Merry Christmas, take some cold water

Hey everyone, I think it's pretty crazy that it's cold over in America because where I am it's in the 90s every day. I hope everyone had an awesome week, I know that here in Sydney it was a good time. Elder Song and I got a lot done and had fun along the way. 

The weekly sports night at the chapel is pretty fun, but it comes with its challenges. As a missionary, whenever you invite someone to a church activity, you are almost solely concerned with whether or not they enjoy it. Combine this with multiple people to watch over as well as church members that you want to further develop a relationship with, and you feel as if there are too much to do and wishing you could be two places at once. Most of the Chinese people I've met, particularly the girls and women, are pretty shy. If no one talks to them they will stand isolated in the corner. Seeing that happen brings one the worst feelings that a missionary can have, since we're so worried about whether or not they will feel included at the church. So, this situation must be avoided at all costs. I've discovered different ways to include all sorts of people. Another thing is that many of these people coming to the sports activity is that most of them seem like they've never really played sports before. Seeing this, I figured we'd start basic and got everyone in a circle and we started kicking around a soccer ball. There were awkward kicks and people may or may not have been hit in the head, but I think everyone had a good time. I called to mind my childhood of soccer drills and organized the people into 2 lines and ran some plays. Everyone learned a lot, and it was fun to see all these Chinese people doing something new. I love to see their faces light up when they start to feel included and loved. At the end of the night, new friends were made and one of the ladies even ended up driving another one home. It makes all the stuff we do to make sure they're having a good time worth it when I see stuff like that.

One day all of our appointments fell through and so we were sitting there doing planning in the morning and looking ahead to the next 10 hours with no plan. We decided to dedicate the entire day to finding. We left the apartment and absolutely grinded. It was still smoky from the fires and so hot but I really liked being able to show the Lord I am willing to sacrifice for His work. I told Elder Song "someone we find today will end up getting baptized" and we went off to search for them. We had a lot of faith that we would have success. And once again I learned the power of faith that can work miracles. We had to push through hours of rejection and it was tough. We went from knocking doors to walking on the street, then checked out a park, talking to everyone we saw and receiving little interest. Finally we ended up back at the university campus that we went to last week. That was when the miracles came in. We walked up to this girl and started talking to her since we thought she was Chinese, but it turned out she was from Vietnam. Luckily she spoke some English and we got to know her a little bit and she just kept smiling. She said she just loves to smile. Anyway she was really interested to learn about God and we set up an lesson with her. Then we kept going through the campus. I was feeling pretty good since we had finally found somebody who was prepared to receive the gospel and then we walked up to this girl sitting reading a book who also looked Chinese but it also turned out that SHE was from Vietnam. And she just happened to know the girl we had found 5 minutes earlier. Then her boyfriend showed up (he looked a little alarmed when he saw two guys sitting with his girlfriend but when he learned we were missionaries he calmed down) and we talked to him too. We had an awesome conversation where Elder Song and I got to share about why we left our families for two years to come on missions. The girl we were talking to said "this feels like something I've been missing my whole life". Man, that was awesome to hear. So now this Vietnamese couple wanted to come to the lesson with the first girl. I knew God had led us to these people. You can try to tell me that the first girl was a coincidence but meeting those next two people right afterwards has to be a miracle. I saw God's hand in our work and it propelled me forward to keep doing my best. We went on to find several people that day who wanted to learn about the gospel. Elder Song and I got home that night and basically passed out but we were happy. We absolutely gave it our all which was a good feeling.

I learned to listen to the Spirit even in the little things. Elder Song and I wanted to take a picture on this street since it was quiet and no one was there. I set up my phone really quick on the road and used the timer to take a picture. Right when I put it down I got a feeling that it wasn't a good idea but I just thought "we can just take the picture really fast" and then did so. The picture was of running down the street, after which I turned around and saw a big utility truck hurtling down the road from behind us. My phone was sitting in the middle of the road between me and the truck. As I sprinted back up the street and waved frantically to the driver to stop, I felt ashamed for not listening to God's warning. I had tried to justify my actions but I learned that ignoring spiritual promptings is NEVER a good idea, no matter how small a thing it is. Luckily the driver stopped (literally inches short of crushing my phone), but I learned my lesson and committed to be better about listening and obeying, even to the little things. By small and simple things are great things brought to pass, for bad or for good.

We got together with a big group of missionaries and set up a table in a busy part of the city. We were doing a Christmas-time activity: handing out cold bottles of water. I'm not used to Christmas-time being 90 degrees but it works and it makes it easy to give people water along with an invitation to our Christmas service. It was pretty hype having the whole operation with about 15 missionaries. We got to spread so much joy and make people smile. My favorite part was when this little girl came up to the stand where we had water and a bunch of pamphlets and stuff laying out. She told us she didn't want any water, she just wanted a picture of Jesus which I thought was so precious. She took a little pass along card with Jesus on it and hugged it like a teddy bear. This is why Jesus always loved to be around the children.

I know the gift of tongues is real and that it blesses us as missionaries to learn languages quickly. While we were on the street speaking Chinese to a lady, this white Aussie guy came up and started speaking Chinese too. He was amazed and excited that I was speaking Chinese. He explained that he has been studying Chinese all through school and is currently learning in uni. The thing was, I was with another American missionary who also is learning Chinese, and both of ours was more fluent and advanced than this uni student. He couldn't believe we've only been learning a few months. I knew that this guy had clearly spent more time on the language than us, which was a testimony to me that we are truly receiving God's help to learn so fast. It was humbling to see how much the Lord really helps us. 

A little miracle: while doing finding we ran into Liu, one of our investigators. He was talking to someone on the street and we walked up to him and he was so excited to see us. Then he introduced us to his friend Elaina who he invited to the church and to meet with us. So that's how we found another new friend. The Lord put us there with perfect timing.

When the members in our Chinese ward heard that Elder Song is a boxer, the parents quickly organized an activity for Saturday night where all of their kids would come and learn some self-defense. It was so awesome that we were able to get this whole group together and create an activity as well as get to know the members more. However, it didn't go exactly how I think some of the parents envisioned it. To me it was clear that they wanted their 8-14 year olds to learn some basic strategies for what to do if somebody attacked them. I thought that we could go over a fight-or-flight routine or something like that, but Elder Song had another interpretation. When he heard about the opportunity to teach 'boxing' he got really excited and began thinking about it a lot. When the big night finally came, he brought 3 bags of equipment as well as a whiteboard to draw diagrams. We got all organized in the church gym and then began. There were about 15 kids and leaders and it was pretty noisy. There were little babies running around and parents talking and all sorts of distractions that made it hard for the kids to stay focused. Elder Song started with a stretch routine, which seemed reasonable enough until it went for 15 minutes and it was becoming increasingly obvious that people were losing interest. I think Elder Song caught wind of the situation but then overcorrected. He could tell that the stretching was too simple, so he told the kids to repeat after him and then threw himself into an acrobatic ninja roll I've only seen in Jackie Chan movies. The kids looked around at each other in astonishment but at least now he had their attention, even if there was little to no chance of them recreating what he'd shown them. I whispered to Elder Song 'I think that's a little too hard' and he promptly changed his mind and went to the whiteboard instead. He gathered everyone to look and then wrote the word DYNAMO on the board, explaining to the group of glazed-eye kids about it's origination in Eastern Europe. Finally he got to his point and showed the kids how to always stay on their toes. Then he changed pace again, got out a tennis ball and began jumping in a circle while throwing it to himself. It seemed that he had it in his head that the kids had all signed up to resolutely become boxers like him, and were ready to sacrifice anything for the cause. He happily told the kids that they could buy their own tennis ball and practice, until I suggested that maybe they could just take turns. I could see that Elder Song's own boxing training was coming to mind and he just wanted the same foundation for these kids. But it didn't translate too well. Finally after about an hour we got out the boxing gloves (Elder Song restating that everyone should try to buy their own pair before next week) and the kids got to practice a little bit. Elder Song held up pads and the kids practicing punching. A well-meaning parent came up and wondered if the kids would learn anything about self defense but Elder Song cheerfully explained that this was the foundation and that over the next few lessons they would learn more. From the parent's expression I could tell that she hadn't envisioned this being a 6-week program. My next concern was Elder Song's instincts kicking in as he defended himself against the kids' punches and once counter-attacked by whacking a kid in the head with a right hook. It wasn't hard or dangerous but it's never a good image to see a missionary hitting a kid and I ran over and made sure that we both understood NOT to punch the youth. Overall the kids had a great time, the parents were impressed with Elder Song's boxing skills, and then I got to play 1v8 basketball against a bunch of the kids. Everyone had a great time and learned a lot. I was laughing so hard the whole time, it was a series of events reminiscent of my Dad's favorite middle-school performance 'The World Drummers'. Being a missionary is so much fun.

My faith is growing each day. And I'm just filled with love for the people around me. I'm happy that I get to spend each day serving others. Also I'm extremely grateful for my parents who raised me and taught me the gospel and helped me become who I am today, even when it meant that they needed to have a lot of patience with me. I love you Mom :)

今天我打篮球四个小时。

Elder Halverson