The Work in Australia

Here are some snippets from the last few emails Jared has sent us. He's still the same Jared, but I can see the growth in him and feel his excitement as he is fully immersed in the Gospel and serving the Lord, and witnesses the miracle of conversion and how true testimony changes lives.
He still relates goofy experiences too, which is very "Jared" as he finds joy in the funny, simple things of life.

"Right now we have 4 people with a baptismal date, we have this awesome guy named Mark. He's Philippino. We taught him the restoration the other day and we asked him to read and pray about Joseph Smith. He's like I'll read and pray but I don't really need to I already know it's true. That was awesome. But he's still going to read.
Ben, he's Australian, he loves the good book and loves talking about the book of revelations and the millenium. He's really funny. Some J.W's popped by his house the other day and they showed him the thing at the end of the book of revelations and he was like why are you trying to slam the book of mormon, it's a good book as well. He's solid as.
We have this guy named George that is kinda torn between the catholic church and us. But he'll come around.
And then there is Fred that seems like he's drunk 24/7 but he believes that we have the authority."

"Okay, so we had an investigator named Fu, he couldn't ever come to church because he worked at a bar, got off at 4am and would go to bed so he wouldn't wake up in time to go to church. So me and Elder Peterson prayed and fasted that he would get a job and guess what? He is getting another job. And he suffered from crazy bad depression. And now he's reading the Book of Mormon and he's as happy as can be."

"So we talked to this Indian guy named Gary. He lives in the same set of flats that we do and we gave him a Joy to the World dvd. On friday we went over to check up on him to see if he had a chance to watch it. Gary wasn't home but Sami was, he was with Gary that same night. Sami invited us in and we taught him and Gary's sister Jessie the restoration. and asked them both to read the introduction (the last two paragraphs) and 3 Nephi 11. We were coming home late saturday night and they just got home as well. Jessie came up to me and said. I have something to tell you. " In my country our parents discourage any of us to join any form of christian religion. Because if we join and we go back to our country they will kill us." She continued.. "but after reading the pages you left me I know that it is true and I want to join your church."
Freaking booya. It was so freaking cool. I freaking love Jessie."

"Last week Bernard came to church, and the Christmas party. We took Bernard to a baptism and then had a restoration lesson with him afterward. He had heaps of questions which was really good. Because of time we couldn't answer them all but it was pretty good to see how sincere he was. We took him to the Christmas devotional where the prophet spoke. And me and Elder Peterson sat on either side of him. He said that he felt that two angels were sitting on both sides of him, and that he could feel God's love in the chapel. He told us that he wants to be baptized but that he wants to learn more first.
It was awesome."

"k, so me and my comp are running for this tram and we totally missed it. But that was because God wanted us to miss it. We ran into a member from the east mission and she tells us that her husband just had surgery and that he wanted a blessing. We go and give him a blessing and then give him the sacrament on Sunday. He was so freaking cool. That guy was faithful to the days."

"So at church the other day some kid let off the fire extingusher. There was smoke and powder everywhere. Our investigator Matt was like, I need to come to church more often, this is awesome. hahaha. It was funny, got some pics of it hahaha."