Week 7 - Christmas with Palm Trees

This week we got to chat with Elder Beattie 2 days in a row. He was able to call home on his Christmas after church and then then the next day (our Christmas) because it was his PDay. It was nice to get the extra facetime in during the holiday since it seemed harder to get into the mood of Christmas knowing part of our family was celebrating so far away. He did mention that it was sort of strange to see all these houses totally decorated for Christmas while there was no snow and it was so hot out. Some houses went all out and light danced to music on radio stations (which they watched the lights but couldn't listen to the music). 

It's nice to know that the members seem to caring for the missionaries and kept their Christmas Day busy. Elder Beattie seems to be growing a lot while learning how to deal with other personalities and being around others 24/7 while keeping yourself positive and motivated. I'm sure as he stays proactive and keeps doing what he knows is right, things will fall into place for him. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!🎅

It's so weird that it is Christmas for all of you, and it is boxing day for me down here. The highlight of this week for me was definitely Christmas day. We had a lot of member meals, one lunch and 2 dinners! It is crazy, I feel so full right now! One of the houses that we went to was a super rich family that had a super mansion. We did a white elephant dice game and I ended up with a monster truck toy, it is pretty awesome! 

This week has been pretty uneventful for me, not alot of teaching visits and finding new people has been pretty dead for some reason. Hopefully this week will pop off a little more.

I had some cool experiences though. We did an exchange and I was paired up with Elder Phelan. He is a pretty cool dude, him and I are very similar and we get along super easy, so it was nice to be able to chat with him and do some missionary work in his area. If it weren't for Christmas, that would've been the highlight of the week for sure.

My Christmas was really cool though. We had 1 hour church at 9, there were a couple of good talks about Jesus' birth and there were some pretty good musical numbers that were sung. After church, we went to the super rich family's house and had a really good lunch there. After that we went over to a farm an hour away and had lunch part 2, it was quite good (at this point I am getting pretty full) we got to go on a zip line and I was able to throw around an actual American Football! At the end of our visit, they gave us all matching Tshirts that say Australia Brisbane Mission on them, they are really cool. Then finally we made the long trip to our last appointment which was a dinner one. They had lobster and meatloaf. Yum. After the meal I was stuffed. I was about to explode, when they brought out a fruitcake. Oh no not more. Thankfully, I was able to stuff it down my throat without having it come back up. After that, we sang some Christmas hymns and shared the message of Jesus' birth.

The cool thing to me was that even though all of these people that we visited with are so different, they all believed the same thing and had testimonys of the Savior. That made me think of Luke 2:10:

10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

I like how at the end it says that it is for all people. Everyone has the opportunity to have those good tidings of great joy.

I know that Jesus Christ did walk on this earth many years ago, and that he gave us the greatest gift anyone could ever give us, that gift is the Atonement.

I am excited to learn more about Jesus Christ and about all of the many great things that he did while he was on the earth.

Emoji of the week:🎅🏿

Slang word of the week: Fair Dinkum: genuine, honest, true. (If you say like some crazy story, like my comp hit a car while riding his bike. Someone might say "Fair Dinkum?")

Lots of love, and Merry Christmas,

Elder Brayden Beattie.

Week 6 - Quarantine

Hello all, this past week for me has been pretty uneventful. My companion got covid on Tuesday so we had to isolate for five days. We just got out yesterday, just in time for Sunday. I got a lot of studying done, that was probably the best part of last week. 

One of the things that I studies was the story where Nephi's brothers tied him to pole on the ship because he was bossing them around. Nephi got untied only after they had almost died because of the massive waves that were all around. After Nephi got untied, instead of getting into a fight with his brothers, he prayed and gave thanks to God for lifting his burdens from him.
I think that this story is a good example of what we can do when we are going through trials, instead of becoming mad because of our trials we need to give thanks to God for helping is get through them. That is something that I have tried to work on doing this past couple of days and I have been able to see that I am more happier while I am going through hard times.

One other cool thing that I got to do this week was seal a blessing for the sick and afflicted for my companion. It was really neat to feel the spirit. Doing that really brought D&C 100 verses 5 and 6 to life for me.

5 Therefore, verily I say unto you, lift up your voices unto this people; speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts, and you shall not be confounded before men; 
6 For it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say.

Just like the verse said. The words came to me in the moment that I needed them. I didn't even think about what to say. It was almost like they were just coming out of my mouth. It was awesome!

Yesterday, we went to a stake Christmas Musical Devotional. There were a lot of talented singers that participated. I was able to feel the holy ghost while they sang about Jesus' birth. 

That is all of the highlights of this week.

Emoji of the week:🙈
Slang of the day: Flat (people use it for apartment) example: let's head back to the flat, it's getting late.

Did you know that if you put a gummybear in water, it will grow twice the size. But It doesn't taste that good🧸

Thanks for reading,
Elder Brayden Beattie

Talking to Elder Beattie he seemed in good spirits, happy to be out of isolation. All that time studying put him ahead of his dad in their Book of Mormon study which brought a smile to his face. 

He claims to be gaining weight due to all the eating he's been doing so maybe he'll have to take exercising seriously so he doesn't have to buy a whole new wardrobe while over there. It might be the massive family sized meals from McDonalds he's been eating... It is nice to hear that the church members are taking care of him. 

Due to isolation, Elder Beattie attended his first zone conference via zoom. It's nice to know that at least he is still able to be apart of trainings even if it can't be in person. 

During their isolation, Elder Beattie and his companion called some people on their not interested list and invited them to the Sunday Christmas devotional. He said a couple of them showed up which is exciting, hopefully it won't be a one time showing. 

Just released from isolation and moving into the week before Christmas they can stay busy and enjoy not being trapped in the polar vortex (feels like -46*C) we living in here in Alberta.

Week 5 - Member meals, Roos, Vegemite and Hospitals

This week it seems has been a positive, busy week for Elder Beattie. Our weekly chat was great; Brayden gave us a tour of one of his ward buildings which included 2 little outdoor courtyards in the building and made me wish we lived somewhere that could have outdoor rooms in our buildings. We were introduced Elder Soli (his companion), the SLT's (Sister Training Leaders) and some of the other Elders. Everyone seemed happy, joking around and enjoying their PDay which included a hike (Twin Falls hike in Springbrook National Park) and some basketball for Brayden:

Hello everyone!! The second week in Aussie land has been way better than the last week. I have done so much and have had many experiences that have made me and hopefully others happy. Today, we had a district Pday and we went on a "hike." I guess it was hard for a bunch of islanders. The hike was awesome though. There were two waterfalls that were beautiful! 

More from his email:

This week there were a couple things that happened that stood out to me.1st, I saw my first alarmingly large spider, on the temple grounds! Its butt thing was about the size of a loonies, it was insane. It web also was gold in the sun. It was really cool. We were at the temple, but we didn't get to go inside, we were just in the chapel next door, we had an orientation for all of the new missionarys. It was alright, we had all you can eat pizza. The best part of the orientation was definitely the part where we went out on the streets around the temple and did some street contacting. It was cool to be able to talk to people and hear about them. The goal that we had was to hand out a Book of Mormon, we were so close. He had it in his hands, but as he was leaving he gave it back. Oh well.

I saw some more kangaroos! I think that brings up the total to 5, three of them have been in the church parking lot. I feel like such a tourist taking pictures of pretty much all of the different animal's that I see. It was really cool.

From the sounds of it Elder Beattie has been meeting more ward members through dinner appointments. We sent him a google pin of Chris Hemsworth's house because he lives in Brayden's ward boundaries but we will see if they even drive by. Some of the areas seem quite wealthy and they've been able to feed him well and fill the dinner calendar.

The weather has also been decent. In his email he mentioned the only day it rained was when he spent some time in the hospital. Sadly on of the Elders got hit by car while on his bike and broke his nose. The bike was broken so they needed the ride there. 

Before the hospital Brayden was on splits with one of the zone leaders, Elder Fenunuti, a big funny Tongan guy. Elder Beattie said it was cool and he "felt so all might powerful. It was fun."

Brayden tried Vegemite for the first time and explained what it is made of. He says it's what they scrape from the bottom of the barrel when beer is made. I'm assuming that means it's the left over brewer's yeast? He said it's not his favourite, maybe he'll grow to love it.

He finished his email home with this spiritual thought:

The thing that stood out to me this week was the youth theme for this year. Proverbs 3: 5-6Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. 

These verses stood out to me because I have had to put more trust in the lord then I ever have. As I have put more trust in him, I am seeing that I have been able to better connect with the people that I teach and I have been able to receive more blessings in my life.

It has been a pretty good week this week, and I am excited to start this next one

Emoji of the day: 🦘

Slang of the Day: as (instead of saying something like that's funny as that one time, or that's stinky as crap, you just say funny as, or that's stinky as.)

Week 4 - The Gold Coast

We got to video call with Brayden Sunday afternoon (his Monday morning) and hear how his travels went, get caught up on everything that has been keeping him busy the last week. A gross story he shared in his letter about his flight:

Let me tell you about some of the significant parts of my week. On the long 15 hour plane ride to Australia, we hit a pretty big bit of turbulence, and the plane was going all over the place, I was having a blast, because it made it seem like it was a Rollercoaster, but apparently a guy a couple rows ahead didn't think that. I looked in the aisle and there was vomit all over the place. It was really gross. The flight attendants were not happy about that because he was about 3 steps away from the bathroom. It was kind of funny. He did not, thankfully, send a pic of that but we did get a picture of Elder Beattie and Elder Mecham having fun in the Sydney airport while they were waiting for the their flight to Brisbane. They also ran into an old New Zealand mission president who spoke with them and gathered 2 more missionaries heading to Brisbane for that last flight.

Elder Beattie's first area is the Gold Coast. It's south of Brisbane and goes into the New South Wales State covering 3 wards. In his letter he did say "This area that we are in is apparently not super great for missionaries. People don't really want religion in their lives, and I have been able to see that. It is a little bit sad. It's fine though, they just need to be worked on a little. That's my job." Madison is sure this is where Chris Hemsworth lives so we asked Brayden to keep his eyes open.

He mentioned that the first couple days were rainy and the weather is unpredictable which the locals are blaming on a recent volcano eruption that happened near by. Thankfully because the area he covers is quite large he and his companion have a car so the rain hasn't been an issue. 

His companion is Elder Soli and he is from Sydney Australia, has a few more transfers to go and Brayden thinks he will be able to learn a lot from him which is great.

Elder Beattie went on splits where he got to ride a bike all over, he and Elder Soli served at a local mall wrapping presents for a local charity, and he was able to see Elder Mecham at the choir practice they were both at. 

The first few days seem like they've been spent adjusting to this new life, a pretty steep learning curve. Although everyone he's met has been kind, it's all new and different. Even driving on the left side of the road seems so foreign and uncomfortable. Even though there has been a lot of hard changes to get used to he has some positive stories to focus on: 

I got to go to a ward Christmas party and they had a fried chicken lunch that was delicious. They had so much chicken it was awesome. I was so full after that that it wasn't even funny. The members in that ward are so kind and welcoming. It is awesome. After that activity we went over to a member's family's house to teach a lesson, but only the father was there, so we just taught the lesson to him. We taught about how we need to trust in the lord with all of your heart. I was able to share my testimony about it, it was really cool. 

On Sunday he went to farm that was three hours away from where they live and inward towards the outback. The reason they were allowed to travel so far was because there was five non-members there along with a group of church members. This was where they held their sacrament meeting, just a small meeting with 15-20 people total. During the sacrament meeting there was a one inch long hornet that was flying around and it was kind of scary, also during the sacrament prayer a bull got through the fence and was running all over the place so some people had to go and round it up, it was kind of funny. 

While they were there they were able to teach the five non-members the first lesson and he things they were interested and set up a meeting over zoom within the next few weeks.

Brayden saw the ocean for the first time very briefly but not from the beach (not allowed). He said the waves were massive!! He also saw his first Kangaroo but sadly it was too far away for him to get a good picture. Hopefully he'll see more and get some good pics. 

Emoji of the day:🐄 

Slang word: Maccas (meaning: McDonalds. Example: hey, do you want some Maccas?)

When we spoke to Brayden, he mentioned that his plans for the rest of the day included some grocery shopping and some touch rugby. Maybe he'll be able to gain some new skills to apply to his rugby game when he gets home in a few years. Can't wait to hear from him next week and know how it went and what it was like playing against Aussie's.

A few of the other pictures from the past week include a naked Christmas tree (which maybe will get some decorations? I forgot to ask) and a handsome lizard. Also, even though the pictures suggest otherwise, Brayden has yet to try Vegemite but promises a video for when he does.

Hopefully things will become more familiar and he will be busy with the work, getting to know and love the people and things will feel less foreign.