Koalas, Apostles, and Smartphones- May 20, 2018

Koalas:

So last P-day (after the video call home) one of the members here took us to Simbio wildlife park (basically a zoo). Unfortunately my camera died halfway through, so we're still waiting for the member to send us the pictures. I'll try and include the ones I got before my camera died though. This zoo was cool because we were able to feed the kangaroos (!!!!) It was pretty cool. (: something I wasn't expecting was that they actually have pretty sharp claws on their front legs. One of them got me a little on the back of my hand (several were trying to get to the food at the same time), but it's all good because who wouldn't want a battle scar from a kangaroo? haha. 

Apostles:

So yesterday, we had a combined mission conference with the north mission where we had President Ballard, Elder Stevenson, and 6 members of the 70 come speak to us. It was also really cool, but in a different (better) way than the kangaroos. They gave a lot of good advice to both missions, but mostly it centered around not being afraid to open your mouth. They were both really funny and it was cool to see them crack a few jokes. Elder Smith and I got the front row on the end, so when they walked in, Elder Stevenson grabbed my shoulder and spoke to me for probably 30 seconds while they were getting everything set up. Nothing too crazy. But as I was sitting there and looking at President Ballard, I had the realization that he wrote a lot of the missionary materials. While he was talking, it felt like he was looking directly at me a lot. Elder Smith noticed it too. It was pretty cool. 

Smart Phones: 

So we are getting smart phones in our mission. Elder Smith and I had talked about the possibility of getting technology in our mission, but we both agreed that it would probably never happen. So the announcement was a pretty big surprise. It will definitely speed up the work here, but I have a great respect for President Runia. He will have to come in right as the two missions are combining, as well as oversee the implementation of smartphones. 

That's about all from this week!

Elder Nelson