Sunday, May 18, 2014

May 18 2014 Weekly Letter

Australia Sunday May 18, 2014
Dear Family and Friends,
This has been a pretty full week.  I will start with last Monday.  Right after work we went over to Buckland House and helped set up the tables and help Sister Archibald get dinner ready.   There were 24 of us for dinner counting Elder and Sister Haleck  of the second quorum of Seventy and 1st counselor in the Area Presidency, President and Sister Howes, 5 Sr. couples from the city, Elder Dick was not feeling well so he didn’t come.  Sister Feil is in Arizona with a new grandson so she also was absent.  The dinner was sweet and sour chicken over rice, tossed salad, and rolls.  Elder Haleck and Sister Haleck went around to every couple to find out where they were serving and their assignments.  The Smith’s had dessert and the lesson.  They served raspberry shortcake and he gave a short lesson on Mother’s and showed the video the Church put out for Mother’s Day.  Then Sister Haleck spoke, she was raised in Orem and they met at BYU.  He spoke and told about himself.  He was born in Samoa, but was raised in the states.  After they finished their education at the Y they returned to Samoa where they raised their family.  Dad took a group picture after it was over.  It was a fun evening.
We are moving our office into the other office where the Williams were and the Smiley’s will be.  Glen called Thursday to tell us they would move us Friday night and Saturday.  Mark was out of the office Wed on, he went to Tasmania.  Thursday we left for the Normanhurst Chapel at 9:30 to help with the luncheon for zone conference.  They had 3 conferences this week, Tuesday in Port Macquarie for the missionaries up north, then another one at Baulkenhills on Wednesday and at Normanhurst on Thursday.  Sister Archibald went to the one on Tuesday with the Killebrews.  She had made taco soup on Monday while she was fixing dinner for FHE.  Tuesday night she got sick so the Killebrews and Terry Cox did the Wednesday lunch, and Terry and us did Thursday.  We also fixed salad’s, had rolls, cut up watermelon and put everything out.  We fed about 70 and it was so fun to see the young missionaries.  A table of Sister Missionaries saved Dad and me a place to eat with them.   It was nice to see the Haleck’s again.  We got back to the office about 2:30 and got 1500 cards captured.
Friday morning we went to the office at 7:30 to call Salt Lake because we haven’t had an audit and they told Dad the shuttle last week had arrived on Tuesday.  He talked to Troy Ogden and he looked on the computer and our audit had gone to another project so he sent it to us.  Then he looked for the 2 shuttles we sent last Friday and he said they were not there but he would check further and send us an email.  We got word from him about an hour later that they were not in Salt Lake.  Now they are missing 4 shuttles we sent last month and this month.  Hopefully they are found or we will have to do another resend.  We told Patrick in the mail room he could not take any more vacations while we are still here.  Before we left on Friday we had moved everything from our work tables to our desks.
Wednesday I checked my email as we were getting ready to go home and had an email from Robert McKinley.  He is in our ward in Layton and is going to be in Sydney with a co-worker on Saturday.  We told him we could meet them at the quays and show them around.  We decided on 9 as that would give them time to get to their hotel to leave their luggage and walk to the quays.  We left home at 7:20 and caught the 7:55 ferry.  We waited about 10 minutes for them to come.  It was so good to see someone from home.  His co-worker is Ron Hubbard and he lives in Clinton.  We took them over to the pylon and they went to the top.  We then walked back to the ferry’s and caught the 11:01 rivercat back to Rydelmere and went to Parametta to see the bats.  They were pretty impressed.  Then we parked the car and walked to the RSL Club for lunch.  We watched lawn bowling while we ate.  Then we came up to the Temple so they could get pictures and we showed them our office.  Everything is moved so now tomorrow we will spend the day getting it moved and set up again.  We will have Robin come and move our computers after we have talked to you.  We then took them back to Rydlemere and put them on the 3:55 ferry.  It was so fun having them here.  They left this morning for Perth to work for a couple of weeks.
A couple of funny names on cards this week was Christmas John Owens, born Dec 25, 1901 and lived to 65 years of age.  Then a name of a man that was born in Spain, maybe Loren can pronounce it.  The last name is “Urlonabarranechea”.  Then we found about a 100 4x6 cards that were marriages and baptisms.  All of the baptisms were from St Mark’s Church of England on Darling Point and were all from 1840-1870.  The marriages were from St David’s Church of England at Hobart, Tasmania.  The information was the bridegroom and bride’s names, ages, date of either banns or marriage, and about half of them had either the groom or bride as free, or convict, or both convicts.  Really interesting.  If they were convicts it also told which ship they came over on.  The dates on these cards was 1800-1840.
Today at Church there were really a lot of people.  The Councilman talked about family history and it was really good. 
Friday we got an email from Lyn about what colors to wear to the game tomorrow and what not to wear.  Her husband also told the rules of the game so we would know more what is going on.  It is going to be so fun.  Next weekend we travel to Mudgee to speak, it is a little over 3 hour drive and the Branch President has invited us to his home for dinner Saturday night. 
Happy Birthday this week to Breanna and Thomas on Thursday the 22nd, and Addison on Saturday the 24th.
Our Love and Prayers are with each of you.

Mum and Dad

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