Hello All,
This week was great! We were able to see some miracles and see the work
progress in the Helenvale area! Our investigator Suzanne is going to be
baptized for sure on Saturday.
Her testimony is really strong. She is going through a lot of trials at the
time with her family life and other things in her life, but she realized that
Satan is trying his hardest to make it so she couldn't be baptized. She told us
for sure this week she is definitely not going to let Satan win and she will be
baptized on Saturday. She said
this experience has made her know for sure that the church is true. She has no
doubts about it at all. Its great! I am really looking forward to Saturday! That was the biggest miracle
for the week. We are also working with a Less Active family who has 2 children
who are not baptized. Their name is the Waka family and we will be setting a
goal for baptism with them sometime this week!
On Thursday we had a
multi-stake cluster meeting to discuss what we need to do to bring the members
and the missionaries together to Hasten the Work of Salvation. It was a meeting
with the mission president, and the stake presidents and one of the area
seventy. It was cool too because the zone leaders of the zones were sitting on
the stand. It definitely brought the state of Queensland a lot of excitement for
this next year. As a mission last year we baptized 600 people and the goal that
was set for 2014 was to convert 1032 people in the Australia Brisbane Area. It
is definitely a high goal, but there are more missionaries ever. We have the
most missionaries in our mission than any other mission in Australia with about
260 missionaries, and now that the ward has been trained and committed to also
find people for the missionaries to teach it should be easy to reach the goal.
600 baptisms broke the record for the number of baptism in a year for the
mission. It was interesting because our stake president shared an experience
where he was in a meeting with his high council and when they were making the
goal for the stake, and he asked the leadership of the wards and stakes if they
had brought someone into the church this last year. He said no one had raised
their hands. He then went on to say if the members and most importantly the
leadership of the wards and stakes put in an effort to find people for the
missionaries to teach, then the goal that has been set will be easy. After the
meeting there was definitely a lot more excitement towards missionary work. The
bishop in our ward is now more engaged with us and success will come. I also
feel that if everyone in the world will do their part and help the missionaries
and share the gospel with their friends and apply what was taught by Prophets
and apostles from our last General Conference, then the church will grow
immensely this year as a whole. Now is a great time to be a missionary! Those
people who read this who are thinking about going on a mission, Do it. It is an
exciting time to be a missionary in the world today, because this time is the time for miracles.
I love being a missionary and I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Kyler Powelson