Australia Sunday Nov 10, 2013
Dear Family and Friends:
This has really been a full and rewarding week. Starting with Monday, FHE was a big success,
the sandwiches and salad turned out great.
We were a little short on numbers, the Sheen’s weren’t there, Pres and Sister
Barr (the Temple President and Matron) are in the States visiting family, and
Sister Archibald was in Korea taking a missionary home. We had fun though. Now we are through until Feb. It is nice to have a lot of couples to take
their turns.
Tuesday was the last night for the Temple as they closed
this week for cleaning for 2 weeks. We
are really going to miss it. When we
came out about 8:30 the YW from one of the Wards had put hearts and candy on
the cars. Our hearts said “Contention is
of the devil”, “The key to freedom is obedience” and “Therefore let your light
so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify you Father
which is in Heaven.” All the hearts were
of different colors. What a great
surprise.
Monday afternoon we got an email from one of the employees
that said she was in the mood for a “sausage sizzle” and to celebrate Melbourne
days so she would buy the sausages and bread and meet everyone on the courtyard
at 12:30 Tuesday. Another couple of
employees brought some drinks and a couple more brought ice cream. One man cooked the sausages on the
grill. We were all to bring napkins and
silverware. It was a lot of fun and we
got to meet some more of the employees.
She had 110 sausages, and just a few left.
A couple of weeks ago a teacher from the Carlingford Primary
School called and asked if she could bring 100 students to learn about the
Church. Sister Moore said of course so
it was set up for Tuesday morning. They
met in front of the Temple and walked over to Buckland House. With the teachers there was 108 people. Sister Moore had arranged for 4 Elders and 2
Sister missionaries to talk to them.
Sister Bambrough started off by speaking some mandarin Chinese and then
asked how many understood her. About a
third of the students raised their hands.
They were very surprised that a girl from the States could speak their
language. The missionaries showed some videos
of some Australian athletes, one a professional rugby player who is serving a
mission now, and a professional skateboarder, and at the end of their stories
they announced that they are a Mormon.
They also showed “The First Vision.”
Then the sister missionaries had them all stand and play “head,
shoulders, knees and toes.” They liked
that because they knew it. Then they had
the children ask questions and the missionaries answered them. They really asked some deep questions. It was fun to be there, Dad took pictures and
videos. They were all so quiet and
polite, and they were so cute in their uniforms. I am a great believer of uniforms, the kids
are not competing with others because they all look alike. At the end all of the missionaries, old and
young sang “I Am a Child of God”. What a
great experience to be a part of. They
then went out to the courtyard where they got a biscuit (cookie), and
water. The teacher had asked for some
information the kids could take home so they got a packet with a Friend,
Articles of Faith, Family Search card, book mark that said “I Am a Child of
God”.
Thursday morning the builder came to our flat before we left
for work and looked at the spots on the carpet.
He said he was going to have someone come and clean them and if that
didn’t work they would replace the carpet so now we just wait. When we got to the office there was a bouquet
of beautiful flowers on the desk with a card and candy from the Williams. They are so sweet. That made my birthday here in Australia. Dad said we would run across the street for
lunch so as we were getting ready Mark said to come to lunch in the
boardroom. There was a birthday
tablecloth on the table, a birthday cake, sandwiches, chips, and a coke for
me. Mark had asked Sister Williams to
organize it. We just couldn’t work with
any better people anywhere. We are so
blessed. That night we went with the
Williams down to Parametta (where we used to live) to “Rumps and Ribs” for
dinner. We had ribs and steak and it was
soo good. That is only the second time
we have had a sit down dinner out since we have been here. Most of the eating places are “take
away”. It was a great day. I also talked to most of the kids so that was
of course wonderful.
Friday we sent of 15,000 images to Salt Lake, the second
week in a row with 15,000. That has
never happened before. As you can see we
didn’t get much done on Tues, and we have days like that which is ok.
Yesterday we packed, cleaned the flat, and left with the
Williams, we followed them, to watch Polo matches. Never in this world did we expect to see live
Polo. It was so much fun, and the horses
are beautiful. Elder Williams said a lot
of them were race horses that were not quite fast enough. We really enjoyed it, learning how they play
etc. We just took camp chairs and sat
next to the field. The Feils came after
the first match. They ended about 12:30
so we all went into Windsor for fish and chips, then Dad and I took off to go
to Orange to speak. It is about 3 ½ hour
drive through the Blue Mountains. The
drive was very different from a month ago when there was so many fires and smoke. Very clear this time. Orange is a beautiful town in the hills. It was really cool when we got there about 6
and really cool this morning, in fact one man told us they expected frost. They get quite a bit of rain there so the
fields were really green and nice. The
Church is really nice and one of the larger ones we have been to for a
Branch. The Branch President was very
nice, and his son is his counselor.
There were about 25 people there counting us and 2 sets of Elders. One Elder played the piano, 2 Elders prepared
the Sacrament, and one Elder with a new convert passed. We were the only speakers. There was only one other Priesthood holder
there. They have no YM or YW, and 7
Primary children. Pres. James son taught
Sunday School, and Pres James taught Priesthood and Relief Society
combined. All the members are so kind
and loving, we really enjoy it. We left
right after meeting and had rain most of the way home, and in the mountains we
had fog. We still enjoyed the trip, but
it was really good to get home. I fixed
dinner and we just finished eating. It
is really cloudy outside but very little rain here where we need it so
bad. Hopefully it will rain in the night
and be dry tomorrow so we can walk to work.
Mark left Saturday for South Africa for meetings and will be
gone the rest of the month. He was
pretty excited to go and we told him to get lots of pictures. He said he would try and send some
periodically.
This week we had watermelon (from the Williams) and we
bought a musk melon (cantaloupe) and they were so good. We will definitely buy more.
I borrowed the sewing machine from Buckland House, it is for
the Sr. Missionaries. I have a couple of
skirts to shorten that I have bought at Vinnys.
That is my goal this week.
Hopefully I can remember how to sew, and figure out how to thread this
thing. I think Sister Tanner knows how
if I can’t figure it out. Thank you
family for all the birthday gifts, I love them all and feel so loved.
Prayers and Love go with you this week.
Mum and Pop
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