Spending the day with Elder Acosta

September 18, 2025.

On Wednesday, September 17, we got a call asking if there was any way we could pick up a young elder missionary at the Brisbane Airport at 9:30 a.m. Elder Acosta, whose home is Sydney, Australia, is a Visa waiter, who has actually been called to serve in the Tokyo Japan South Mission, but has been sent to Brisbane to wait for his Japanese Visa. Elder Acosta got a message on the 17^th asking if he would please be at the Japanese Consulate the next day at 2:30 p.m. Elder Acosta is serving in an area about 1000 miles north of Brisbane in a small town called Bowen. The Travel Department hurried and got his flights arranged for today. He flew in this morning and then he flew back to Bowen on the 7:30 p.m. flight.      

We said we would be happy to go pick Elder Acosta up from the airport.    

It just happened that our Zone Conference was held on September 18^th, so we did feel really sad to miss that…Zone Conferences are always so wonderful! But! On the flip side, we had a really fun time spending our day with Elder Acosta…he is an awesome young man!

It was easy to find Elder Acosta at the airport since he was the only missionary standing at the Quantas Airlines area. He only had a small shoulder bag, because he flew back to Bowen later tonight.

We decided that it would be fun to ride the City Cat along the river and get off at the Riverside stop, which is a short walk to the skyscraper where the Japanese Consulate is. We took Elder Acosta to lunch downtown to one of his favorite places…”Nandos” and had a great time talking with him.

Elder Acosta told us all about his family and how years ago his family moved to Australia from Argentina. Elder Acosta is smiley, easy to talk with, and very sweet! Something else really fun and amazing that we found out about Elder Acosta while eating lunch is that he LOVES to sing and can play several instruments! It turns out he is a very good singer and has actually made an album of his songs! How cool is that?! Also at lunch, I told Elder Acosta the only Japanese phrase that I know…haha…something I learned at least 45 years ago. It is “Etsu kekkon Sudonu.” I was told many years ago that it means something like, When are we going to have joy in marriage?” or something like that. Laughing, I told Elder Acosta that when we got to the Japanese consulate that maybe I could impress them with my phrase! He laughed really hard and said, “or maybe not!” He was really fun to talk to!

After lunch, we had about an hour until we had to be at the Japanese consulate, so we walked over to nearby mall, went inside and purchased some chocolate lollies (candy) and then Elder Nelson and Elder Acosta hung out at a soft seating area while I went into a clothing store across the aisle and purchased a T-shirt with a strawberry image on the front.

We walked over to the skyscraper and rode the elevator up to the 17^th floor to where the Japanese Consulate was and arrived at 2:00 p.m. They had high security outside of their consulate offices and we showed them our passports/IDs and went through the body scan. Once we were inside the consulate, we sat and waited. Elder Nelson and I had never been in a consulate before. This was a first. About 20 minutes later a very nice lady called Elder Acosta to come to the window. He had to sign some papers and answer some questions and then leave his passport with her. She told him that hopefully he should get his Visa in a week or two. (I did not say my phrase.)

We rode the City Cat back to where we had parked our car, and then listened to Elder Acosta’s music on Spotify as we drove along. We had about two hours before we needed to take Elder Acosta back to the airport, so we went to Elder and Sister Hill’s flat, which is very close to the airport. We had already called the Hills this morning and asked if it was O.K. if we hung out at their flat for a couple of hours and they said yes, of course. Elder Hill got to listen to several of Elder Acosta’s songs and we were all impressed! We told Elder Acosta that he has a lot of talent and he should do music for a career. He said he would love to have a music career after his mission.

(Go to Spotify and listen to Micah Acosta songs! His music is fun, uplifting, upbeat Christian music.)

It was getting dark when we got back to the airport. Elder Acosta, you are so darling! What an honor to get to know you! We really had such a fun time with you today and think you are great, Elder Acosta! We wish you all the very best experiences in Tokyo and hope you will be able to share your music with many others…love you!