Another great week!

Good Morning Everyone! I hope everything is going well, it's been a great week here in Trott Park!

Tuesday Oct 14, 2014- We had Zone Training today and honestly everyone believes it was the best training we've all had on our missions! Usually trainings are given to improve our teaching skills but this training was all centered on pure testimony of God. We do "real" plays all the time on the mission where we role play/practice teaching in companionship. Me and Elder Dass role played with two Sister Missionaries and it was amazing. Our purpose was to not really blast with information but to teach how God is Our Loving Heavenly Father solely from bearing personal testimonies. We all we're doing this role play in this room and pretty soon enough the tears flowed. there was such a spirit in that room as we all testified of the Love and relationship we all have with our Father in Heaven. You know, I feel the spirit in a lot of different ways but during this role play, I actually felt that "burning in my bosom", an actual burning sensation in my chest, it felt like my whole being wasn't able to handle that wonderful feeling and yet I can't explain a better feeling in the world. I know God lives. We can all Know. Just talk to him. After the training we just had to go to Maccas (McDonald's) which is always fun. We then went to go do service for the Watts and then they fed us Domino's.

Friday Oct 17, 2014- We had lunch with Sister Chambers today, she fed us fish and chips! I've grown to love fish and chips haha. Sister Chambers is Bishop Chambers mother and she is literally like my grandma on the mission. She is always checking in on us, always sowing our ripped clothes, always feeding us, and always loving us. She's so great. We went finding after that and this day was quiet possibly one of the rudest people days I've had on my mission. People were just so rude! I don't get it sometimes how people can be so nasty but I guess Satan just really doesn't want us out here but when we have God behind us, who can stand against us? We were pretty upset that no one would talk to us so we said a prayer to find someone to help and as soon as we said the prayer we walked over to guys moving wood named Jim, he is from Czech Republic and he was so happy to see that we wanted to help. We moved the wood for him and after we finished he got teary eyed and said, "My whole life I have never ever had any stranger just come up and help me, I feel touched, thank you." I know that God was testing our faith with those rude people to see if he could trust us to walk in the path of Jim. He agreed to a return appointment so hopefully we see him next week!

Saturday Oct 18, 2014- We went to a former investigator named Craig today to introduce him to Elder Dass. Every time he has someone new over he just has to show them his "toys". So he went on to show us his personal theater which was sweet, his vintage car, and his knife collection, real good guy, hopefully someday he will decide to take the lessons. We went to go visit a few families that day just to get Elder Dass acquainted with the members which was great! We then had a lesson with David, he is still going off on which drugs are allowed because he's not willing to live the Word of Wisdom. Then later that night at about 2:30 AM he started leaving like 15 voice mails just chewing us out on a bunch of rubbish. That was the last straw. DROPPED.

Sunday Oct 19, 2014- Great news! We found a family! Ronnie and Mellisa Matthews who are both from New Zealand and have 5 kids. We met Ronnie a few weeks ago refurbishing a roof and we got to see them yesterday and taught them about the Book of Mormon and their more than happy to read and pray about it. Their Jehovah's Witness so we'll see how it all ends up but it's looking good so far.

That's it for this week. I love you all!

Elder Acker

Testimony

Hello Everyone! I hope everyone enjoyed General Conference this past weekend! I know I sure did! So many inspiring thoughts and revelations given from these Prophets and Apostles. let's all strive our best to become more and more like our Savior Jesus Christ everyday. Always look for ways to improve, and apply all the things these inspired Men of God share to us. If you haven't seen these talks yet visit "LDS.org". I KNOW THAT THESE MEN ARE CALLED OF GOD AND THAT WE DO INDEED HAVE A PROPHET OF GOD ON THE EARTH NAMED THOMAS S. MONSON.

Oct 8, 2014- First day with my new companion, Elder Dass, he is a crack up! We definitely are having fun together and I definitely can see miracles happen in the Trott Park area this transfer! We had dinner with the Robbins family that night and they fed us tater tot casserole. Bit weird haha. But it's always so great to go their house because they are all return missionaries. The parents, the daughter, the daughters fiance, and the brother. We had some pretty good conversations on how we can find people to teach so that was pretty inspiring! We then had a lesson with Andrew Shore that night and we just read the Book of Mormon with him.

Oct 9, 2014- District Meeting was today and Elder Dass gave the training for the first time as a District Leader. He did great! It was pretty different at first in District Meeting because Eder Tau and Sister Christensen weren't there but I know that I've just gotta move on and be happy with my district now! After District meeting, we went with the Woodcroft Elders to a Chinese buffet, I was so full I almost died. We then later that night went home teaching with Brother Scott to see 3 widows, it was great to go out with him that night and to build better relationships with the members.

Oct 10, 2014- We started off the morning by going to Sister Chambers house to get all the Less Active info we can, we plan to smash finding through the less actives this transfer. So Excited! We then went to go see David, our investigator who is on house arrest, he asked us to go get money at the ATM for him so we did and we soon found out that he was using that money to snatch drugs from his dealer. We felt a little bit irritated by that, but all we could do was show love to him. He is really struggling with mental issues and that day he was feeling really down because he says his life is going all down hill. The spirit prompted me to read D+C 121 to him to relate Joseph Smiths experience with struggle. That caught his attention and then we both bore powerful testimony of Christs atonement and how He knows exactly what David is going through, David's attention was then caught I have a testimony of bearing testimony frequently. I've had so many times in my mission where I've been bible bashed, ignored, not listened to, etc. but every single time those situations come about I bear my testimony and they stay quiet and listen. There is power in bearing personal, pure testimony. Anyone can intellectually question our church but no one can question a heartfelt testimony. We the did service for Sister Toker by mowing her lawn and it was an old fashioned awn mower without any motor or electricity, it was so great! We then had dinner at Bishops, we had Chile con Carne. Bishop is a real good ball player and he's been waiting for the chance to play me one and one, it's gotta happen soon :) We then had a lesson with Andrew that night and he just went on and on about things he has a ready told us a million times, I was pondering in my head what to say and the thing that came to my mind was to be bold with him so I asked him, "Andrew, do you feel like your benefiting from our message, or do you fee like your happy where you are?" He said "I like to fellowship with you" and I said "Are you with us to fellowship or are you here to learn?" That question caught him off guard but now we know that he's looking for "fellowship". Sometimes we just need to be bold to figure out what these people expect out of us.

Oct 11, 2014- We met a guy today named Ron who was putting up Christmas lights! For those that know me well enough, they know that I'm a freak when it comes to Christmas, I was so dang excited. He says that he does a big light show on his house so I'm excited to see once it's all up!

Thats all that has happened this week, oh and aso me and my companion are in the Stake Choir which is fun!

But I love all you so much, Stay Firm!

Elder Acker

Building testimony and missing friends

Hey Everyone!

Thought I would let you know first off that I'm staying in Trott Park again... another 6 weeks. And my new companion is Elder Dass from Sydney. He has a Fiji background and is a real cool Elder, a lot different than Elder Tau though, I miss that guy. We had District Meeting today and something just felt off. I think its because Elder Tau has left and also Sister Christensen who is by far my favorite Sister of all time. She just went home to Washington. With them two gone today, I felt pretty down actually. You build such great relationships on the mission and then you just get separated all of a sudden. But I know that I've just got to stay patient and adjust myself to the circumstances now.

Nothing much has happened since the last time I wrote but we had a beautiful testimony meeting on Sunday. It was Sister Christensen's last Sunday. Everyone has always told me that they have had experiences where their sitting in sacrament meeting and their heart starts pounding and they get this feeling like they HAVE to get up and speak. I've never felt that before until that Sunday. I just had to get up there. So I got up there and bore my testimony, and showed my appreciation for the members and missionaries in my ward, and I could not hold back my tears. I LOVE these people and I don't want to leave them.

Me and Elder Dass started the Transfer today so I hope and pray it will go well. Please Pray that me and Elder Dass may be effective instruments in the Lord's hands.. we need it.

I Love you all and I'll talk to you Monday :)

Elder Acker

The work goes on...

Hello everyone! Sorry for not emailing last week, its been a hectic 2 weeks, very very busy! Transfers are this Tuesday so I don't know if I'll be staying in Trott Park or not but I'll officially be here for half a year, crazy! 

I'll run you through the week to catch you all up with whats going on here in Adelaide

First off being that we 5 investigators at the moment. George, Andrew, David, Jim, and Mona.

George is a single man in about his 60's. He is a Seventh Day Adventist and he just talks our ear off, and he has a hard time focusing, we gave him a Book of Mormon but every time we ask him a question he always goes off on something and doesn't even answer our question. Like one time we asked him how he think God is going to answer his prayers and he started talking about American Presidents. But he's reading the Book of Mormon so that's good.

Andrew is a 60 year old man whose wife is a member of the church but she is in a nursing home so he is living on his own. He's come to church the past 6 weeks but still struggles with doctrine.

David is in his 40's and is meeting with us every week but he's always on drugs when we teach him :/ but he's been coming to church the past 3 weeks.

Jim and Mona are from Egypt, are Catholic and have a hard time accepting a modern day Prophet.

So here is our teaching pool so whenever I say their name you'll know who they are :)

Sep 19- We went to Davids house to teach him and when we knocked at the door his wife came to the door and said that he was arrested. He's gotten in trouble with the law a lot so it came down on him again. We helped his wife by cleaning the walls from all his drunk fits resulting in alcohol thrown at walls and smashed furniture and walls.

Sep 20- Had a ward activity doing service at a local primary school and Andrew came, he's really fellow shipping with the ward.

Sep 26- Had a trade off with Elder Orr from Canada in Victor Harbor, a beautiful area.

Sep 30- Had a trade off with Elder Beard from Utah in Hackham West, the ghetto of Adelaide, talked to quite a bit of drugged up people.

Oct 1- Did some service for Sister White in our ward by removing roots and and building rock walls around her garden, she then gave us a roasted chicken which was great! We then went to go see a brother in our ward named Brother Scott, he knows Andrew a bit and we were quites surprised about what he showed us, heaps of newspaper articles with Andrews face on it showing that he has been on the news for being sent to prison for some pretty bad things. I won't go into details because I feel like its quite inappropriate. But ya 2 investigators I have are convicts....

Love you all and I'll talk to you all on Monday.

Elder Acker