Entheos

G'day!

This week has been splendid! We got to go contacting on Rundle Mall this week, and there were other preachers there which I have not seen before. There was this one man, yelling at the top of his lungs, "HE IS THE GREAT I AM..." and some other things, waving a bible around. It was pretty scary to be honest. I have never seen that outside of the movies, when I saw it in real life I was amazed that people actually do that! When we are contacting on Rundle Mall we abide by the permit laws and we stand there saying hello to people and not being too pushy. When people are interested they come up and talk to us. We have some amazing contacts that way because God literally leads the elect into your path. While I was standing there a former investigator came up to me and said hello and exclaimed, "This is God! He lead us together again!" It was wonderful to see her one last time. 

This weekend was also very special as we had a lot of events to go to. We had Marion Stake Conference and an invitation Sunday up in Paralowie. They are on the complete opposite ends of Adelaide. Saturday evening Sister Townsend and I went down to Marion for the adult session of conference, which was awesome! We had the displays but we also got to listen. They had an area Seventy there and he gave an amazing talk. Lots of it stood out to me. One of my favourite things he mentioned was hope means: Having an optimistic perspective eternally. He also mentioned that the word enthusiasm is a Christian word. It was given to early Christians, first being the word Entheos, which means, "God is with them". 

Do we have enthusiasm for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and do we show it? I know that God is with us. I know that He lives and loves us, as we turn to Him in sincere prayer God will reveal all things to us in His time. 

On Sunday Sister T and I went on splits, she went up to Paralowie to do the event there and I went down to Onkaparinga for the Sunday Session of Stake Conference. That was a very special experience for me because if you can recall, that was my first area, and I spent half my mission in the Marion stake. I got to see so many wonderful people who mean a lot to me. It was such a blessing that I got to go there the week before I complete my mission. I feel so blessed. I also was given the opportunity to bear my testimony to the whole mission over a conference call because I did not get the chance to in the last specialty training because we had to leave for a PVC event. That has never been done before, so that was very special, and nerve wracking for me. I wanted to make sure I gave the missionaries my best encouraging advice and help them to feel of my sincere testimony of Christ and the restored gospel.

The Lord Jesus Christ lives. He is my Saviour and he has chosen me to represent Him. To stand in His place, to say and do the things that He would say and do if he personally were ministering to the very people to whom He has sent me. My voice is His voice, and my acts are His acts, my words are His words, and my doctrine is His doctrine. My commission is to do what He wants done, to say what He wants said. To be a living modern witness in word, and deed of the divinity of this great and marvelous latter-day work. How great is my calling! I know that the Lord is within the seams of this work, he is constantly by my side, leading me, guiding me and lifting me. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the Lord's kingdom once again restored to this Earth through a prophet of God. How glorious is that? Our Father in Heaven loves us so much that He continues to call prophets to lead us and guide us home to Him. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, I sustain him as the President of the church and I know that he serves and leads the literal Church of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ stands at the head. The Book of Mormon is the word of God, it is another witness of the glory of Christ, I know this because I have read it, prayed about it, and it has been revealed to me through the Holy Spirit. I know that you can know too as you read and pray with sincerity of heart and real intent. 

Let us go out and LIGHT THE WORLD! Spread the love of Christ and serve and take on this new Christmas initiative. www.mormon.org

I also know that Australia, specifically Adelaide is the promised land!!! Miracles have been wrought here, it is sacred ground.

Heaps of love from down under,

Sister Coultrup

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Sister Bethany Victoria Coultrup

Australia Adelaide Mission

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Kangaroo Steak

G'day!

This week it has started to get really hot. It was 38 degrees yesterday. I forgot what it was like. It is like when you open the oven and you get a massive wave of intense heat, except it is constant and I just walk around the city in awe thinking how on earth people can actually live in this heat.

On Thursday we had a Relief Society Christmas dinner. It was lovely but I was so confused as to why they did it half way through November. We have so much time left until Christmas! We had our Recent Converts come, like Tanya, and a less active lady who hasn't attended any church thing in 10 years!!! That was a miracle. She has never come to anything we have invited her to before.

Christmas dinner

Also this week we were able to take Niki to do temple baptisms for the first time! And it was really special because Summer and Dana came too! Also Summer's friend from Melbourne, who is in the Chinese Branch there, came. It was so special! We took a lot of pictures because all the Chinese are going back to China for Spring Festival. And so we wouldn't really see each other again. It has been amazing to see Niki and Dana grow into the faithful woman they are. Today we had Dana join us in a lesson with a new investigator and Dana was amazing! Testifying all over the place and encouraging to pray because she "KNOWS" it will help. It was wonderful. 

This weekend Sister Townsend and I went to the Modbury Stake Conference with the PVC's. That was cool, also I got to meet a new Sister from Thailand who knows Sister Remington. So we took a picture together! 

Temple baptisms

My companion and I wanted to be adventurous and actually had a dinner time at home for once, so we made... Kangaroo Steak! My first time having Kangaroo! It was nice. I had imagined it would have a magical kangaroo taste, whatever that would taste like I don't know. It just tasted like normal steak. 

Anyways, that is all for now.

Heaps of love,

Sister Coultrup

Kangaroo Steak

--

Sister Bethany Victoria Coultrup

Australia Adelaide Mission

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

I just love doing the PVC

New sister from Thailand

Ready, Set, Drive to Mildura!

G'day!

This week consisted of heaps of finding. We were in the City from 10am-9pm everyday and basically just talked to people all day. It was exhausting but great! We did mini finding trade offs with the other Sisters in the City too throughout the week to change things up a bit so it didn't get too repetitive. 

In front of the museum

This weekend was Remembrance Day. There were beautiful displays all throughout the city. That day was 35 degrees, the hottest day of the season yet! Then all of a sudden randomly, we had a lightening storm, out of nowhere! It just chucked it down! We were soaked to the bone, no jackets or anything. It looked like I just got out the shower! I have never been in a summer storm before! It was WARM rain, and humid, that I actually didn't mind! But it made it really hard to talk to people. 

This looks like a good place to do some finding

In the City on Saturday there was a Christmas Pageant, which basically means parade here in Australia. It was a MASSIVE one! So many people and so many floats! People would line up and save good spots starting at 4am, and the thing didn't start until 9am. When we entered the City it was overflowing with people and they were blasting Christmas music. It was really confusing considering We still have 6 weeks until Christmas. But people were in a Christmasy mood and we could very easily connect that to Jesus Christ. "Oh hey, you like Christmas? Do you know the true meaning of Christmas? Well let me tell you all about it!" 

Dangerous Redback, glad it was dead

This weekend we were surprised by a call from the assistants to the President, and we were told that we were going to Mildura, again! They were having a Fireside and President really wanted us to go and take the display and do a presentation for the people out there. President was out in Mildura too because they just had Specialty training. But they wanted us to go on splits, basically for me to train a new Sister on how to use the displays. So I got to go with Sister Caesar to Mildura. It was a great drive, very beautiful and deserty, as you would expect the bush to look like. But it wasn't full on bush like the NT. In Mildura we did a simple presentation on missionary work in the mission to get the members excited and explained how we can get involved using social media. It was really fun, I love presenting. I used to be really scared thinking. I am just a 20 year old girl and you want me to do a presentation for the whole third hour of church to the whole ward? Or the whole fireside? But now that I have done it a lot I have built confidence and I actually enjoy it. President and Sister Parker had never seen us present before and they loved it too.

Beautiful drive to Mildura

It was a great week, hoping there are no more summer storms and that it actually gets warm.

Heaps of love!!!

Sister Coultrup 

Running into the Presidency...

G'day!

It has been another amazing week! But very busy! For Pday we got to go the Temple as a City Zone! I am so grateful for the eternal blessings that we receive from the Temple. I especially love the Adelaide Australia Temple :) 

On Friday evening we organized a ward activity. It was a potluck dinner and Auslan night. Now that Tanya is a member, we need to get serious about looking after her. We already had two members that could speak some sort of sign language and other members have been learning very little over the time she has been coming to church. So we organized this activity for the ward to come together and learn some basic Auslan! We had a lovely dinner then split into groups where my companion and I taught different basic communication signs. Like introducing yourself, finger spelling, everyday small talk, etc. It was a great success and at the end of the night everyone was introducing themselves to Tanya and she was so happy! She was just beaming. Whenever someone signs to her she lights up. Something I have learned on my mission is how important communication is, which is something we all take to granted. Try to talk to Chinese people with very limited English is frustrating, so I have tried to pick up some basic Chinese so they can understand the nature of our message. Not being able to communicate with Tanya was difficult as well, but as I progressed in learning her language it was such a blessing for the both of us! It was wonderful to see the ward getting on top of missionary work and fellow-shipping new members.

On Saturday we had a Zone Specialty training with President and Sister Parker and the Assistants. But we had two back to back PVC events in the afternoon so we only got to attend the morning of the training :( Which was amazing! All about integrity and member work, in which President invited my companion and I to share what happened with our Auslan activity and also the upcoming PVC stake events we were going to do to encourage members to participate in missionary work. 

The first event that evening was a baptism down in Onkaparinga of a family that I taught the first 6 months of my mission... They requested I be there, and I feel so blessed that I was! Many tears of joy.

We also attended the baptism of one of the assistants investigators back in Firle, and did a presentation during the intermission of the baptism. 

On Sunday Sister Townsend and I were double booked, the Stake President requested that we do a PVC presentation in the wards on Sunday. A combined whole third hour presentation. Last Sunday we did it in Morialta ward together and it went really well, the ward was really excited for missionary work and we had many members approach us saying they want to help or how they can do certain things. But yesterday we had to do two wards at the same time. So we went on splits and both had to give the presentation on our own to the whole ward for 45 minutes. I was so nervous, even though I had done it before, I had never not done it without a companion. I was with another Sister but she didn't have any experience with what we have been doing. Nevertheless, the presentation went really well and the stake president complimented me afterwards.

That evening was also a multi-stake missionary fireside. We had all the PVC's up there and it was wonderful. I got to see people from all my old areas. It really made me happy. There were also some very spiritual moments with investigators that attended and we were able to teach them and use the PVC as a resource.

Something I forgot to mention last week, was that when we took Dana through the temple, with two other Recent Converts as well, it was at the time of the Pacific Area's Mission Presidents Seminar. Which had all 16 MP's with their wives, the Pacific Area Presidency and Elder Ballard was supposed to be there but couldn't come. We just so happened to rock up to the temple at the end of the Mission Presidents Seminary Temple session. They all filed out and we got to meet everyone, it was overwhelming for myself but also for Dana. And I was kind of freaking out thinking we just did something really wrong interupting this. But President was really pleased Dana was going to the Temple. Then we met the whole Area Presidency! And even got a Picture with President Nielsen and his wife and President and Sister Parker! :) That was great.

I hope you all have a fantastic week. Love you all so very much!

Love from down under,

Sister Coultrup

--

Sister Bethany Victoria Coultrup

Australia Adelaide Mission

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints