The Strange Land Of Whyalla

This week was the most fun I've ever had on my mission! I love being able to do exchanges to far away places like Whyalla, a 4.5 hour drive! It was a little road trip/vacation almost.

We had Zone conference on Tuesday and it went really well. Elder Gottfredson and I gave a training on "the Doctrine of Christ towards our conversion". We explained to the missionaries that we need to keep furthering our conversion to the Lord each and everyday. We do that by studying the words of God and deepening our understanding towards his gospel. We explained that there is a difference between a testimony and being converted.  A testimony is "Knowledge and a spiritual witness given by the Holy Ghost." And conversion is "Changing one’s beliefs, heart, and life to accept and conform to the will of God." Before I studied about this I thought they were basically the same thing, but they are really not because a testimony is an event and conversion is a life long process. Somone could have a testimony of the gospel and never get baptised and accept following his commandments, but in order to be converted you have to enter into the Covenant of baptism and endure to the end, never give up on the Lord and always put Him before anything else and partake of the sacrament so we can renew that Covenant that we made with the Lord. I thought that was cool, and it made things more clear in my head at least.

And then... we traveled to Whyalla to do a 3 day exchange and it was so fun! Worked Hard and played hard and saw some strange things, Whyalla is a small town and very depressing looking; it's filled with old people that are so hard in their hearts. Unfortunately, they don't notice how much they need the gospel in their lives. But anyways, while we were up there we found 4 aboriginal families that really want to hear the gospel. Which is great!  And then we get to our last door... and give the door a few knocks and whoosh! the door opens and this big lady is standing there.  We say hello and then we see something and  Elder Hranicky and I are thinking in our heads "is she wearing tan pants?" And then we realize there are NO PANTS, NO. NOTHING ON HER LEGS! and I was in the middle of giving my gospel spiel and I couldn't hold it together and start laughing!  And then Elder Hranicky starts laughing! (face palm) and she gets a little offended and says " it's alright you guys can laugh I never wear pants anyways so you can deal with it"  We were just like alright we gotta run, but hopefully next time you answer the door wear some pants PLEEEEEZA! I'm begging you! What a bruh moment.

We also had a fun time celebrating the birthday of Elder Hranicky!  I spent some of my weekly money to buy him a pinata and party hats to help celebrate his birthday.  After our missionary work, we had some fun before going to bed.  Elder Hranicky's mom sent some cupcakes to him so we feasted on those, watched him crush the unicorn pinata with the broom handle and then we played some silly games to end the night before bed.  We decided to make it interesting by having some punishments if you did not win a round. So we would play a quick game of cards 3 times and whoever did not win one of the three games, they had to eat something gross.  And lucky me!  I never lost!!! I did have fun whipping up a gross shake for Elder Hardman a greenie from Brisbane.  I added greek yogurt, garlic powder, tomatoes, rotten ham, water and a tim tam cookie!  It was just terrible and he drank it!  Haha!  Elder Hraniky (the birthday boy) had to drink a raw egg and boy did he hate that!  He's a guy from Texas and may actually go to Snow college to walk on the basketball team, so that would be legit for me! And my good companion, Elder Gottfredson ate a dead fly we found off the ground...haha!  Don't worry, I got it all on video.  Memories for a lifetime.  If you're not having fun while being a misisonary, you are not doing it right. : ) 

That's basically the week! Just grindin findin and baptizin 

-Elder Bishop

Pictures:

Birthday cupcakes for Elder Hranicky

Pizza party and party hats

Peep the gnome butt with Elder Hardman

Cuddle Fish Painting

Elder Hardman sniffing his loser shake 

Someone didn't answer ther door, so I left them this message :)