Dearest family and friends,
I've been transferred to..... *drumroll*
THE CITY!!!
I
could not be happier about it! Melbourne is so bustling and alive and I
love everything about it! The branch here is so adorable. It's mostly
made up of international students, a lot of whom are Vietnamese. Most of
the members have been baptized for a year or less. The branch meets in
the first level of an office building. It's small, but it's always full
of people! The branch members are all really close with each other and
with the missionaries. It's like one big multicultural family! It's such
a unique place with such special people.
We don't do any tracting in the city, but we do what we call
Golden Questioning, or GQ-ing, where we just strike up conversations
with people on the street. As you would probably guess, that is just
plain
terrifying for me. Luckily my wonderful companion, Sister
Vuta, is not afraid, so I can follow her lead. GQ-ing is amazing though,
especially in the city. This week alone I have talked to people from
Japan, China, Thailand, Tasmania, Pakistan, the Philippines, and
Vietnam, all of whom were just walking down the street or sitting on a
bench. For some reason people are more likely to hold a good
conversation with you if you talk to them on the street than if you
knock on their door.
We have seen so many miracles this week with teaching and GQ-ing.
The most amazing one was Fin. She is a lady from Vietnam who was only
visiting Melbourne for a week. We started chatting with her and invited
her to see our chapel, which was about a five minute walk away. She was
very interested and told us that she is Catholic but she always finds a
church to go to whenever she travels. We gave her a tour of the chapel
and she kept asking us what makes our church different from other
churches. In Vietnam, they only have Catholic and Protestant churches,
and ours was a third different one that she did not know, so we taught
her the restoration. When we talked with her about the first vision, she
said she got goosebumps! She was so excited to learn about the Book of
Mormon and we gave her copies in English and Vietnamese. After we taught
her she kept telling us how grateful she was and how she felt that God
had meant for her to meet us. She gave us big hugs before she left, and
we gave her our phone number even though she was leaving the city a
couple days later. Yesterday she texted us, saying that she was on a bus
to Canberra and was reading the Book of Mormon! I am so excited for
her. I just know that she will get baptized one day. I really hope she
finds the church when she goes back to Vietnam, because I know how much
the gospel will bless her life!
I am so blessed to be able to serve here in the city. It's
such a special experience and you get to meet so many wonderful people.
The Lord's work is alive and well here in Melbourne!
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