharing messages with them. We got in the door because i had to use the bathroom. We shared a little thought on prayer and prayed with her, Sister Elkington who is a member and her daughter who isnt. On Friday we taught Zhadee again who is doing good, we have to keep going over book of mormon and prayer with her because she is struggling in recognizing and answer to her prayers.

I asked Sister Schaelling for a picture of kangaroos hopping ... here ya go!
She said there are "kangaroo crossing" signs all over the place

We went to dinner with a kiwi (new zealander) family in our ward, the Wall's. They're Maori and awesome. We sang "My Heavenly Father loves me" at the end of our message and i love singing with my comp and the other two sisters. My companion has a beautiful islander voice that brings the spirit. It was lovely.

On Saturday we started the day off by attending a baptism! A boy in the ward was getting baptized, childhood record. It was so lovely. Baptisms are so special. Cherilee came with us and was just crying when the little boy, Nico's older brother was giving a talk about the Holy Ghost and baptism. His brother was like 9 or 10 and his talk was so sweet and simple. Cherilee wishes she could have raised her children in the church. Then we did lots of tracting. Something about the Australia Brisbane Mission is we are required to do 14 finding hours a week. This is a little hard for me because i love to visit people, less actives, potential investigators, ect. and i wish we had more time to do that. Finding hours is knocking on doors or GQ'ing (street contacting) people which isnt the most effective, but we do it anyway because thats what were supposed to do. Also, tracting is how we found like all of our progressing investigators, so obviously it works :)

That night we taught the Virtue's! i wish we could teach them more than just once a week, but hey. So we followed up oh how they liked church but they said they liked theirs better, sadly!  We taught about prayer and receiving and answer to prayer. James feels that many churches are true and God loves us all so much. Which is mostly true.  We have been trying to explain that through Joseph Smith the Priesthood was restored, so the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only church with the fulness of the gospel. He isnt really understanding too well but we will work with him, Jasmin, his wife read some of the book of mormon :) Brother and Sister Ngawaka came with us to teach and bore solid testimonies. So good to have members out with us, it makes me feel like i dont have to do this alone :) Were a team, the members and the missionaries :)

That night we had HANGI (pronounced hung ee) for dinner! Brother Stockman our WML did a fund raiser.  So hangi is a islander/maori feast where all the food is cooked in the ground. So it was chicken, stuffing, corned beef, potatoes, fry bread and delicious food.  so. good. i will send a picture!

HANGI--chicken, stuffing, corned beef, potatoes, fry bread all cooked in the ground

Church was lovely as always, Cherilee came. After i had a chat with a recent convert, Norman, about the Holy Ghost and sacrament and prayer. Recent converts are still so new and need our fellowship and prayers.

Family i love you all! This week i also got bit by a bull ant while talking to a lady at her door, wow! That hurt, thankfully she gave me some ice. This is the last week of the transfer sadly! i do hope i stay in Park Ridge with Sister Cocker but odds are slim. We have like 16 new sister coming in and Sister Cocker is a boss trainer so i bet we get split so she can train again. we shall see!

much love,

Sister Schaelling

Heyyy! Another week in Park Ridge.

Dearest Family!

My time is limited but thank you for the emails!  It sounds like life is swell in the land of kaysville!!  I cannot fathom that Jenna is going to turn 17 soon! good grief people!  Sounds like snowbird was successful as well!

So because i'm a really good missionary who always has her planner with her i will run through my week...oh wait...i left my planner at home! oops! i will do my best to convey the past events! So this week we did lots of teaching, we have a lot of investigators right now so we are blessed!  we were able to get some good fellowship out to teach with us!  OH i have a story!  so we were out tracting and we found a man named Paul.  Now let me just set this up for you.  We knock and a pudgy dog comes to greet us, and this man with hair down to his waist and tattoos up his arms and earrings on his face and in his ears comes to the door.  I am fully expecting a "remove yourself from my property" response from this guy but he opens the door and greets us.  we introduce ourselves and inquire about his religious background. He talks about how he grew up catholic and how he doesn't practice anymore, how he believes in God and Jesus. He kept talking to us and he kindly told us about his family, his wife and this three kids. How he has been with his wife since he was 13. We stand at the door and he sits and we talk to him about how he lost his life on an operating table, how much he wants to see his kids grow up. It was so cool. we got a return appointment and returned with a member so we could go in. But it was just so cool to me that he was nothing i expected him to be. he has faith and he loves his family very much.  and he's a lead guitar player in a famous band, by the way. :)

Also this week we did some service for our friends John and Angie who are moving. They have met missionaries before and we offered our help. They are a cute couple and very kind. On Friday i got sick and had to stay home all day with the fever...ugh. It was miserable because all i could do was lay there and introspect. Whilst coughing. Thankfully my companion went out with Sister Fau in our flat and they hit all of our appointments. Sister Fau's comp, Sister Bennellack stayed with me.

On Saturday we taught the Virtue Family again! They are so great! So James the father just loves us so much. He was crying, telling us how he thinks of us during the week and what we do. We gave him general conference on CD so he can listen to it in his truck because he's a driver. He gave us a bunch of money! now we're not allowed to take money from anyone and we tried to tell him but he wasn't taking no for an answer. that is the thing with a lot of people here who are Cook Island or Maori, they can be stubborn and hard as rocks! He shoved the bills in my scriptures for crying out loud haha. He told us he had to because he wants to help us and feels like God has asked him too. So we talked to president and he says we can give it to the ward. Any way we taught them about the Book of Mormon and how important it is. We invited them to church.....and they came!! yes! their whole family came and James looked sharp in his suit. Jasmin, his wife wore a pretty dress and their three girls were there too. They are awesome, and they all have baptism dates except the little one. We're worried a little because they love their other church that they go to. But i'm sure it will be allright. Also his wife smokes. So many of our investigators smoke. Well more like everyone in Australia smokes!

We went on splits again this Sunday with the Timu Twins. They are lovely! Sariah and Moriah. I took Moriah to an appointment with some J Dubs but it fell through, which was probably for the best. We tracted together. I realized these Aussies love to talk. They will talk all day about what they believe... which is nothing, most people here are atheist. They are filled with frankness and candor which i love, and they are civil, but firm in their belief (or lack of.)  It gives us many opportunities throughout the day, everyday to bear simple testimony. Such small statements strengthen me so much.  things like, "i understand that you don't believe, but i do want you to know that there is a God, and He loves you very much." its great!

Also this week Elder Pearson who is the Pacific Area President came and trained us! man it was so good! Every word he said was gold. he talked about becoming a missionary and a person that instead of asking "what do i have to do?" we ask "what more can i do?"

my time is running out! i love you all! i wish i could send pictures but i am on a countdown here!!!

i love you all!

love sister schaelling