Monday 13 July 2015

Encounters with Shelob

Hello Family and Friends,

This week has been wonderful and very busy! As usual. On P-Day we went to Victor Harbour. It is 45 mins away from where I stay, but the drive was beautiful. The whole zone went. We walked around Granite Island, it is a tiny island just off the coast, there as a long walk-way across the water to get to it. You could see Dolphins and Whales and Seals! The Island was gorgeous and I had a blast, it was such a great day. It was nice to get to know the other missionaries better as well and I got some cool photos. 






We had another Multi-Zone Conference, but this time with our new mission president! President Parker and Sister Parker are wonderful! Wow, we are so blessed to have received people like them. They have so much love and excitement, I look forward to getting to know them better. The new mission motto is "Catch the wave in Adelaide, it begins with obedience and ends with gratitude." The conference was great and I learnt a lot. President has given us a task/challenge to read 8 pages of the Book of Mormon a day so that we can all start and finish at the same time in 10 weeks. Everyone was shocked and I still wonder when I am going to find time to do this. Our personal study time is meant for studying for our investigators, I think I am just going to have to read during lunch. I also had an interview with President Parker, it was the best! The spirit was so strong and I am grateful to have had that experience. Afterwards President and Sister Parker took just Sister Funaki and I out for dinner! We wanted to go to a nicer restaurant but we couldn't find one, so we stuck with McDonald's. We had a lovely chat and the spirit was strong again, even in McDonald's. It was kind of strange sitting in McDonald's eating Burgers and Chips with our President but it was an experience I won't forget! They are truly called of God! 




This week we took one of our investigators to the Adelaide Temple. We did a little walk around and she was allowed to sit inside the temple waiting room. It was my first time in that temple as well so I was very excited! Temple's are a little piece of Heaven on Earth. No matter where you go in the world the spirit in the Temple will never change because it is the Lord's house. Our investigator enjoyed the experience and wants to learn a lot more about the Plan of Salvation now. 
Trade-offs this week was fun! I loved my companion I was given, but I was to lead in my own area! I was pretty nervous, luckily nothing went terribly wrong as I was expecting. I actually did okay! Sister Travers and I got along very well, she is lovely. We had a terrifying experience though. 


On Friday night we dropped by Anne's (investigator) house to have a lesson. We had a great lesson and it was time to leave. So we do the usual "goodbyes, see you on Sunday" thing as Anne opens the door. Sister Travers is half way out the screen door as I glance at it and scream. THE BIGGEST SPIDER I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE WAS ON THE DOOR. Anne then screams, Sister Travers screams and runs outside and lets the screen door slam, then Anne slams the normal door. So at this point, I am inside with Anne and Sister Travers is outside, and the spider is trapped between the door and the screen door. I am panicking not only because there was Shelob between Sister Traver's and I but also because I couldn't see my companion! Anne refused to open the door, which I don't blame her, and there was no other way out of the house other than climbing through a window. My heart is pounding and my skin is crawling and we are all still screaming. Sister Travers is trying to be brave by opening and slamming the screen door to scare it away so I can get out of the house. Apparently the spider kept jumping between the door and screen and wouldn't run off. We did this for about 10 minutes until it finally ran off. When it did Anne opened the door and pretty much pushed me out of the house, haha! Then we RAN to the car because who knows, Shelob could've been anywhere. It took the whole drive home for us to calm down. Sister Travers is from Tazmania and told me that it was a Huntsman spider, it was as big as my Dad's hand. MASSIVE, too big. I get chills thinking about it.

We still have baptism dates lined up but we have to push the one for the 19th back because he is going out of town for a week and so we won't be able to teach him the rest of the lessons on time for him to be baptised. We have a bunch of potentials to follow up with, hopefully they can become proper investigators in the future! I heard from a little birdy that Sister Funaki and I have the most progressing investigators in the mission. Might be wrong though, but that boosted my confidence! It is all thanks to her and her previous companion though, they worked very hard, and I am just picking it up in the middle of all the work.

To end I will leave you with a quote from the new ensign, "The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of the people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behaviour but Christ can change human nature." - President Ezra Taft Benson.
With Love,
Sister Coultrup




















Sister Bethany Victoria Coultrup
Australia Adelaide Mission
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

2 comments:

  1. I read every word you write Bethany...SO fun to keep up with your missionary adventures!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good morning, how are you?

    My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.

    I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.

    For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
    Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Australia? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Australia in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:

    Emilio Fernandez Esteban
    Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
    28902 Getafe (Madrid)
    Spain

    If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.

    Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.

    Yours Sincerely

    Emilio Fernandez

    ReplyDelete