Australia Monday Dec 30, 2013
Dear Family and Friends:
Christmas is over and we made it through just fine, although
we missed all of you terribly. It was so
good to see and talk to most of you either Christmas Eve or Christmas
morning. We are still having a hard time
believing it is Christmas with it so warm outside. Hope you were all able to see the blog for
all the pictures we posted last week. We
have decided to keep our ornament tree up until we go home because we love
looking at the pictures and it makes us feel you are all closer to us. We love them all, so thanks for sending
them. Those that did not send them we
made ornaments for you so everyone is on the tree except Rowan, and we are
going to get him with a picture from Facebook.
We have had a very full week so I will start with last
Monday. We went to the store after work
to get a few last minute groceries. It
really wasn’t as crowded as we thought it would be. We worked Tues. (our Christmas Eve day) until
2:00 and came home. I made a couple of
salads and some cookies. Christmas
morning we opened our few gifts, and we had just fixed some hot chocolate that
Loren and Tami sent with some really neat transition mugs, when Elder Archibald
knocked on our door and handed us a plate of hot cinnamon rolls. We told him the timing was perfect to go with
the hot chocolate. After we ate we went
to Buckland House in the birthday room to help the Williams set up the tables
and chairs. Elder Tanner and Moore had
already set them up and 2 ping pong tables, so we put the table cloths on and
got the serving tables ready. Sister
Archibald came in to decorate them so we left to go to the office to call
home. It was raining when we woke up and
rained all day but it was very warm. The
dinner was so good and a lot of fun. We
had ham, funeral potatoes, crockpot corn, salads, chips and dips, homemade
rolls and homemade pies. We just visited
during dinner. We had 9 Sr. Missionary
couples and the Jeff’s. After we ate we
watched Mr. Kruger’s Christmas, then played the game that we play to give the
gifts for the adults. I got #16, and dad
got #20 so we got really good gifts, some stuffed animals, a kangaroo and a
koala bear and 2 key chains. We cleaned
everything up and got home about 5, put things away and got ready to go to
Malcom’s and Helen’s for dinner. We went
with the Williams, we were the only 2 Sr. couples to go and then they had a
friend that has lived with them, they call her their daughter, and her husband
and a friend. We had ham, chicken wings
and salads. We visited and then sang
some Australian Christmas carols. Malcom
gave us a copy of each one of them to take home. It was pouring rain when we left so we were
happy to get home. We only had to go
about 4 blocks. We really need the rain
so it was very welcome. At the dinner
this afternoon Sister Feil handed out the new speaking assignments from the
President and on it he has assigned us a Ward to go to each week except on the
4th week when we go to speak.
We have been assigned to the Blacktown Ward. We are to be there as support, we will hold
no positions. We are excited to go, but
sad to leave Oatlands. We will see what
happens this Sunday.
Thursday morning we went to the office early to call home
and see what everyone got for Christmas.
The Williams knocked on our door about 9:00 to leave for Canberra. We took our car as it is the newest. Elder Williams drove the whole time so Dad
was very excited to be able to look around, as he can’t when he drives. We stopped about 11 at a little café and ate,
then got to Canberra about 1. We went
right to the Australian War Museum and stayed there until after the closing
ceremony at 5. It was very interesting,
and it is really a big place. The
closing ceremony included bagpipes, a horn, the Australian National Anthem, and
the laying of wreaths at the reflection pool.
We then went to our motel and checked in and decided to eat in the
restaurant there after we took our bags to our rooms. We had snitchel, a chicken breast with
breading and deep fried, with toppings on it.
I had Hawaiian, ham, pineapple and mushrooms. Dad had mushrooms and gravy, and the Williams
had Mexican. They were really big, we
should have split one. When we went back
to our room it was sprinkling and about a half hour after we got in it started
pouring. We went out on the deck and
watched it for a while. We met in the
lobby at 8 and went to the Parliament building and toured it for a couple of
hours, then went to the old Parliament building that is a museum now. They were both beautiful and we enjoyed the
history in them. We left about 1 and
found a place to eat downtown. We had
hamburgers, eating outside. It is about a 41/2 hr drive to Griffith. We stopped about 6 to eat and get fuel, then
got to the ranch about 7:30. We drove
right to it with the directions Ren Fairbanks, the general manager of the
ranch, gave us. The ranch is called the
Kooba Station Ag Reserve. He showed us
to our rooms, in a part of the original homestead house, built in the early
1800’s. The original furniture is still
in it, the owners sold it as is to the Church in 1998. It is absolutely beautiful. We really enjoyed just walking around and
checking it out. Ren’s wife, Marilyn
came over to meet us. They live in the
back of the house and they have 3 bedrooms.
The part we were in also has 3 bedrooms, a front room, huge dining room
all with marble fireplaces, a kitchen, a sitting room and 2 bathrooms. The Fairbanks are from California and he has
worked for the Church most of his adult life.
He was the manager of the California Ag reserves before getting the
assignment to come to Australia over 4 years ago. Merrill Dibble took over for him when he came
here. We met him outside Sat morning at
8 for a tour of the ranch and farm. It
is divided into the cattle operation and crop production. We toured the cattle part of it first, they
have 3500 cattle on over 85,000 acres.
They have a river that runs through it where they get their irrigation
water. We saw kangaroos and emu’s. Dad got some cool pictures of them he will
try to get up on the blog the end of the week.
We then went to the crop production ground that is over 15,000
acres. They only have water for that
amount of ground so they are able to set aside a large amount of acres each
year. They have had a drought for
several years so they were cut down on water.
They grown grain corn, cotton, some hay and some grain that was
harvested a couple of weeks ago. We also saw rice being grown but the ranch do
not grow it because it takes so much water.
They have 25 employees that take care of the ground and cattle. The irrigation and harvest are all contracted
out. There is one missionary couple that
take care of all the grass, garden and flowers around the homestead, and other
odd jobs that need to be done, including managing the youth treks. He took us into Darlington Point, a very
small town for lunch at a little diner.
He told us to get the lot, a hamburger with fried egg, ham, pineapple,
beet root, lettuce, tomatoes, and sautéed onions. We split one it was so big. We also had chips with it, (fries). We finished the tour about 4, and after
resting about an hour, we left and drove to Hay, about an hour and a half into
the outback. We ate dinner at a
serviceman’s club, really good Chinese, and then drove back to the ranch. On this trip the Williams needed to stop at
family history centers to check out the equipment, so we went to one in
Canberra, one in Wagga Wagga, where we were able to call Canyon and tell him
Happy Birthday, we forgot the time difference and it was after midnight, but
luckily they were watching a BYU game. We
went to church early yesterday so they could get that one done before Church
started. We were able to call Tina and
Tyson to wish them Happy Birthday. The Fairbanks were the speakers and it was
really good. Sister Fairbanks also plays
the organ, and the Sr missionary is a counselor in the Relief Society. Brother Fairbanks is a counselor in the
District Presidency.
We left right after the block to continue on home, and as we
were getting in the car Marilyn handed Sister Williams and myself a shirt bag
full of some chocolate, 2 Christmas pillow cases, 4 homemade dishcloths, 2
scrubbies she has made, a scarf she has
made, 2 cups ( I think she got them at thrift shops, they look antique,) a package of Kleenex, a Christmas ornament
she had made. That was so sweet of her. We decided to drive through the Snowy
Mountains and it was a beautiful drive.
All the way we tried to figure out where the big scene in the movie of
him riding his horse straight down the mountain through the trees. There were actually several placed it could
have been filmed. We stopped in Cooma
about 7 and found a Motel and then went into town to eat. All of the restaurants we found were closed
so we settled for a pizza place. It was
ok, we have had better but we were really hungry. We were only eating 2 meals a day. We left this morning about 9 and drove on
home. We stopped for lunch in Canberra
and Dad and I had homemade lasagna, Elder Williams had an omelet, and Sister
Williams had a steak sandwich. It was
all very good. On the way home we passed
a lot of grape vineyards, and orange groves.
We stopped at a roadside stand and bought a bag of oranges. They also had onions, red, white and yellow
but they were in too big of bags for us to use.
We got home about 3, unpacked, and started a load of laundry
and went grocery shopping. We went to
the fruit stand and got watermelon, cantaloupe, potatoes, onions, sweet
potatoes, banana’s, lettuce, radishes, then went to Coles for milk and a few
can goods.
I forgot to tell you that on Christmas at the dinner Dad’s
computer glasses broke, the ear piece snapped right off. Today he got some readers, and when we get to
the office on Thursday, I am going to call Pam, because he just got them a
couple of weeks before we came.
Hopefully these readers will help at the office and when he is on the
computer. It is now time for bed, I don’t know when I will send this letter,
maybe we will be able to go into the office on New Year’s Day. We are excited to go to Sydney in the morning
to stake out our place for the fireworks.
Love you all and you are all in our prayers!
Mum and Dad
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