Sawyer's adventures in Australia

Hey everyone, hope you are safe from the Corona virus. I sure am, at least so far. Pray for the people suffering with it and also for the missionaries in Hong Kong who can't go outside at all.  So this week brings some big changes for me. Tomorrow I'll be transferred, I'm going to a new area: Sydney. I know, I thought was called here on my mission right? The truth is, many missionaries in this mission go the whole two years without serving in the main city. I'm excited because it's generally known for lots and lots of street contacting and finding people to teach. I'll be serving in the city YSA ward. My proselyting area is mainly that around a university campus, the University of New South Wales (UNSW). The college is 80-90% Chinese students so hopefully my language skills will come in handy. Also, I will be training a new missionary who gets here tomorrow. I don't know who he is or even what language he will be learning, but I'm really excited. ...

Happy Chinese New Year 昔年快乐！ This week has been great, my first Chinese New Year has been a blast. It started off with Zone Conference and we learned a lot from our mission president. Also the drive to the place we met was so beautiful, it was through this mountainous rainforest that I didn't even know existed in Australia. I absolutely love nature and seeing those huge expanses of what God has created.  I started talking to a guy who instantly went into Bible bashing and asking all sorts of questions like 'what's the Hebrew root word of Holy Ghost' and stuff like that where I'm just thinking 'I have no idea', so I just tell him 'I have no idea'. After a few questions like that where it was clear that this guy was more educated on the Bible than I am, I felt pretty silly standing there trying to share about Jesus Christ with a guy who seemed to know so much more than me. But when I thought that, another thought came to mind which I kno...

Hey everybody hope you're having fun with the snow and the cold, it's in the 80s here in Australia. We had another good week and honestly a lot of cool moments. The biggest thing I'm learning right now is how to rely on the Lord and always trust that He has a plan for us even when we can't see it for ourselves. We had an amazing opportunity to go to the Sydney Operahouse and watch a performance. Our mission president authorized it and sent all us missionaries from the city to go see an acrobatics show. It was so awesome, seeing people do flips and stuff was so exciting and reminded me of my life back home where I was always jumping off cliffs and bridges and stuff. It was the first time I've gone to a show and said all my side comments in Chinese, since half the missionaries there were the Chinese ones. It was a great experience to do something 'touristy', and it's forever crossed off my Sydney bucket list. I went on a trade off with E...

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 ...

Hey everyone, this week I learned that in 110 degree weather you can really cook an egg on the sidewalk. It doesn't taste good though and it's hard to clean up. But anyway, it's been another week here in Sydney, just an American white boy hanging out with Chinese people all the time, telling people about Jesus and His plan for us, and just trying to make the world a better place.  Honestly being on a mission is so weird. It hit me this morning as I was eating Chinese food for breakfast while watching 2 white cockatoos playing in the grass. I'm in a whole different world. It's a good experience and really unique and constantly pushing me to grow. I've learned that God is really patient with us as we strive to grow and improve. It doesn't matter how many times we fail, He will always be there to pick us up and support us as we keep trying. Our English class is going great. We have some students who have been coming for months and it's really cute...

Hey Merry Christmas everybody🎅 This week a big change was that I got a new companion. I am still training Elder Chang but we were also unexpectedly joined by Elder Hsu from Taiwan. He's been out for over a year and loves basketball. So now the three of us are in a trio. And I've officially been companions with every Chinese missionary in our mission. It's pretty fun.  This week we had some awesome experiences. The Spirit is strong here in Sydney. We were planning a lesson for our friend Lily who we've been visiting for a while. We wanted to really connect with her and help her see how the gospel can affect her life. We sat there for a long time trying to come up with a lesson that we felt good about and we were just hitting a wall. We couldn't come up with anything. Finally the thought came that we just needed to ask questions. I remembered the promise from Jeffrey R. Holland that says if you ask questions and then listen, people will always tell you s...

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 th...