Angels We Have Heard On High

I love this Christmas season. It is such a beautiful time to be a missionary, talking about Jesus Christ all day long, when he happens to be on the minds of more and more people! It is so important to remember the true reason of why we have Christmas. Every day I get to share a video of how God loves us so much he sent his son, a savior, to be the Redeemer of the world.

We finally had our Christmas musical fireside, a presentation that we have been preparing for the past few weeks. It was the most beautiful spiritual experience for me to see all the hard work, practice and planning come together so well. This choir full of missionaries who didn't have much musical experience really did sound like angels singing together, and I loved it. What a blessing we had and have to sing and announce to the world that Jesus has been born, and will come again.

The Chinese lady we are teaching is named Giselle, and she said her first prayer this week! That by far is one of my most favorite parts of missionary work. Seeing people come closer to God and experience the love and comfort that it brings. She said her prayer in Chinese, and I literally had no idea what she was saying, but the Spirit was there, and she was so sincere, it was such a special lesson. I love this gospel, and I love my Heavenly Father and older brother Jesus Christ. I hope we can all try a little harder at this time to be the examples of Jesus Christ that He wants us to be, and let our lights shine.

I love you all!

The Last Door

It happened! I've actually been waiting for the experience of the last door, every missionary seems to have one. But it happened this week. We had planned to tract this whole street, and didn't get to finish it before we had to go to another appointment. Afterwards, we decided to go back and tract instead of visiting someone else. There were so many people who just didn't want to talk to us, closed the door in our faces. By now it was getting pretty late and we would have to go home soon. But we knocked on this one door and a Chinese lady answered and was talking to us for a while, then invited us in and introduced us to her husband and their boarder. They were super interested and we were able to teach them about prayer and say a prayer with them! We went back later this week and invited them to baptism. We didn't put a date on it, they were still a little hesitant, but it was great to see the Lord preparing people for us to meet, at just the right time in their lives. There are little miracles all around us. I love this work, and am so grateful to be a part of it. I'm stealing a thought from someone else, but there is so much to be grateful for, and it's important to recognize God's hand in our lives whenever we can. So basically, all day every day :)

KOALAS

Miracle of miracles, I saw 2 koalas on Saturday just running down the road. We stopped to look at the first one, then another car reversed into us trying to see the koala. Then we were occupied getting all his information, and lost sight of it. But we got to see another one running down this main road! We got out to see how close we could get, and it had started climbing a tree. But it was going up and down, and we had a staring contest. Honestly I was so happy, we were about 3 feet away from it, and I didn't get any closer cause I've been told they're really vicious. But it just looked so cute, like a little stuffed teddy bear. My first thought was Build-A-Bear :) So that was pretty exciting.

I wanted to share with you all my vision, or goal for what I want to become while I am here in Australia. My vision for my mission is "Persevere in faith to become an instrument in God's hands." I read a quote from Elder Wirthlin (an apostle of Jesus Christ - see Luke 6:13. The same thing happens in our day :) ) that talked about perseverance being a positive characteristic, and one that required our action. Not idly, passively waiting, but exercising our hope and faith to make miracles happen no matter what. It really inspired me to apply that while I'm here, to not ever give up, but give 110% in whatever the circumstances may be. I am giving all of my time to God for these 18 months, so really it is His time I'm on. To see myself as a tool that God can use to accomplish His purpose here, and giving up all of my wants to align my will with His.

1 John 4:18 - There is no fear in love; for perfect love casteth out fear. A great scripture for missionary work, which can also be applied in every single person's life. God loves us, and so we have no reason to fear. We can trust that He will take care of us. We will all have trials and challenges in life, but God never gives us more than we can handle. As we grow and come to love Him even more, we can be fearless in facing the future, because we know who is really in charge. God will always be on our side, and wants us to be the happiest we can be.

Have a wonderful week!

November 22

This week we had a training from President Parker, and it was all about visions. He showed this video called Celebrate What's Right in the World. That was pretty cool, especially when we apply it to missionary work. Life becomes so much more meaningful when we have goals to work towards, and a vision for how we want to live our lives.

I got to give my first talk as a missionary last Sunday, that was pretty fun. I was called and asked to do it on Thursday night, but then I got so busy and forgot until Sunday morning. But it turned out alright, that's why we try to have the Spirit with us at all times, because we need his help with everything. I spoke about service, and how at the end of the day, we want to always be treating others as Jesus would. Matthew 25 has a really good parable about serving others, it's the one with the sheep and the goats. I hope we can all be like the sheep :)

We had to drop one of our investigators this week. She was this really lovely Indian lady, who always fed us heaps of food (sometimes when we'd just come from a dinner, she wouldn't take no for an answer). But she just didn't want to continue learning. It breaks my heart to see people reject the gospel message. We offer them a way to find greater peace and happiness, and a knowledge of Jesus Christ, and when they say, "No thanks" it's just so sad. I am so grateful for everything I've been given in this life. I know that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ, and that God loves each and every one of us.

I want to close with this wonderful scripture I found yesterday. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." John 13:35

What Lack I Yet?

Recently we had General Conference, which is the time when our prophet and apostles can speak to us and give us modern day guidance on how God wants us to be living our lives. One talk that really stood out to me was called What Lack I Yet? by Larry Lawrence. He based his talk on the scripture found in Matthew 19:20. This is a story of the rich young man, who kept all the commandments and went to Jesus to ask what more he could do to achieve eternal life. In response to this, Jesus gave him very direct and personalized counsel that if he did, he would be closer to reaching that goal. Unfortunately, this man was not able to follow this counsel, and I don't know what happened to him. But the principle we learn from this is powerful. God knows each of us, our strengths and our weaknesses. When we ask what more we can do, He will tell us. This is something I've really been trying to implement in my life recently. It is so wonderful to be here in Australia serving a mission. I am here as a representative of Jesus Christ. But am I doing all in my power to fulfil my purpose here? There is always something we can improve on. When we sincerely ask God, He will tell us what to do. I've done that this week, and seen the blessings from it. That's my invitation this week, to ponder how we can each individually improve our lives, starting with the little things! Unless you want to do something big, by all means go for it :)

Something interesting about serving here in Australia is that there are missionaries here from all over. I was on a trade-off this week, where we trade companions for 24 hours to see how other missionaries work. We were riding bikes up this big hill, and I was just going and going, trying to make it to the top without stopping. But when I looked back, I could barely see my companion! She is from the Philippines, and likes to ride bikes much more slowly :)

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/what-lack-i-yet?lang=eng

Birthday cake and Tim Tam Slams

This past week I got to see my companion from the MTC, Sister Rougeau. It was her birthday on Saturday, and we got to make her a cake and have pizza :) it was so fun, and it was nice to change things up a bit, because we do a lot of the same things every day. Really great things, but still :)

This week also included another milestone in my assimilation to Aussie culture. They have these really delicious biscuits, or cookies, called Tim Tams. Chocolaty goodness, with some kind of wafer thing in the middle. Anyway, when you bite off the corners, you can use it like a straw with your hot chocolate, and it is oh so good. It starts to melt in your hands, but then you eat it really fast.

One of my favourite things is being outside in the rain, as long as its not too cold. When we were out on our bikes, it started to rain :D Apparently, not everyone likes it as much as I do, and all of a sudden there were no people to talk to.

When I have a few moments of free time, (about 10 minutes a day) I've been reading Jesus the Christ. It is an amazing book that really gives in depth description, analysis, and glory to everything Jesus did. The chapter I read this week was about the parables Jesus gave. Matt 13:31-32 describes the kingdom of heaven like a mustard seed. The book gives background info on this, how the mustard seed is one of the smallest seeds you can find, but it grows into such a big plant in comparison. The gospel of Jesus Christ had such a small, humble beginning, but everyone will be able to know about it, and know Jesus Christ as our Saviour. He has done so much for me, and I am so grateful to volunteer this time of my life to His work.

Have a wonderful week!

The Plan of Happiness

Someone we met this week seemed to know more about Texas than I do! We started talking to him, and he'd seen missionaries before, so he knew we come from all over. When he found out where I was from, he started giving me all these facts, a lot of them that I'd never heard of. But he'd been to UT a few times, and it was cool to talk to him about Texas, not many people here are able to have that conversation with me :)

One really great spiritual experience from this week was with a random contact on the street. As we were talking to him and getting to know him more, he started crying and shared that his mum had died just 8 months ago, and now he was alone with no more family. This gave us the opportunity to share with him part of the plan of salvation, and the blessings that come into our lives with the knowledge we have of what comes after this life. We can have confidence that our family members who have died are safe, and can have the opportunity to learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that we will be able to see and live with them again. I like 1 Cor. 15:54, which says that "death is swallowed up in victory." Because of Jesus Christ, we will all experience victory over death and be resurrected with perfect bodies, depending on how we obeyed the commandments while we lived here on earth (1 Cor. 15:40-42). And this is eternal life :) John 17:3 How could this be anything but the plan of happiness? God's purpose is not to make it so difficult that there is no way to return to live with him again. He WANTS us to make it back to him, and has shown us the way, through His son Jesus Christ. As we continue to try our best, we will find happiness, but the greatest happiness is found after this life, when we receive the gift of living with our Heavenly Father again.

I love teaching the people here in Adelaide. I love seeing the blessings that can come into their lives when they change, and bring their lives closer in harmony with God's will, and this brings greater happiness. My mission has really helped me see the eternal perspective, and how this life really is the time for men to prepare to meet God (Alma 34:32).

I love you all, keep being your wonderful selves!

Sister Townsend

This photo is my new companion, Sister Goisisi