April 6 2014 Weekly Letter

Australia Sunday April 6, 2014    

Dear Family& Friends:

Today we changed times, we fell back an hour because we are going into winter.  It is 6:00 and it is already dark.  This is going to be a change for us.  It is also rather cool tonight, probably about 60.  We have also had rain most of the day.  We went to the office this morning and Dad watched Priesthood meeting and I watched the Women’s Conference, then talked to all of you that were at Tyson’s.  That was great!  Made our day.  We came home and I made banana bread, I had a couple of overripe bananas and Jan had a couple also.  We ate dinner, I had it in the crockpot and then we delivered the bread to Killebrew’s, Archibald’s, Williams and we will get the Moore’s when they get home from a meeting.  They are usually home right after 7.  Sister Archibald sent us home with chocolate cake.  It is so fun living here.  Monday night the Killebrew’s delivered Chocolate cake to everyone, and on Thursday Sister Archibald brought warm cinnamon rolls to the office to everyone.  That is why we need to walk to the office as often as we can.

Seeing as though I have started at the end of the week we will just work backwards of the activities.  Yesterday we went to Parklea with the Williams, they needed a few things to take home and we wanted a few things.  That is our last Saturday together.  They are traveling the next 2 Saturdays and then they leave the next week.  That is going to be a very sad day.   We ate lunch at Parklea, a kebab and then came home.  They had a meeting at the Temple so we went to Vinny’s and dropped off 4 garbage bags of donations.  We have been sorting and getting rid of stuff we don’t need, and Jan has been passing down what she isn’t taking home so I am just re-donating. We then went to the store, we went to the Cole’s in Parametta that we used to go to when we lived there.  I think we are going to go shopping there more, we really like that store.  Last night we went to the Ranch restaurant for dinner.  The Williams had been there before and we wanted to try it.  It was really good, very busy.  Another good weekend.

Friday was a great miracle in our mission.  I forwarded the emails to the kids but the rest of you need to hear the story.  I will be quoting most of from the emails from Greg Wilson, the Welfare Coordinator, at Buckland House, and one from Elder Archibald.  From Greg at 8:35 am, “For virtually the last two years the Welfare Department has been assisting the Area Presidency and Sydney North Mission President to enable Elder Vatuvei to obtain a life-saving kidney transplant.  Well, at long last the day is here.  The transplant will occur today 4 April 2014!  I’m sure all prayers and faith exercised today in behalf of Elder Vatuvei and his marvelous donor will be most appreciated!

Elder Archibald:  You may also know that Elder Vatuvei’s mother died in Tonga about 1-2 months ago.  If he were to return to Tonga without this life saving surgery, he would most certainly die.

Yes and talk about a marvelous donor

…Who “happened” to be here in Australia on sabbatical leave from BYU for a year,         

…Who is NOT related to Elder Vatuvei and never knew him before coming to Aussieland. (Elder Vatuvei was in the Jeff’s ward.)

…Who “happened” to be a perfect donor match,

…Who is willing to go through the pain and suffering for Elder Vatuvei, and

…Who is willing to put his life in jeopardy for this fine Elder.

Yes, marvelous!!

May our Father in Heaven be with both of them and their Families.

Also I would like to add.  The transplant was going to happen in December but Elder Vatuvei got sick and had a parasite and it has take this long to get rid of it.  The Jeff’s (the donor) time is up and they have to go home the end of this month.  Brian and Karen Jeff’s have been in our Family Home Evening group.  Elder Vatuvei’s Aunty came in Thursday night to be with him.

We got an email from Greg at 2:03pm.  Good news…The donor is now out of the operating theatre and all is well.  Elder Vatuvei’s operation is about to commence.

Then at 5:45pm. Even better news…The transplant is complete….Elder Vatuvei is in Recovery…awake, smiling and with a functioning kidney!

It was a very emotional day around the mission, everyone loves Elder Vatuvei!!  There were tears of joy shed by a lot of people.  He has been in our ward in Blacktown since Jan and he is always smiling.  He is going to be released from his mission here because he will have to stay here for a while, if not forever.  His island does not have the medical care and medicine he needs.

We had another good work of capturing the cards.  On Thursday we went to the warehouse and got the last 9 boxes of cards on the pallet.  When we get these done we will be 2/3 done, we are doing a box and a half each week if we don’t have meetings.

Monday we decided it would be fun to have Easter Dinner at our flat for the Sr. Missionaries so I sent an email out to them all.  We will make it easy with us doing the ham for sandwiches and everyone bringing salads, dessert, etc.  There will be 16 if everyone can come, and we get the new couple in to replace Tanner’s.  They are supposed to be here on the 15^th.  Sometime next week we are going to try to make the marshmallow Easter eggs.  We went to the store yesterday to get white karo syrup.  Nope!  We found small bottles, about 1 ½ cups of Glucose syrup.  They also do not have Easter baskets, plastic eggs or Easter grass.  They have plenty of chocolate eggs though in different sizes.  Haven’t even found any Easter candy like jelly beans, etc. weird!!

Guess that is all for this week.  A very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Ruston on Friday.  Hopefully we will get to talk to you.

All our Love, Mum and Dad