In the Face of Persecution

Hey everyone I hope you are having an awesome week. So my email is coming out on Tuesday since we have transfers this week. Every 6 weeks everyone gets really excited because you will get a picture sent to your phone which tells you if you are staying in the area, if you're moving somewhere new, who your companion will be, and all that. 

So for the next 6 weeks I will be staying in the Bankstown area. I'm really excited because we have a ton of people that we are working with and we honestly have been building this place from the ground up. I'm getting a new companion and also keeping my old companion. That's right, I'm going to be in a TRIO. Just like in the MTC. It's going to be pretty fun. The new companion is Elder Yi from China. So now I have 2 Chinese companions. I can't wait, I'm going to be learning a lot more Chinese. Anyway I'm hyped to be here for another transfer, especially with my same companion. Him and I have been smashing the work and finding a lot of people to teach. Can't wait to see what happens in the next 6 weeks.

I had some interesting and cool experiences this week.

I was reminded of the power of faith. I really wanted to find some new people to teach, and I knew that God had them out there. I resolved to act in faith. I said a prayer, telling God of my confidence that He had someone out there for us to find, then telling Him that I would show Him my faith by going out and searching for that person. And then came the miracles. We went to this one street where we thought there were a lot of Chinese people. Turned out there were barely any but God just wanted us on that street. We started knocking doors and we found 3 people within under an hour. Two of those people, we taught a 10 minute lesson to and then gave them a Book of Mormon, and they asked us to come back that week. The last one was an old lady who we offered to do service for. She was deeply grateful for us scheduling a time to come back and pull her weeds. I was so excited that we had found so many people to teach. For a frame of reference, most of the time people will not be interested. Most missionaries in this mission (Australia) will set a goal of finding one new person to teach each week. In fact, many have given up on the idea of knocking on doors altogether, since they haven't found a lot of success that way. I totally agree that it can be discouraging, but whenever I rely on the Lord, miracles happen. Faith becomes powerful when we use it to achieve what the Lord wants us to achieve. I am grateful for the experiences I have all the time that show me the power of faith combined with action. And I firmly believe that if God wants us to achieve something, we can achieve it. There's nothing we can't do if we have faith in Him. What an empowering truth.

At church, I played the piano for Blake again (the harmonica guy). He LOVED it and couldn't wait to keep practicing with me. Then he showed me some more videos of his playing. He even gave me an advertisement of himself so he can play at nursing homes.

Can everyone please look up Blake Tatchell on Facebook and find him. He LOVES getting likes and comments and if one of you over in America would with his video and comment something about it, you would make his week. Please go do it. He would love that so much.

When we were knocking on doors one evening, a giant dog was looking through the window at us. We made sure the screen door was closed in case it managed to escape, then proceeded to knock on the door a few times. We waited at the door for a while, then turned around to leave when no one answered. Just then, an Australian woman turned off the sidewalk and started walking up the driveway, her 4 small children in tow. It's always a little awkward when someone gets home right when you're knocking on their door, but I went up to them and explained who we were. I asked the mom if we could teach their family about Jesus Christ. She said that would be nice but she needed to put the kids to bed. We scheduled to come back the next day. I was really hoping she would actually want to listen when we arrived the next afternoon. She opened the door and we got to know her a little more. Her name is Emily and she is a single mom with 4 kids, all under the age of 10. I told her that my mom could probably relate to her, who at one point had 3 boys under the age of 5. I bore testimony of the power of Book of Mormon in bringing my family together. I told Emily that I had left home so that I could share with people the message of comfort and peace that Jesus Christ gives us. I explained how it had blessed my life and that I knew it could do the same for her. I was so happy when she looked at me and said 'this is really what I needed right now'. Apparently the night before when we had arrived, she was having a really hard time. I could feel the light of the gospel touching her heart and she was grateful that we would be able to teach her children as well. We gave her a Book of Mormon and scheduled a time with her to come back and teach her and her family. I realized that finding Emily was a miracle. We were at her house at the exact perfect moment. Once again, God shows me that He has a plan for everyone and I love being a piece of the bigger picture. 

A couple days later, we had our first sit-down lesson with Emily and her family. In the days leading up to the lesson, I had imagined us sitting down with the 4 kids, their eyes bright and hanging onto every word as I told a scripture story, then them laughing and being involved in our object lesson, and the mom sitting to the side with a look of grateful relief as we brought a special sort of peace into her home. I imagined the family inviting us back and the kids loving every second of it. I envisioned them praying together as a family and bringing God's light into their home. On my mission, I have learned that most of the time, things don't go as you plan or imagine it. But, THIS DID. It was so awesome. I got to sit on the floor with the kids and teach them and they were so invested in it. And you could just tell that the mom was in awe of how completely we held their attention. I loved it so much, being able to teach a whole family about the gospel. Those kids are precious. They couldn't wait for us to come back. This is what missionary work is all about. My heart was full of joy.

Man I love the names people choose. This week we taught English to an old Chinese lady. She said 'do you want to know my English name?'. Then she wrote her name slowly. I saw S... A... Thought maybe her named is Sarah or something, then she adds an F... E... T... Y. "Safety!" Her name is Safety.

Chinese is hilarious. Here are a few words and their literal English translations.

口水 (Saliva) : mouth water

钱包 (Wallet) : money bag

鳄鱼 (Crocodile) : hungry fish

My Chinese name is Hai. At English class, Enjoy and Joy always say "Sank you Teacher Hai!'' I love it.

This week we learned how to describe people by their hair color. When I asked Enjoy about his son's hair color, he said:

"My son is black".

We met a lady on the street and she asked if we were the Mormons. She said she had been baptized 20 years ago, had moved here and never been able to find the church. It was so awesome, we invited her to church and she came that next Sunday. Now she's back in business. The Lord really puts awesome opportunities in our path.

We went to do service for a ninety year old woman named Yaermela. We had knocked on her door last week and offered to do service, and she asked us to come back this week. Things got interesting right away when we knocked on the door and after a few moments we heard a cry from inside: "I can't find the keys!" 

So we waited outside for about 10 minutes so that Yaermela could remember where she had put the keys (it turned out that they were under her pillow). Then we helped her move a bunch of stuff around her house. It was a really old house with some creepy paintings hung on the wall. And she had a Christmas setup to rival my uncle Blake's: Santa's and little trinkets just laid out all over the place. I asked her about the decorations and she assured me that "ohhh dear it's just here for Christmas. I do have a party each year you know. And of course I must get prepared! People will be coming for dinner!"

Preparing early for Christmas is no foreign concept to me (uncle Blake usually sets up his Santas around July or August and doesn't put them away until April), but something was a little different with Yaermela. I felt like I was in some sort of horror movie where I go in the old lady's house and then time starts to become all weird. I asked if she had a lot more to prepare for Christmas and she told me: "Oh dear, of course not! It's just two weeks away, and I'm not one to procrastinate".

I asked her the day and she said Thursday, when really it was Monday. I didn't ask her what year it was, I was too scared that she might say something in the 1900's. 

Anyway, Yaermela is 90 and lives by herself. It must be terribly lonely. So I was really happy that we got to spend some time helping her and letting her have somebody to talk to. She kept saying "You are my savior! Please come back any time!"

So now I have a wonderfully sweet Australian grandmother. 

An awesome little miracle: we called a member in our ward and it turned out to be the wrong number. But, we told the person who answered the phone who we were and they wanted us to teach them. So, we set up a lesson for the next day. The new person on the phone was Chinese and lived like 5 minutes from us. What are the odds? Pretty amazing.

Just like we hit hot streaks every once in a while and it seems like so many people are interested, we also encounter the streaks of rejection. This one started off with a lady who didn't appreciate our offer to help her carry something. The conversation went like this:

Us: Hi can we help you with that?

Chinese lady: *Chinese swearing at us to shut up

Us: Okay bye! Have a good day

I'm not sure what happened. But I genuinely love that lady. I also love the next person on the rejection train who we knocked on her door and she said "No time for Mormons, go away" then shut it. We proceeded up the street to the next door where the the rejection culminated in a grand finale. We knocked on the door and a shirtless middle aged man opened it. He was nursing what looked like an old gunshot wound on his forearm and applying a bandaid. He took one look at me and asked "what makes you think you can knock on my door? Do you think you're doing any good?"

He ridiculed me, wondering how I could believe that me talking to him about God was helping anyone. He said that there are so many homeless people that need some food, why don't I go help them? He kept mocking and belittling me then asked "do you really think this is the best use of your time? With your little name tag and tie and your fake Bible?" 

At that point I was just so happy inside. I realized that Heavenly Father was giving me an opportunity to strengthen my faith. It was empowering to be able to tell him with my whole heart that YES- This is the best thing I could be doing. I explained how the gospel had changed my life and brought me peace and direction, and I wanted to share it with everyone that would listen. 

He sneered and began trying to tear apart my testimony, searching for a weak spot. He took a new approach, and started asking a bunch of questions designed to trip me up or entrap me and get me to say something wrong. God filled me with peace and a firmness in my faith. I told the guy that I wasn't going to argue with him. I just wanted to share something that had brought me joy. Then he began to berate me, yelling that IT'S NOT TRUE YOU'RE WRONG, insulting my beliefs, and throwing in some colorful language. I've never been the recipient of such rude and angry words. I just stood there listening, and after a while the guy got even more mad. It's like when a bully doesn't get a reaction out of their target, and they get super frustrated. I was just enjoying my quiet assurance of the truth. Wanting to leave on a good note, seeking to bring some calm to the situation, and genuinely desiring friendship of some sort, I asked if I could shake his hand before I left. He furiously told me to shut the *beep* up, get off his *beep*ing property, and that I was a load of *beep*. Then he slammed the door so hard that it came off the hinge and bounced back open. We left and once again I was grateful to God for giving me that experience, and for giving me the composure I needed when faced with opposition. I was buzzing with the Spirit, I KNEW that what I had told him was true. And I was sad that he was so angry. I wished that he would have been able to open his heart and listen to our message, because I knew that it would help him just like it's helped me. I love that man and I love all the people who reject us. I will love them no matter what they do or say to me- we are all children of God. Experiences like that really help me feel like a missionary, a representative of Jesus Christ, and they motivate me to keep sharing the message of love with those I meet. 

Yumi is a new person we met this week. We call her the twin woman. It's insane, she has 2 daughters, 2 identical dogs, 2 identical cats, and she is pregnant with twin boys. She's a really sweet Chinese lady and she's married to a Portuguese guy. English isn't her first language and he doesn't speak Chinese so I don't know how that happened but their kids are really cute. She had a lot of questions about church and it was great to go to her house and sit down with her and just listen to all the different things she wanted to ask. She has had a lot of different experiences and I think she is really searching for the truth. I'm excited to be able to work with her and help her find that stable truth that she's looking for. 

Our lesson with Tina this week was powerful. She came to the chapel with a lot of different questions, genuinely wanting to know the truth. I loved that she understood that learning the gospel of Jesus Christ is a process. She expressed her desire to know of a surety that what we were teaching her is true. This made me so happy because that's really all it takes. She has been willingly taking the steps to build faith in Jesus Christ, and I can see the light growing in her. She told us that normally she wouldn't just meet with strangers to learn about some random religion, but she felt something different with us. She expressed how grateful she is for us and that she knows that what's she's learning is good and she can tell that the more she learns the more it will impact her life. I left that lesson with her and felt elated. There's no feeling like it. I have dedicated two years to bringing people closer to Jesus Christ, and when they actually take big steps like that, it fills me with joy. These experiences and the changes I'm seeing in people like Tina are my main motivators to keep working hard. One of the beautiful things about missionary work is that when I help some build faith, they are lifted. But I am also being taught, changed, and blessed as a result of their progression. Seeing the gospel enter the hearts of others and brighten their lives is making me a better person every day.

I love being a missionary. It's hard but it's also so fulfilling. I love it and there's nowhere I'd rather be.

Oh also I finally found a big spider. A black widow. And of course it was at Yaermela's house so you can imagine how excited I was to move around all her dusty old boxes 

你好我的哥哥

Elder Halverson