Australia Day, eh?

Hello! The libraries were closed on Monday due to the public Holiday of Australia day! So that is the reason for the late letters! Thank you all for e-mailing though. It is great to hear from everyone! I am doing fantastic! This week has been crazy. We were out of port most of the day. WE traveled up to Kempsey Tuesday and worked there for a while, we stayed in a members home (Approved by President Howes) that evening. WE worked in south west rocks the next day, and traveled up to Coffs Harbour that evening stayed the night over, and went on exchanges there! I was with Elder Leneham from Brisbane. He is way cool! I really like him. We were up talking about cars for like 40 minutes. ha. We saw a lot of good families and a really cool recent convert man. You can tell he changed a bit to become a member. He is ROCK SOLID though. Really cool to see. We then stayed the night again, and had a Zone Training Meeting! We had zone p-day directly afterwards. We went ice skating. It was fun, but man my feet were sore the next day! Since we all had to spend that night in coffs anyway we went to a fellow shipping activity at their chapel and we went and played basket ball with a bunch of non-members. It was fun. Then we drove home on Saturday, and went to our branch Australia day activity. We had 2 investigators there, it went well! President and sister Howes came and spoke in our branch on Sunday. They of course did wonderfully. It was good to see them again!  oh, random side-note: In Kempsey there is a cool place called "Famous Fredo Pies!"  I definitely had a crocodile pie AND  a kangaroo pie!

    My core experience with god this week has been seeing how the gospel really is a gospel of love! President gave a training on how god is loving. It has been on my mind as many angry people claiming to "already have a church they are happy with."It seems to me that it is quite the opposite! People get so mad at us for simply knocking on their door or walking down the street. It is apparent that they are not happy in their lives! The devil has a hold on them so when they feel a bit of spirit at their door in the form of missionaries they kick them away. It is so funny sometimes. People get mad at us and tell us "We are fine with our religion!"all the time. This gospel really, truly, is a gospel of love! we know god loves us and so we re happy and more loving! Other people aren't. It is sad to see people so angry all the time. It gives me hope that I can help make this world a brighter place!

  I am trying to teach as Jesus taught by eliminating distractions. I noticed I tend to wonder off in my mind during lessons, Obviously not a good thing. So, earlier this month our Zone Leaders gave us a commitment called the "40-day fast." I have  been trying to fast from all my distractions in teaching. it seems to be working. It is tough to break thought habits though... ha. But I am working on being the best teacher and missionary I can be!

   the most wonderful thing I see happening in my mission, is that I am starting to see a bit of success and it is making me forget about home or any distractions (that I am fasting from).  I can see great things in store. Like President Howes said last week in your e-mail, I feel like we are on top of a wave and there is about to be some incredible things happening! I see that there are virtually no distractions from home, enabling me to focus on my work and I am SO grateful for that! I see things being put in place for marvelous works to come forth in all aspects of my life. The lord BLESSES Missionaries, no doubt about it!

  I love you all! Thank you for your support!

Love, 

   Elder Ford