Another Great Week FULL of Interviews

Monday (3.28.16)

Today was a super busy day in the office. But we were so excited for our lunch today! It was with the office staff and the Latteiers. Sister Latteier cooked Vietnamese food or all of us and it was GREAT!! I have missed being with her and her amazing cooking talents so it was a wonderful lunch! (The Latteirs are a wonderful senior couple who worked with Tag when he was in the city branch for eight months)

The best mission office staff in the world! Sister Latteier is standing to the right of President Maxwell. I have LOVED serving with the Latteiers!

After lunch, it was time to prepare for our 2.5 hour journey up to the Australian Bush to an awesome place called Shepparton. We arrived around 8:00 pm and we went out for dinner to KFC. I am glad President and Sister Maxwell love KFC as much as Elder Eyring and I do! After dinner we went to our hotel and Elder Eyring and I made some calls to missionaries in the Wangaratta zone and prepared for the interviews in the morning. It was a great day and we are looking forward to meeting with awesome missionaries tomorrow!

We loved staying in Shepparton!

Interviews with the Elders and Sisters in the Wangaratta Zone were on the schedule all day today! To give you an idea about the geographics of this zone some of the missionaries had to drive about three hours to the meetings! They are spread out geographically so it is good when they can get together with other missionaries. We really enjoyed talking with them about their areas and hearing how they are doing setting baptismal dates. Around noon, Elder Eyring and I ran to Subway and grabbed lunch for all of the missionaries. 

Missionaries love Subway for lunch!

Our interviews went from 9:00 am to about 6:00 pm so it was a long day but a GREAT day! Before we started the long drive back to Melbourne, Elder Eyring and I walked around a beautiful lake with President and Sister Maxwell.

Wednesday (3.30.16)

Another great day of interviews! This time we were in the Gippsland Zone.

Elder Eyring and I love visiting the Gippsland Zone!

It was so wonderful to be back in my old Zone. I was serving in the Gippsland Zone as a Zone Leader with Elder Kim when I was transferred last month.  It was great being able to see all the Elders and Sisters again and follow up with  the investigators we were working with back when I was in my beloved Cranbourne! During the middle of the interviews, the Linders (a senior couple) brought us a new Elder who is going to Visa wait in our mission until his Brazil Visa arrives. His name is Elder Mafi. He is a professional Rugby player from Sydney. It was really cool getting to know him while we ate lunch.

Elder Erying, Elder Mafi and I. Too bad there wasn't time for a Rugby lesson!

After lunch it was back to the interviews. Our interviews finished around 5:00 pm and after that we went back to the office to talk with President until about 6:45 pm. When we were done with President Maxwell we had to hurry over to an appointment we had set up to meet with the Kumarnasamys:) So we were able to finish the night at their house eating delicious curry and sharing a lesson of missionary work! Both Elder Eyring and I felt so great to be able to teach a lesson again:) 

Thursday (3.31.16)

We started this morning out early! We met at the mission home around 7:30 in the morning so we could make it out to our Zone Interviews in Deer Park! It was great being with the missionaries in the Zone! I know I say that every day but it is true every day! The missionaries in the Australia Melbourne Mission are the best!!!  

It was a day full of interviews. We started at 9:00 am and finished up about 6:30 pm. Elder Eyring and I were able to do some good work role playing and training the missionaries as they waited for their interviews with President. We all got excited about missionary work as we met together! After interviews were finished we went back home to the mission home around 8:00 pm. We ate a fabulous Mexican take out dinner with the Maxwells while we discussed some transfer possibilities. 

Cheers to missionary work!

Friday (4.1.16)

Today was a most wonderful day because we spent the entire day IN THE CITY BRANCH!!! It was sooooo awesome! I love being in the city! I was blessed to serve in the city for eight months at the beginning of my mission. Today was so great for me to walk around the city and remember all the great memories again! It was a special honor to be with the Chinese Zone and conduct role plays with these very humble recent convert missionaries. However, it was a very long interview day. I’m not sure why it went so much slower……maybe it was the language barrier...ha ha! We finally finished around 8:00 pm. I absolutely love being with the Maxwells….no matter what we are doing….interviews, meetings, church….everything!

After our long day of interviews the Maxwells took us to an Italian sit down restaurant and it really struck me as funny that it was a Friday night and we were just out to eat the President of the mission and his amazing wife and it was totally normal! I realized again how truly blessed I am to spend so much time with the Maxwells.

Saturday (4.2.16)

This was the day we were finally able to dig in and clean our flat! It has just been such a NASTY ever since I moved in but we have been so swamped we didn’t have time to work on it. Finally we couldn’t stand it anymore and with a lot of hard work we were able to get it clean!! To give you an idea of how bad it was it took about four hours and we even had two other elders helping us. They had the privilege of helping us clean because they had left a flat messy when they left their old areas. So they got to help us! We were really grateful for their help. It would have taken a lot longer without them.

Making a quick dumpster run!

After we finished with the heavy cleaning it was time for a quick shower and then off to President’s house to talk more about upcoming events in the mission and what we can do to better help the mission. Then we were able to go to the Danielson’s for dinner and a lesson with their family. :) 

Sunday (4.3.16)

We were able to go to church and it was fast Sunday #20!!!! After church we went to Toko's house and we were able to see a MIRACLE!! While we were there we found out that Elizabeth (the 8 year old niece and granddaughter) has been given permission from her father to be BAPTIZED!!!! We were able to set a baptismal date with her for the 16th of April!! Now the only concern is getting her mother’s permission. It was such a miracle and an answer to my fasting and prayers! Now we just have to hope and pray that all will go well with the conversation with her mother!

After that we stopped by the office to finish some administrative work. When we were done at the office we were invited for dumplings with some Chinese members! It was really fun to be with some members of the Melbourne 1st branch. We loved the dumplings and we had a great night with them!