First Report from the Mornington Ward

Hi everyone.

So this week has been a little bit more productive. We have really been striving to go tracting for two hours everyday, but the area is pretty big and sometimes we are bad about calculating travel time into the actual door knocking. The members are super great here and the youth are super cool. They recently took a trip to the beach and did a slip and slide. They made a video that is on YouTube. I don't know what it is called, but it should be like "world's best slip and slide" or something like that. 

The ward I serve in is the Mornington ward if that means anything. The second counselor in the stake presidency served a mission in Colorado North mission in 1995. His name is Hope but he said he served in Boulder and Northglen, which is pretty cool (small world). I guess the biggest thing that I've learned is that even though it sometimes doesn't feel like you are accomplishing much (with less effective methods - e.g., tracting), you are still doing what the Lord has asked you to do. I guess that even though we don't have an active investigators right now, as long as we are going out and doing what we are commanded to do, we will be able to plant seeds and hopefully down the road something will happen. 

The members are really good about feeding us, so that's pretty great. On Wednesday night it started to rain while we were at missionary correlation at the church, which is like 20 minutes from the flat. We wanted to get back by 9, so we put on some trash bags we made into ponchos and headed home. that must have looked so funny! On Thursday it was raining again, but we got on our bikes and got to work. Hopefully someone sees how crazy dedicated we are and will let us in: - ) 

I'm sorry to hear about Ryan Deakin's loss - that stinks! I know he will be better. It seems like Huff does well during the season and then at state he blows chunks; whereas Ryan seems to just get better. No doubt Ryan will be the man. 

Miss you all, but time goes by too quickly!

Love,

Elder Otterson

PS - we just got a couple of pictures from when Adam first arrived in Melbourne.  The photos have been added to the posting from his first report from Australia.