October 7

Funny story from this week. We were meeting with an Italian lady named Maria, who had invited us in before and wanted to learn more about what we teach. As we sat down at her table, her husband comes in and says he has lots of questions for us. He went on and on about everything that he sees that's wrong in the world, as well as asking us questions about religion, and what God's plan is for all of us. Every time we tried to answer him, he would start talking louder and didn't let us say anything. Finally after almost 45 minutes of this, he slows down and basically says no one has the answers to this, no one can help, and you're wasting your time as missionaries. We told him straight up, "We do! You haven't let us answer anything you've asked." After a bit of this, he softened up and we're going back today. The lesson I got from this is that there are people all around us who want to know the basic answers that the gospel of Jesus Christ contains. Because I've grown up in the church, I've taken for granted some of the knowledge that has been revealed by modern prophets. We really are blessed to be able to take this message to people like Dominic. Even if they don't accept the Gospel, we've given them the opportunity to and increased their knowledge of Heavenly Father's plan for us.

Some of the service we were able to do was out in the hills, and there was a koala on their property! So cool, and it was the first one I've seen :) Honestly I've been a little disappointed with the lack of wildlife that I've seen, but I'm in the city. Fun fact for anyone who wants to know about my mission: I could be transferred to Darwin or Alice Springs, my companion Sister Craig was in Darwin for 7.5 months before she came here. That's the really tropical part on the north coast of Australia, they just have wet and dry seasons.

One other really cool thing from this week was a man named Martin. He walked into church on Sunday on his own, none of the missionaries had ever seen him before. When he came to Sunday School the next hour, he spoke in class how he had researched our church and knew all about what we believed, and he said he'd been led here to find out whatever more he could. It was awesome, and a true miracle. As the lesson that day, the missionaries taught a basic history of our Church and what we believe, and he knew most of it. Anyway, he said he wants to be baptized!

There's been a big emphasis in the mission lately of being "exactly obedient", and of the blessings we can receive when we show God our desire to completely align our wills to His. Martin coming to church like he did is definitely one of those blessings. I know that God has many blessings He wants to give us, we just need to open our eyes to the miracles around us. Jesus Christ is the key to that, and as we come to know Him, we can truly know why we're here on earth, and what our purpose is (John 17:3).