Moving on

saying Goodbye to the boys that had finished their course, and had kept the faith. Sad to see so many great missionaries move on with their lives 

So this week Elder White and I came together and we started planning some training for the upcoming zone interview training as well as teaching our investigators and making time in between to look for new ones. All in all its been a good week, a bit hard and a bit stressful, but good. We taught some awesome lessons with Rachael and Ross and Kevin. Rachael is so close to setting a date for baptism and I wish you could see how far she has come. I wouldve never been able to imagine the changes she has pulled off and how much understanding she has gained and how much closer to God she has gotten. She still just has some concerns that I think are all social that she is trying to get over. But fingers crossed and prayers to the Lord, she prayed for a spiritual experience at church yesterday and she was so deep in thought after church that she didnt say much, but said she had a great experience in Relief Society, she hasnt told us what it was, but we are seeing her tonight for FHE at the Harrops house and hopefully she will say she is ready. We will bring the baptismal calendar just in case, haha show the Lord we have faith. 

Kevin also came to church today and he didnt like sacrament but he did like Sunday School. I am not too crazy concerned because Jack didnt like church the first time he came either. It was actually such a miracle that he liked Sunday School because the teacher didnt show and so I just went up and was completely winging it and talking about prayer, but it acually turned out so good. The spirit saved me there because I was just going to be totally stuffed, I was mega nervous, but I just opened my mouth and it was filled. Class participation helped a lot too. 

So it was a good one this week. Having a Zone Interview training tomorrow and that should be sweet. Good times, good times.

Lots happening, it's been a big week

So this week has been awesome. First of all Our new mission President came in. His name is President Donaldson and his wife is obviously Sister Donaldson. They are so awesome. He was an area Seventy but got released to be our mission President and man does he have experience. This next 3 years will be crazy for the mission. And this next year is going to be crazy for me. We went to a big conference where they introduced themselves and it was great. They have some amazing experiences. So they are both pretty young, late 50's, thats young for an Area Seventy and a Mission President. When they were in Salt Lake City on their first day as mission Presidents their house got broken into and everything got stolen, all of Sister Donaldsons Jewelry and their laptops and their other technology stuff and even Presidents car! And Sister Donaldson started to cry a little when she was telling the story and she said this and it was so amazing. She said "Satan is already showing his ugly head, but he wont stop us. After all, it doesnt matter, those are just things." And they both gave amazing talks and just needless to say, I am so excited to serve under them. 

Other news, I am getting a new companion. Elder White, I know him, he is flippin awesome! We are going to have the best time here. We are going to just do the best work and have an awesome transfer. Also Elder Mulville and Elder Barton are both Zone Leaders now, I feel so proud. I loved serving with both of those guys. There are a lot of missionaries going home this transfer too. I will miss a lot of them. They are such awesome guys and girls. So both exciting and sad things are happening right now. 

So other than those things our week was really crazy. We taught heaps of lessons. 8 investigator lessons this week! Thats a great week! And We started teaching that new guy on monday morning. John Mitchell. He is great, and he has a baptismal date now for August 15th. We also taught Kevin a couple of times and he is really awesome. He will be baptized for sure. just gotta figure out when is all. There was this other appointment with a former investigator named Mark, that was the strangest and funniest thing, Elder Stoker and I took about 30 minutes after in almost silent awe just trying to figure out what happened. We still didnt know. I cant even write the things that were so funny. So oneday if you want to know ask me about it. (Like you will ever remember this one appointment) hahah. 

I will really miss Elder Stoker when he goes home this week, he taught me so much in this short 4 weeks we were together and we have been able to be so involved in the Lords work together. Its really been a blessing. 

All in all I am excited for what is coming up here soon in Aberdeen and in the Scotland Ireland Mission. Its a good time to be a servant of the Lord. 

I was thinking a lot lately about recieving the Holy Ghost and the significance of the baptism of fire. And it has been so interesting to ponder the significance of having our souls purified, THROUGH the Atonement, but BY the POWER of the Holy Ghost. It has just intrigued me so much lately. Maybe give a think about it and read up a little. There is so much more to it than we ever think about. 

Elder stoker watching 3 d oil rig at the museum.. 

Rollin.

Sounds like you have had a great week. Sounds like your summer is a lot more summery than mine. Atleast I am in short sleeves today haha. Havent had much of a chance to be in them this year yet. Aberdeen is cold and rainy. Oh well, life goes on and complaining doesnt help. Pretty jealous of Ben going out for a camp, I miss camping and going on adventures. One of the big things I miss for sure. Especially because when I got back to Aus we seemed to go on some kind of wild adventure every week.  

This week was just an awesome one. We taught 4 investigator lessons and had just a ton of other appointments and all different kinds of things on. We went to Edinburgh for Mission Leadership Council with all the other ZL's and we heard President Browns last testimony to a group of missionaries, and you know what it was about? Eternal Families, not missionary work, not restoring others Eternal Families, not bringing other families together through missionary work. Just OUR OWN Eternal Families, and about being the best husbands, because of the service that we gave as missionaries. How interesting. It was a great meeting, the Spirit was really strong. We also taught a guy named Kevin Yang from Taiwan and he is so awesome, and he is just on a massive search for true happiness, oh man he is going to get baptized for sure! GOLDEN AS ANYTHING! And we will see him again this week at a members house and he will come play basketball with us on friday. Rachael came to church and decided she wants to get called to primary before she has even been baptized... One of the other girls at church had her come in and help with the lesson that she was teaching and it was really good for her. So things are going great there. And we literally just came from an appointment with a man named John Mitchell, great lesson. And I know its on Pday so its kind of cutting into our chill out time but I dont even care, it was so worth it because he was just great. He had 3 religious parties at his door recently and we were the third. He wasnt in but we left a card with our number when we were tracting and he texted us asking us to come back because he feels like those 3 visits mean God is trying to tell him something. 

You know I think far too often we just think about our own inconvenience when we are on the Lords errand, but I was thinking this week, and it was awfully inconvenient, we were running around like crazy with so many things to do and we were on the phone all week in out "down time" rather than relaxing and all of this stuff. And you know? It didnt even bother me that much in the end. I was absolutely hammered, but I felt good. There is nothing quite as satisfying as doing you best. And I feel that i always do my best, but this week I just saw so many blessings from it that it just really strengthened my testimony. Smiled a lot this week, didnt sleep as much as I wouldve liked to, but smiled more, and I think smiles are worth more than sleep anyway. Sleep will always be there, but the opportunity to be happy in that moment is only there for just that, a moment. Then life moves on. So smiling about something, whether good or bad is surely the key to lasting happiness. The Prophet Joseph said it takes a truly happy man to be able to smile at his own misfortune. And isnt that true. Lets smile at Satan, and then he wont beat us, because he only wins, if we are miserable, and he cant force that on us. 

It was a good week this week. Love you heaps. 

Ok so the big stone thing that we are standing on is a wall that never got finished. The story goes that a man who owned Invergordon wanted to build a wall all the way around it, but his workers complained that he wasnt paying them enough for it. So they quit because he wouldnt pay them more, and thats all that ever got built hahaha. 

Also there is one of president and sister Brown in their native Scottish attire. And one of Elder Stoker and I trying to be gangsters. Not very successfully.

Busy week

Big stone barn

Does my bottom look big in these new pants? 

This week was good for us. We managed to teach quite a few lessons. 5 investigator lessons, and got a couple of new investigators. To make it even better the whole zone had the best week that they have had since I have been zone leader here. So that was pretty sweet and everyones morales seem to be high. One of our district leaders was struggling a bit yesterday and he called us looking for some support, we talked with him for a while and it seemed to help him. We will check up on him more regularly but he is just a great guy and I love him. Rachael is progressing well, although she hasnt been to church for a couple of weeks (she was working for 2 but then didnt come for the other 1). So that was fairly disappointing. But atleast she is making some progress in other areas. She knows its all true, she just needs to be ready to commit to it. We are trying to help her with that, and she is making small steps all the time. Its great to see. 

Its been a pretty good week. It is a little weird having Elder Stoker go home so soon. He is super ready to go. I can only imagine how exhausted you get by the end of it. He has been a great missionary though, and he still is. 

Well sorry I dont have as much to fill you in on as you did for me. Most of my days I do all the same things so its really not as interesting. Love you. 

Elder Tang

It's such a beautiful country.

Spending more time with my trainer

Hi Everyone,

Mum it was really cool to see all your photos. Especially the one with the boys and President Uchtdorf, he is just so aweosme. I am pretty jealous that I didnt get to meet him too. Not going to lie at all there. 

This week was pretty good, I really enjoyed my first week with Elder Stoker, he is really awesome. I am pretty sad that we will only have 4 weeks together. Thats just kinda rubbish. What a shame. He is awesome. 

So Rachael didnt come to church this week, and I am sure she knew she shouldve, so I am a little sad, but we had a lesson with her in the afternoon and it was a good lesson so I hope that will motivate her to make a bigger effort to come to church. I guess when you come from a culture where church is just peoples last priority then its difficult to change your view. We will just keep working on it. Aberdeen Zone performed a lot better this week. Well actually not too astronomically better but we improved, so it was awesome to see just a little progression. I had an Exchange with Elder Neideck too which was just super awesome. I always love any chance I have to see him again, he is a great Assistant too, probably one of the best this mission has seen, its just amazing to see what an amazing missionary he has become. He is consecrated to the Lord for sure. 

Nothing else too much happened this week that I can think of just now other than we had a lesson with a part member family where the mum Debbie is pretty open to having her children Jack and Zula taught the gospel. So there is quite a lot of promise there. And we set up quite a few new appointments for next week. We have had some good success inviting non members that we meet to come play bastketball with us at the church, we have an appointment to teach one of them that has been coming this week. And we have a couple of days up in the Highlands, we are going for an exchange all the way up in Thurso, 5 hour drive. Oh man. But its with Elder Benesch who also goes home this transfer, I will miss him, I love Elder Benesch. 

Well sorry there isnt too much this week but hopefully you will get some great stories next week from the appointments we will go to. Love you heaps. 

Elder Tang

See More from Nate Tang

Elder Benesch, been in the same Zone my whole mission, always a zone leader to other missionary relationship as well, I love this guy so much. He goes home this transfer and I will miss him so much. He taught me heaps. 

Elder Fassold and Elder Yates, funniest rednecks out there. 
By the way, those lawn chairs are Elder Yates, and he ties them to his suitcase with bungie cords whenever he moves areas! Haha it is absolutely hilarious. 

What would Elder Neideck do?

 ELDER NEIDECK
Trainer, Assistant, all round good guy.

Good to hear things are cruising along. Still weird to not know what you and the family are going to be doing, whether you wil be in Tejas or at home. 

Well this week was really good and really bad. (I just found out the computer messed up the amount of time I have, damn thats so annoying) Anyways we had like 5 new investigators this week which was really awesome. Havent had that kind of result in a week in ages. None of them are too jumpy to get baptized or anything really, but they are all investigators so I guess that cant be a bad thing haha. Well 3 of them are investigators, we dropped 2 of them already. So thats been pretty cool just to be reminded that we actually can get investigators, sometimes out here it just seems like you cant no matter what you do. But obviously you can if we just did so thats pretty sweet. 

We are trying to have Rachael make her own date for baptism, so she is working on that, but she is progressing really well, reading the book of mormon a lot more and really keen to come to church when she isnt working, so that is pretty awesome, she even bought a dress that was church appropriate, (her others were all too short she said).

This next week we are having a conference from Elder Holland! That is going to be so awesome! He is coming to speak to all of the missionaries, I am way pumped. And I will have to be getting up at like 5am to drive to edinburgh for the conference this week, so that will be SO FUN. Just kidding, but hey, I will survive. Its Elder Beneschs last transfer, and we will be going on an exchange in a couple of weeks. I will really miss that guy, we have been in the same zone with him as my zone leader or me as his for my whole mission. I will really miss him, that will be hard to say goodbye. 

Well, things are just moving along here but I have to go cause the computer messed up my time so I am going to be coming up short here soon. 

 One of my Dad's companions sisters living in Aberdeen.

Some random Aussie hat I found in a flat.

Aberdeen update.

This week I just rededicated myself, I felt like I was working hard, but that I could work harder, so I said to myself and to the Lord, "dont hold anything back" And I didnt, I took Dads advice and organized our time so strictly that not a single second was wasted. It was hard and it exhausted me beyond reason, but I never felt better in the face of so much opposition. Something so interesting is what Abraham learned when he found that Ram caught in the thicket. After that terrible and harrowing experience, when Abraham had done the will of the Lord, and all he could do had been done, the Lord provided for Isaac's deliverance. How can we be like Abraham? If God could have found a deeper way to test Abraham, he would have done THAT. Go back and read the command of the Lord to him in Genesis 22. He is commanded to sacrifice, HIS ONLY SON, WHOM HE LOVEST! And because he would have done it, and went all the way to the mount, and lifted the knife, and would have so done, he then knew, that he was completely dedicated to God and to his Son. He needed to know that, we need to know that. Has God asked us to sacrifice something we wouldnt give? I know that I have not been as faithful as Abraham, in order to truly know that we are cleansed, we need that kind of spirit of loyalty to God. I learned this week that we need to Love Him more than we love ourselves. This week was still hard, but I felt like I had done enough to please the Lord, and that was the feeling I needed.