The last letter!!! July 16, 2012

SHUNNA!!! this is the last week and we are going harder than ever, i told elder seok 3 weeks ago i said listen we wont have enough time to get someone in the waters of baptism so we are going to build these people faith so they will have solid testimonies and for the miracle elder seok we are going to find 30 new investigators this is something that has never been done he looked at me and set lets do it and right now we have found 25 new investigators and we have heaps more potentials to follow up on things are sweet the spirit of the missionary work something that is different something that i will miss i gave it my best at times i wish i could have gave more but i know, i know! that heavenly father has excepted the service that i have given but now he expects me serve him the rest of my life tell everyone thank you for the support that they have given me thank you for all the encouragement and lets do this one last week. "he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it"

July 1, 2012

Well my broseph you again suceeded to be the only one that truly loves me
this week was hektek finally the exams were over and we saw some reall harvesting

happen it was awesome I looked at the planner on monday and it was blank monday to

sunday...and so on monday night i prayed harder that ever to be able to get a hold of

people so that we could teach the gospel and we had a miracle on our hands...we were

fortunate enough to find 9 new investigators that week it was awesome and a few of had

really spiritual expiriences at our appt. it was very good my faith has really increased these

last couple weeks as i have been reading the gospels trying to learn more of the savior and

his reallity..and my mind always wanders to the question do i have enough faith to be healed

by the savior do i really believe that his atonement can heal everything...i realized that my faith

really isnt that much its definately not the size of a mustard seed. I also pondered on the question

what thinks the savior of me? from elder andersons talk and as well as What would i ask the savior??

I have really learned in this area how delicate and what a gift it is from god but also how much we

have to nourish it.. i can see the difference in these chinese students from a 3rd person view. i can

tell if the are reading everyday and praying sincerely i know when their faith is growing because i can

feel the spirit radiate from them. we had an investigator Rick who 3 weeks ago had the faith to wrestle a bear

but this week he wimped and said that he wouldnt be able to have the courage to ask his supervisor to come to

church again. I asked him have you been reading everyday? no....maybe once. I learned a very important lesson

I must read the scriptures everyday! if i want a chance of returning to god. read pray and church with sincerity

will give me protection...now i understand why you always nagged me to read the scriptures...truth to be

told i had just never been shown how to read them so i never felt like i would get something out of it.

i have learned the importance.

I am a Desciple

Elder Stoddard

June 24, 2012

alright well you are the only one that has emailed me for the last 2 weeks so i am going to only

email you congratulations. Well we are just pushing along trying to help these people progress

in the gospel we are working hard and having fun so we are coming close to some more baptisms

but at the same time it is a little bit hard. There are two people that i have met since i have been

here in this area One of them is helene and patrick both of them i see ocasionally on the street

sometimes they dog me and sometimes the listen. for about 14 weeks this has been going on

i am really tired of talking to the people and i am pretty sure they are annoyed with me...but on

sunday as we walked back to church i saw helene and i put my head down and thought to myself

i am tired of talking to this girl...but then the still small voice said you need to talk to her again

but i really didnt want to so against my will i submitted to the spirit and proceeded to invite helene to

hear the gospel for probably the 18th time not joking....and she agreed haha. Next patrik he always

sets up appt. and then never comes but when i see him on the street he tells me he wants to know

his purpose in life? so i saw him sunday night after he rejected our calls and failed to reply to our txt

messages and i was no longer elder stoddard i became dj stoddard and i just said patrik what is your

problem and gave him a reality check and told him how it was...and he said i want to learn right now! haha

so me and elder seok were able to talk to him about the plan of salvation. the miracles never cease in the

work of the lord even though we are not worthy for his glory he always blesses us with tender mercies every

day that keep us thriving in this work...we just gotta find the one.

June 17, 2012

The week was good we had a baptism the dudes name was dexter

he is definately a kingdom builder for sure. we have had a very good

week lots of spiritual expirences and we have had alot of fun as well

we have alot of potential coming up we are looking to get about 5

people dunked before i leave this australian soil.. President Simmons

leaves next week its a bit stink that i will have a new mission president

for my last 3 weeks well you cant win them all right?? Elder Seok is

is really good it is amazing that you can make friends with people that

make little to no english with a completely different culture, that is the

beautiful thing about the gospel and the beautiful thing about australia.

things are good i am happy

elder stoddard

June 12, 2012

Well well well i survived another transfer in the busiest area

of the mission one more to go ladies... Elder seok is killing

me off that little dirty korean elder. I think he is more excited

for the things i will leave for him. this week has been awesome

I have really felt an added measure of the spirit the week

because i prayed and fasted that these next 6 weeks will be ones

to remember...Elder seok and i recieved special permission to go

to the temple today, it was awesome. we both recieved some really

good answers to direct us. It look like i have time for another miracle

to share with you all. We have been teaching a phd student named rick

he is from china we have been teaching for about three months now

and he really has a testimony of revelation and the book of mormon,

he is ready for baptism right now all he is lacking is coming to church

we taught him the sabbath day holy, he was a little doubtful so he told

us that he would pray and ask god if he needed to go to church on sunday

the next lesson he explained that he got a very strong answer from god.

The only problem is it can jepordize his apprenticeship for his PHD!! that he

only has 1 more year to complete... we testified that god would provide a way

that his supervisor would allow him 3 hours on the sunday. Rick accepted the

committment to talk to his supervisor but he was very scared because his

future was on the line.. that night we got a txt...He talked to his manager and

his mananger said that it was unbelievable that he believed in god(both of them come from buddhist background)

his manager tried to persuade to stop believing in this nonsense but rick

on the otherhand stood strong like nephi and told his supervisor how he really felt

and his supervisor has given him permission to attend church yes....

June 3, 2012

The week was good i had a lot more energy this week
we had alot of miracles we were able to get some more

people to church and i think a good story for the week is

our friend dexter. This week he came to church and he

had a new suit....dexter what kind of suit is that, dont

worry about it so i looked on the inside and it said HUGO BOSS

haha Dexter spent 2,000 dollars on a suit to come to church

in and we found out that he drives a ferrarri back home in china

as well...who says the rich dont accept the gospel...anyways love

everyone talk to you next week.

May 27, 2012

This week has been sweet, We have had some hektek miracles this week. Miracle overload if ther is any more i may end up going into cardiac arrest. I will share 3 of these miracles with you. Dexter he is a rich dude from bejing he drives a ferrarri and he is awesome we taught him about faith and i told him that sometimes god gives us commandments and we have to show our faith and obey even when we dont completely understand...he said umm elder i completely believe in this jesus thing i have been praying and so now i know it is true so it wont be a problem for me.. we proceeded to teach him the word of wisdom and suprisingly enough he said dont worry it is no longer a problem...okay, so then we taught him the law of chastity and he said yah it totally makes sense and yes i will obey this commandment as well so now dexter is preparing to be baptized on the 16 of june.

Next Miracle is Eric Yu he was so prepared he came to our first appointment and he said i completely believe in god and these are the books i read he proceeded to pull out the bible....wait and the book of mormon? what?!!? he had been reading the book of mormon for the past 3 years hahah golden child. We were way excited and the excitement didnt stop there, i told him that we begin each lesson in a prayer and i will offer the opening pray...he said elder is it alright if i say the prayer?? sure buddy go right ahead. anyway to make the long

story short Eric will be getting baptized on the 16 of june as well.

Next Amy and Serena, we were outside one of the classes at 830 and we asked this girl amy hey are you waiting for our appointment? completely knowing that she wasnt but it was a good way to not scare the little chinese girls at night time. she said no, then i told who we were and she said i am jehova witness. i asked if she was baptized she said no i asked how long she had been learning with the witnesses she said a year. I told her about the importance of baptism, i asked her if she wanted to be baptized?? she said that the jw's wont let her

i told her that god wants her to be baptized so he can bless her and he is not going to let the Jehova witnesses get in the way, she agreed with me and was interested to learn..the next morning she came with her friend and we taught them the restoration and really focused on praying and the told us that the jehova witnesses wouldnt let them pray i said well the jehova witnesses is a false church and our heavenly father wants and commands us to pray to him. I asked them what this message meant to them and they explained that they have been looking for the truth for a year now and the finally feel like they are getting close...She asked how do i know if the is true?? Pray, and god will give you your answer and both of them started smiling and they explained that this was much simpler and more logical than what they were taught before. and they said a prayer and we left. we will set a date with them this week for the 30th of june. June is on firrrrre