Pet Cemetery

Hey everyone, just in case you are wondering, the fires here in Australia are getting better. There were some really smoky days last week where we weren't allowed to go outside, but other than that it's improved. Everybody in the country and a lot of the people in the world fasted for rain last week. The next day, it rained. It was a huge miracle and since then we've had the rain we need. Thank you for the prayers. 

So, what about the missionary work? Well, it's been pressing forward and we've had some cool experiences. 

The first one is about a giant spider.

Well all my jokes at the beginning of my mission about seeing giant spiders finally paid off. There I was at 6:32 AM, stumbling into the bathroom, grabbing my toothbrush, sitting there brushing my teeth not even thinking straight and still trying to open my eyes. Then I look over and a foot away eye level with my head is this massive spider it's as big as my hand and I was no longer asleep after that. It's just chilling on the wall like it owns the place and based on the way I rocketed out of the bathroom it basically does. I left it there to give my comps a good scare... But then it disappeared. Man it's all fun and games joking about these guys until one actually shows up in your house. Haha then after that I was so scared I'm tiptoeing through the apartment checking the ceilings and walls thinking we're getting invaded or something. 

We went to work out and when we got back all I could think about was the spider. I didn't want to take a shower in there until I knew where it went. So I grabbed Elder Chang and we went in and investigated. We found the bugger when we pulled the cabinet out from the wall, and there he was creeping on the back. We did the only thing we knew to do and grabbed the 100% poison bug killer spray. Absolutely nothing went according to plan though, when we first unleashed a cloud of poison, the spider literally didn't think twice and just bolted out of the way... Right onto my toothbrush and all my stuff. At this point I wanted this spider dead but he was so dang fast it was tough to aim the spray. He kept going in circles around the cabinet and then finally decided to attack me. He set his 8 nasty eyes on me and rushed me with frightening speed. Elder Chang completely abandoned me and retreated to the bedroom. Elder Hsu was in the other bathroom, oblivious to the situation but confused by what he was hearing. "NOOOO RUNNNN AHHH". I'm not ashamed to say that I started yelling when I saw the true strength of this spider and realized the intensity of the situation. There I was, backing up in the hallway and fully blasting the killer spray right in this spiders face, and yet he was undaunted. He kept running toward me until finally my back was against the wall. With no other options I just kept spraying and hoped it would have some effect. Miraculously, the spider slowed down, decided it didn't like the feeling of the spray, and then ran off in the other direction and died a few minutes later. It definitely got my blood pumping, this was seriously out of a movie. That thing was invincible, if any human took that much spray they'd be dead for sure. I still can't believe how it just kept trudging toward me through the firehose of poison. Anyway, it was an exciting start to the week. I've officially had an Australian experience.

It's crazy how much of a difference the gift of tongues can have. There's no doubt in my mind that God is helping me learn this language and that He's fully capable of making me fluent right now but wants me to struggle so that I can learn some lessons. Sometimes, He decides to give me an extra boost of Chinese and it's so cool to see what happens. I've gotten better at recognizing it - I suddenly just notice 'wow I understand every single word this person is saying' or 'I didn't even pay attention to that guy but I know what he meant'. It's like time slows down and I can just really communicate and connect with them. I know that at these times, God really wants me to know what this person is saying so that I can help them in some way. It humbles me to see that it's so far out of my own abilities to learn Chinese. But miraculously I am learning and I know it's because God is helping me.

I started off the week with a lot of studying about following the Spirit and being led to those who are ready to hear the gospel. I learned that faith always requires action and then you will see the result. So, I put it to use. We went to the middle of the Chinatown and I started walking around talking to people. I told God that I would talk to as many people as I could and trusted that He would lead me to somebody who was ready. Within five minutes, I ended up next to this old Chinese man sitting on a bench. I started talking to him and then he asked me what was the difference between our church and others. He wanted to find the truth but wasn't sure how or where to find it. I knew God led me to this man. I started sharing about how we have a modern day prophet and that God has restored the priesthood authority to the earth. It really made sense to him and he kept telling me how 清楚 it was (clear and easy to understand). He asked for our number and a pamphlet to read until the next time we could meet. To me, this was a miracle because I acted in faith and within minutes I had an opportunity to share the gospel with somebody who wanted to learn. I am grateful for small experiences that allow me to strengthen my faith little by little. I'm pretty sure that we don't see miracles as much as we'd like to simply because we don't ask and act for them. It's something that I want to do more of.

We went finding on the university campus again and weren't having too much luck. Feeling my resolve going down, I prayed and asked God to give us an opportunity to share the gospel. Then we kept walking until we saw two younger guys sitting in a park. We approached and realized that it was two guys we had talked to weeks earlier but hadn't been able to make contact with. It was totally led by the Spirit. We sat down and explained again who we were and how we wanted to share about how to find our true purpose in life. One of the guys started opening up about his questions and it was a precious moment to be able to tell him that 'I know that if you pray, God will help you find the answers to all of these questions". Helping people make contact for the first time with Heavenly Father is so cool. Anyway, it just felt so natural and normal and I love seeing how the gospel can really help anyone. We'll be meeting with him more and teaching him about how to grow closer to God.

Something I've learned is that relying on the Spirit doesn't always mean that I'm the one who needs to do or say. Sometimes it means that the Spirit is going to talk and teach through somebody else. We were at a member's house and had invited over a family we've been teaching. Dinner was great and I was so happy to see the members being so welcoming and friendly. Then we sat down in the living room to share a spiritual message. We had a little lesson planned out but then we changed our minds since it didn't feel right. I was just praying that I could rely on the Spirit and that our friends would feel God's influence and be uplifted and touched. But I couldn't think of what to say. I was feeling a little uneasy because it's never good to have an awkward moment but I had faith that the Spirit would come in. Then it happened. I watched as the normally more shy members and my two more reserved companions all shared powerful testimonies and asked good questions. They totally took control of the situation and it was really amazing. I got to watch the Spirit work through all of these different people in order to touch this family. It was humbling to see that this really is the Lord's work and He uses everybody in different ways to share the gospel.

We were out advertising the English class with the sisters one day and started talking to this guy. First we talked about English class but pretty quickly got onto how we are missionaries and our purpose is to help people come closer to Jesus Christ. It turned into an awesome lesson- we told him how there's basically three big questions in life: where did we come from? Why are we here? And where are we going after this life?

After we said that he looked at us incredulously and said "wait... Do you know the answers to those questions??" He was so taken aback and then was really interested to learn about the plan of salvation. I know that God wants us to know our identity and the answers to these questions so that we can live a life of hope and purpose. 

We had a ward member show up to English class on Saturday morning and asked "do you want to learn English?" She said no she just wanted to take the Sacrament but she was wondering why everyone was late. We figured out pretty quickly that the lady thought it was Sunday. She was so cute she was all dressed up for church and had come all the way there. After we explained it to her she just looked so confused, like 'how did I mess this up' and just started walking around the chapel, apparently waiting until the next day for church to start.

We decided to try door knocking literally in the neighborhood of our apartment and it wasn't going too well. No one would even listen to us for more than 5 seconds, but we kept going. After we finished and were heading to get ready for our next appointment, we ran into this girl who introduced herself as Duffy. She was a student from China and seemed very interested to meet missionaries. I love starting conversations in English, asking them if they speak Chinese and then passing them off to my Chinese companions, like 'oh you speak Chinese? Here my friend is from China you can talk to him in Chinese". They all chat for a while and then I'll jump in too in Chinese and the other person just can't handle it- it's so fun to speak Chinese and I always feel so blessed for the opportunity to learn it.

We went to this really old neighborhood in the middle of the deep forest. All the houses were old fashioned and super big. It felt so different from the city that we're normally in and honestly it reminded me of those scary movies where something crazy always happens at the cabin in the woods. The feeling there was just weird. Like too quiet. We knocked some doors and nobody was there. Finally we were climbing up this huge staircase to an old castle-looking house when we heard someone yell 'Hey!'. We look over and all we can see is the head of this guy across the street because he's like behind some bushes or something. We're talking across the street about how we're missionaries and then he says he wants to hear about Jesus Christ and we go down to the street to talk. This guy was probably 25 and had long red hair. It was such a strange conversation, we shared about the gospel but he mainly wanted to talk about how he is an aspiring musician. Then after a few minutes he stopped midsentence and said 'sorry I have to go' turned and bolted back from where he came, it looked like into the forest. I looked around to see what had spooked him and didn't see much. We kept walking and then saw this old lady, way up on a balcony and just rocking back and forth and watching us. We climbed the mountain of stairs to her door and she turned out to be really kind. She talked our ears off about how the government took her car, and we offered to help her out which calmed her down. Then she was just so happy to meet "three stellar young men spreading the good word of God". We gave her a Book of Mormon, shared a scripture and headed out. I just wanted to get out of this neighborhood, especially after the old lady said she had a pet cemetery in her backyard for all her cats and dogs, and the musician guy called me and asked if 'I like living in a country with no guns'. 

Sometimes the Lord lines things up so perfectly you can hardly believe it. For example, one night on our walk out to the car after visiting a member, we stopped to talk to a Chinese lady on an evening walk. She was happily chatting with us about Jesus Christ when another Chinese guy 'randomly' showed up and seamlessly integrated into the conversation- he also wanted to talk about Jesus Christ. They were both so impressed that young people like us were out preaching the gospel. Then they asked if we had any books or pamphlets. And 'luckily' we were standing next to our car so we just grabbed some and started teaching. Then, some members from the ward just 'happened' to be walking down the street and saw us and said hi to these people we were teaching. And they were 'coincidentally' from the same part of China as the people we were talking to. Long story short, I know we were supposed to talk to those people at that time in that place. Looking for the little ways the Lord shows me miracles is part of what makes my mission so rewarding.

I LOVE my mission. I LOVE the people. I even love the spiders. It's awesome out here. Keep fighting for what's right and doing your best. I know the gospel is true and it will bless everyone's life no matter who they are.

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Elder Halverson