Wow! What a Week!

I love you all so much and I am glad to hear everything is right with you. I am not homesick, I was at first but not anymore, so don’t worry. So yeah, everything is good with me and Dad I have not figured out my debit card! Oh well. So I hve a lot to cover so I will get to it. When am I going to get the family picture?

Thank you Hague family, Stephanie and Saudalia for writing me I loved your lettetrs!

Building the Kingdom:
Brendan Burke- We are moving slowly with him but I feel he is understanding a lot better especially his relationship with God. So that’s good but we don’t have a baptismal date with him but I could see it happening in the next transfer.

Felicity O’Brien- she is a former investigator that just showed up to church the other week. She has quit smoking and really enjoys church and you can feel her desire to learn. We started teaching her last week so we will see what comes of it!

The rest of our investigators were dropped, sad day I know, but we might be able to rekindle some interest with them.

My Week:
So we had an exciting week so I will get to it…

...Dear Elder Brough,

You are here by called to serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; you are assigned to labor in the Australia Sydney Mission!

As of July 1st the Australia Sydney North and Australia Sydney South missions will be combining. It is big news and I am so excited for it! The mission President of the Sydney South Mission will be taking over, I actually got to meet him yesterday randomly. There was some meeting at our chapel where Stake Presidents, Mission Presidents and The Temple President all came together and it just so happened that I was greeting members of my Ward as President Simmons came in. He is a nice guy and I am excited to work with him! So Zach, Stephen Stapleton's brother is in that mission so I might get to serve with him. And this is what president Scruggs had to say about meeting the south president…

You all know that the Sydney South and North Missions will be consolidated on 1 July 2010. All this means to you is that you will receive an experienced mission president and there will be twice as many areas in which you can serve and nearly twice as many potential companions. This is a great development! I met with President Simmons yesterday in an area council meeting. He is looking forward to serving with you. In my very humble way, I let him know he would find you to be well prepared – outstanding teachers, inspired finders, loved and trusted by the members, and exactly obedient. I also told him you were smarter, better looking and more athletic than missionaries in the South mission! Make it so.

So transfers were this week, intense! I was so nervous! So Elder Vernon and I were sitting there for the call from the Zone Leaders to inform us… the phone rang.. we looked at each other… Elder Vernon picked it up… the phone said President Scruggs… Elder Vernon does this weird scrunchy face that he makes when he is confused and he answers it… And… Elder Vernon is going to Coffs Harbor as Zone leader. At this Point I am sad to have him go but happy to be staying in Winston Hills. So Elder Vernon and President finish up talking and then Elder Vernon hands me the phone, I am a little confused but I pick it up and say Hello this is Elder Brough he then tells me he would like to have me train in Winston Hills! HAhahahahahahah, yep, me train a new missionary! I didn’t know what to think! I just said sure I would love to do it. After the phone call I didn’t know what to think. In the mission they call the missionaries you train your “son” and you are considered their “dad”. I kind of feel that I had some of the same feelings a dad would have if he found out that he was having a kid. At first I was all excited and thought this will be fun… then reality set in and I started thinking, “Will I be able to provide for him, will I be able to teach him enough so one day when he will be ok on his own… will he like me?” I had a lot of questions but I know everything will be right. The Lord qualifies who he calls and this is such a humbling experience and I won't let President down or the Lord. So I will put my trust in him! I will have some help because the Assistance are moving into my flat so it will be nice to have them there! But yeah it was an intense call but I am sure it will be ok because nothing will stop the work from progressing, not even Elder Brough!

This week as a district we went to Milsons point and took pictures of the bridge and opera house. Sydney is so beautiful( I am sure I lost points on my man card for saying that but it is the truth). We walked half way across the bridge because that is where are mission ends( Until July)! It was a fun activity and I got some nice pictures, so if you write me I might be able to send you one…

Also this past week we had Australia Day. Similar to the 4th of July except Australia didn’t have to fight a war, England just said, “Here you go.” So yeah it was a horrible day to proselyte but we had fun. The ward had a party so that was nice to hang out with them. We played a lot of games and apparently Australia has these things called Gum Boots they are just rubber boots and they have a competion to see how far you can throw them, I represented the USA well but didn’t win, maybe next year! What I found funny was that they were making fun of Horse shoes. Horse shoes Trumps Rubber boot throwing anyday!

I love you all I had a great week, except I ran into a pole while some kids were mocking us, that was pretty embarrassing. But I have had a good week I love you all!

Elder Landon Raphael Brough

A Little Heartbreaker

I love you all and I am glad to hear you are all alive and well! My preparation day situation- last week we had interviews on Monday so our preparation day was moved to Tuesday, sorry I didn’t let you know. I am so glad you had an amazing time in Brazil and I hope you will enjoy Australia in 21 months. I think it is crazy how fast it is going! It makes me sad I was thinking about it and when Nathan reports to the MTC I will be out 6 months! Crazy, it kind of makes me sad that I am 12.5% done with my mission but I will make the rest of the time count! I love you all so much and I feel like I get it as a missionary!

Thank you Haley Jorgensen for the letter and thank you Jorgensens for the package! I loved the Swedish Fish, they don’t have them here. And I am so glad to hear Elder Aaron and Elder Dallin Gillette are doing great in the MTC I hope to continue to hear from them.

Building the Kingdom:
So we have had an interesting week and all of our finding has paid off. As of right now we have four investigators that represent four different continents.

Brendan Burke representing Australia- So he is not going to be baptized this Saturday, I consider this my first heartbreak of my mission, but that is ok. When he first told us he said that he doesn’t feel ready and he has not received a witness. I had a clam feeling… it was weird, I thought I would start to break down and bawl or throw a chair through a window or something but I had a calm feeling, the more I thought about it the more I realized what it was. I am happy he is not doing it yet. I know that may sound weird but let me explain, it shows a few things. 1. That he desires to have a witness and he wants to have his own testimony. 2. That he is not doing it just for his girlfriend. So this coming week we will work with him on that and try to resolve his concerns, I know we will help him figure it out. The only thing that makes me sad is that transfers are Feb. 2nd and I am the one who will most likely be transferred but we will see.

Grace representing Asia (Taiwan)- We met with her at a member’s home and the spirit of God was like a fire burning, like my eyebrows were gone. Pretty much the spirit was very strong. We taught her the Restoration and watched the restoration Video. It was so good and she is totally willing to read so we will have to see what goes down with that.

John representing Africa (Zimbabwe)- We street contacted John and he didn’t keep his scheduled appointment. So this Sunday we were going to go to Ward Council with the ward mission leader but he slept in so we scrambled around to try and figure out what to do so we decided to stop by. We went to his house and he showed us to his garage where he is actually living, he is here for school. When we walked into this dark garage I looked around and saw liquor and pot everywhere! But he said it wasn’t his but the peoples he was staying with. We taught him the Restoration and we are meeting with him on Thursday but we have to meet at a park because the people he is staying with won't like us around. So I am so glad the ward mission leader slept in!

Cameron representing Europe (Scotland)- We street contacted him at like 8:45, right when we were about to go in. He is a music teacher and he plays Guitar and Bag Pipes, cool eh? We talked to him and taught him the restoration and scheduled a return appointment so we will see how it goes!

So those are the investigators we also ran into a less active Maori family who are not on the wards records but we got some of them to church which was pretty neat!

My week:
Nothing too exciting happened this week. We do keep running into spider webs! They are everywhere. I think about that joke that Brian Regan I think talks about where people look like idiots when they run into spider webs! Well Elder Vernon and I do it all the time! It is annoying! I almost ran into a full on web that was in between two trees and it had three spiders and these were not just any spiders these were spiders that would fit in your palm! Ewwwwwww they are everywhere too! But nothing will stop the work from progressing!

So that’s whats going down down under! I hope to hear from everyone soon! The church is true!

Love Elder Landon Brough

Good Day, Mates!

Glad to hear everything is going well in Brazil! It sounds like you are having a blast there. I seriously can’t wait for mom and dad to come down under and see my areas. My guess is that they are a bit nicer than yours Zach. No offense. Oh and Mom and Dad I call driving when we get here. It is so fun to drive here! I can’t wait to be in your shoes Zach where I can come back and see those people that I have developed relationships with! Hope you get home safely and soon and hopefully my package will be there! Also Jordan, Zach, Dalton and Caleb, I want to keep in touch with you so I made a goal. Each month I am going to write one of you and all I ask is that you reply to me by letter. That is all I want. You can of course still email me from time to time but all I ask is that you reply to my letter. I have already written Zach and Dalton so Jordan and Caleb expect one coming your way soon. I hope that isn’t too much to ask because I really want to know how you are doing! I love you all and miss you heaps and pray everything is going well in A Zed.

Wow it seriously is going too fast. I am loving this whole experience it is so humbling and I'm learning so much I seriously wish it would never end but I guess I do have to get married at some point, right? But still I am loving it all. It is just so incredible and I can't wait for the rest of you to join me in this labor of love!

Thank you Kevin Jones for your letter, the drawing of me riding a kangaroo was great, they only use the kangaroos to get around if you go more inland, I hope I have the chance to serve there. Also Aly Bevan thanks for your letter as well, your drawing of Australia was right on!

Building the Kingdom:
Brendan Burke- So we are still good for the baptism on the 30th but some things have come up. Nothing to do with his worthiness or anything just some technicalities, I think that is the right word. So we found that Brendan lives not only in a different ward’s boundary but in a different stake, Parramatta Stake (I am in Greenwich Stake). So now we have to deal with that. The ward is really worried because they had a similar situation which turned really really really really ugly! So we are trying to figure out which ward to do it in and all this other stuff. And of course the fellowship family, bishop, President Scruggs and the ward mission Leader all have different opinions about what should happen so I wont lie it is pretty stressful. I just pray that everyone remembers it is about him making covenants to God! That is really what it is all about. So we will see how this all unfolds!

Grace- So we picked up Grace from her friend Judy ( Judy is in Taiwan and we printed off Churches addresses and meeting times in Taipei so hopefully she goes) . We are going to be teaching Grace in a members home tomorrow and I see a lot of potential but really only time will tell.

Those are the only promising investigators. Hopefully we will pick up more. Good thing I am falling in love with finding!

My Week:
So looking at my week nothing really exciting happened. Wow Elder Brough is lame.

I went on an exchange with Elder Kerr, he is from South Carolina but grew up in Texas so he has a southern accent which the Australians love to tease him about! It was a great learning experience because he is even greener than me so I discovered that I am not as bad of a missionary as I thought I was. I actually know what I am doing which was very eye opening.

We also had interviews with President yesterday. I love President Scruggs! He is a spiritual giant and a stand up comedian at the same time he is hilarious! I am laughing out loud just thinking about what he said! The Chinese, Aussie, Indian and Tongan people sitting near me just looked up at me funny but still President is the best and I am sad he is leaving in July. So for interviews we meet as a Zone and learn how to be better missionaries, Elder Colton Dana is in my Zone if anyone was interested, it is really neat to see him here. President talked about some interesting numbers. Between now and April 46 new missionaries will be coming here. That means in April 80% of the mission will be out less than a year and 60% will be out less than six months. Come April over half the mission will be younger than me. Weird, I think but it should be fun! It is such a big turnover but I find it exciting!

That is what is going down with me down under! I love you all. The Church is true it is that simple! Have a good week and Remember Who You Are!!!

Elder Landon Raphael Brough

What's New Down Under

Sorry, I know this is a day late but we had the Temple this week so Preparation day was moved to Tuesday, hence why the email is coming right now. Man I love you all! I hope you are having a blast down in Brazil, the Southern hemisphere rocks! The Mission is so good I am loving it! I feel things are finally all clicking and falling into place and I am finally understanding what it takes to be a good missionary! I am far from where I want to be but everyday I coming closer and closer to becoming that missionary I want to be. I seriously love it so much! Just a side note, uhh, I need my other journal here as soon as possible. It might even be safe to say I need two more… so if you could send them down here that would be great. I looked at the distribution center here and they don’t have them and I really like the ones with the three rings because I can put pictures in it and stuff, so yeah that would be great! I love you all so much. Jordan, Dalton and Caleb don’t destroy the house I want to see it again.

Just so you know expect an email from a member from here named Rachel Laugery, just wanted to give you a heads up.

First off thank you Sanchez, Van Natter, Tilley, Gillette and Terry families for sending me a letter and your Christmas card. I loved them! Also thank you Bishop Askins and Morgan Rogers for the letters!

This week has been so good, also super hot, but it has still been good! Lets break it down!

Building the Kingdom:
Brendan Burke- So we taught him last week and yesterday. Last week I taught him about the Word of Wisdom and luckily he didn’t have a problem with that! We also taught him about keeping the Sabbath Day Holy, which is kind of tough for him because he is a manager of a Pizza Hut but he is really trying hard to make it work out. Then yesterday President Scruggs came out teaching with us because he just wanted to I guess, I didn’t want to ask too many questions but I was sure nervous. So Elder Vernon and I taught the Gospel and President chimed in a few times, it went very well and we set a baptismal date for the 30th of January so it went way good and we are way excited and President was very impressed so that was relieving!

Judy Chang- Judy is going back to Taiwan for six weeks and she leaves Saturday! So that is kind of sad but this past week when we taught her she brought a friend, Grace, who is interested and she understands a lot more… a lot more, she lives in an area of our area called Toongabbie so the goal of our next appointment with Judy, which is tomorrow is to pick Grace up and get her information so we can start teaching her!

Luke- Luke was a potential that we talked to. He is a little slow but wanted us to teach him, so we did. We taught him the Restoration. It was so neat when we were talking about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon his face lit up and when we challenged him to pray to know if it was true he threw us a grin and said I already know it is true! Which he really does, the veil is thinner for him! It was a really nice experience!

My Week:
This past Preparation day we played Ultimate with my district and some members and I tore it up! I represented the U.S.A. very well! No worries there!

I went on an exchange with one of the Zone Leaders, Elder Weston, he is from W.A. that’s Western Australia and he leaves at the end of this transfer, he is a way good guy. I was a little nervous for it though because it was in my area so I was the one leading us around and planning for it, but everything went really well and I found out I am not that bad of missionary, it was nice to learn that. Also we had a planned member lesson and I had the opportunity to share Stephanie Pickharts conversion story and it went really well so here is a shout out to Stephanie! Thank you so much for letting me be a part of that! I loved both your letters, they made my transfer!

So I had my first real Zone Conference, it went really well and I learned so much from President Scruggs and the other missionaries. We talked about this past year! Our goal for baptisms for 2009 was 252. Right now we have 251 and Church headquarters has 260 so we hope at least one of those nine will be ours, but still from what president said it was an incredible year. 33% increase from last year, not to shabby! We also learned how important members are. We learned as missionaries we spent 80% of our time ( Finding, Tracting, Street Contacting, etc) on 7% of the baptisms. We spent 20% on the other 93%. Those baptisms came from member referrals and part member families. I think that is amazing! Member work is so important so if you know of someone who you think might be interested; ask them, it won’t hurt anything.

If any of you are interested, Sister Scruggs started a blog, I think this is funny, for the mission. www.australiasydneynorthmission.blogspot.com. So if you want go check it out be my guest!

Mom you will love this! I have gotten multiple comments that it looks like I am losing weight!

Interesting about Australia:
So, no one here, well a lot of people don’t have air conditioning here. So the way they keep there homes cool is by getting these metal blind things that cover the window, and some times the door, completely so the sun won't come in. It is funny because it looks like they are expecting to be bombed or something, especially when you are tracting and you come across a home that has their windows and doors covered. I found it funny.

So when you are learning to drive here you have to put these metal plates on your car and it identifies what level of driver you are. It is nice because when you see those plates you stay as far away as possible!

Well it has been an amazing week, an amazing couple of months down under! Thank you all for your support and love! Keep in touch!

Love,
Elder Landon Raphael Brough

Happy New Year! 2010 is Here!

I really enjoyed the letter this week, I love getting your emails! Thank you so much for giving me Bernice Coy Brough's name. I am excited to see what happens with it! I love you guys so much! I am so happy! Like really happy, like I have never been so happy but I think about it and say why. I am tired and sweaty all the time. I am in a foreign land where I hardly know anyone and those I do know I have only known for a few months and I am stressed out about everything… but still I am happy! I am happy because I am a child of God and I know it! I know Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world and knows me personally and I know he is looking after me. That’s the happiness I have been really seeking, and I am finally starting to experience it. I love my mission so much! It is truly incredible! I have had so many challenges these past few months but I am thankful for it! As weird as this sounds I am thankful for every door slammed in my face for everybody who said, “I am to busy to listen”. I am thankful for them because I learn from them. I really can’t express how grateful I am to be here. Thank you so much for letting come on this adventure that has altered my life completely and I am so excited to see what is in store for me! I love you all and I can’t wait to see next year. I love this gospel and what it can and has done for people, including myself!

Oh I still need Seth's, Kevin's, Jake's and Nathan's Mission Office Addresses.

And can you give Aaron, Dallin, Nathan Zuniga and all the other guys who are going on their mission my email so they can email me their emails at some point I would love to be able to keep in touch. That would be great!

I love you so much!

It has been another slow week, people are still on holiday so we have had heaps of success. Hopefully this next week things will get better, people start to go back to work this week so I am thankful for that. To be honest the holiday season as a missionary is no fun! Thank you Dallin Gillette for the letter and I will be sending you one to MTC. Thank you Sami White for sending me the Christmas Card, I loved it!

Building the Kingdom:
Judy Chang- We visited her this week with one of the ward missionaries, David Laugery, he was really helpful. When we went we realized Judy was lacking faith completely! She said she looked at the Book of Mormon and the Bible as mere stories, that they are myths. So we are working on that with her and trying to stress that Jesus Christ is real and Joseph Smith is a Prophet off God.

Brenden Burke- We visited him this week; this time his girlfriend was not there she was at a YSA convention so her parents were there instead. Brenden wants to receive an answer but he doesn’t understand why it is not coming. We emphasised that you need to have patience and to keep doing what you are doing! I really feel he will receive one soon but we will see.

My Week:
So this week was New Years, and every year when I watch it on T.V. I always see Sydney having a huge Firework display and I am less than 50 miles away and I was sound asleep by 10:30 ( Actually just in bed laying there hearing all the fireworks going off, no fun) Maybe one day I can come here for New Years again and really celebrate. Both New Years Eve and New Years Day were deep clean days so that’s what we did. Our flat is so clean, let me tell you! The Zone Leaders also came by and shampooed our carpet.

The weather here is ridiculous this one day we woke up and it was cloudy, it later rained and it was 70 degrees then it warmed up to 95 then rained again and cooled off for a bit then got to 100 with 95 percent humidity and then it cooled off to 70 at night. It is so ridiculous I just can’t understand it!

This Sunday was Fast and Testimony meeting. It was ok at first, the microphone was out and it was hard to hear everyone because you have babies crying bloody murder, it was hard to focus. With 15 minutes left, at least for me, the meeting turned around. Te Raumiria got up and bore her testimony. It was nothing incredible but to see a nine year old, recent convert get up in front of complete strangers and bear her testimony was really sweet. I love being a missionary!

So something I love is bearing my testimony. For the first few weeks when we went tracting I was super nervous and did not enjoy it at all! I would go to the door, talk super fast trying to hit all the points and try to get a pass along card in the door before they closed the door. It really was not working and it bugged me and I was tired of it. So one day, I don’t know why I started doing this but I just bore my testimony, I would say I know this is the word of God and this has helped me in my life so much and it can do the same for you! That is not exactly what I say but along the same lines. People still slam doors and say no not interested but I have seen more people accept Book of Mormons and at least listen to us then before and I walk away with my testimony strengthened and I realize because of this book, that I carry around everyday, that I know is the word of God and can help people, it is because of that book that I get up every morning and go to the front lines and proclaim the truthfulness of it. I love the Book of Mormon and I love bearing my testimony of it!

I love you all so much and I can feel your love everyday! I am running out of interesting things about Australia because, well, it is becoming normal. I will still keep you informed when I notice something funny! I hope you all had a wonderful New Year and wish you all the best for 2010! ( Does anyone else find that 2010 looks weird, like the second zero is out of place? I don’t know I am weird.)

Elder Landon Brough