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