Tuesday, June 17, 2014

June 15 2014 Weekly Letter

Australia Sunday June 15, 2014
Dear Family and Friends;
Happy Fathers Day to all the Fathers!!  It is not Fathers Day here, it is celebrated September 7th, so I told Dad he gets 2 Fathers Days again this year.
It is 8:30pm and we just got back from delivering cookies in our building.  I was in the mood to bake and had a lemon I needed to use.  We had left for Church at noon as we always do, and as we turned onto Pennant Hills Road I saw a spider crawling on the windshield above Dad on the inside.  I told him to pull over before it moved over on my side or dropped in his lap.  He pulled into the service station and got it with a napkin.  I hate spiders!!  We just love the members of the Blacktown Ward.  They are so sweet.  Sister Kawaguchi is being transferred tomorrow and we feel bad, she has been in our ward since she came from Korea about 3 months ago.  She could barely speak English and today she gave a wonderful talk.  We are going to miss her.  The 4 Elders are staying.  The Stake Primary President spoke about her family and doing family history.  It was very interesting.  Her mother was born in England and her Dad was born in Scotland.  Her mother’s mother passed away when she was 4 and her sister was 6 so they were sent to live with an Aunt and Uncle until their father re-married.  Her dad’s father passed away when he was 16 and left him to care for his mother.  After they were married they came to Australia to live with an Aunt and Uncle.  They had to start anew as they came with very little money.  She said how grateful she was they came to this country where they found the gospel and were baptized.  She is one of 5 children and before her father passed away he had over 20 grandchildren, which was overwhelming to him being an only child.  Then the Bishop talked about how Joseph Smith followed the scripture “Ask and ye shall receive”.  It was also a very good talk.  It has been cloudy all day but no rain, colder, only got to 63 and everyone was bundled up in coats and scarves.  We told them they have no idea what cold really is.  We came home from Church and had dinner, I had left pulled pork in the crockpot, I made potato salad last night, and had ranch carrots.  It was very good.  We have enough left for a couple lunches.
Yesterday morning when we woke up it was raining so we decided to go to Parklea.  We got some Christmas gifts to send home the next couple of weeks, so they will be there when we get home.  The last boxes we sent took 3 months.  We went to Parametta and had a meat pie from Harry de wheels.  Then we came home and put some produce away we got at Parklea and then went over to the mall.  We have dessert for Family Home Evening tomorrow so we had to get some things for it.  I am making a trifle with strawberries, raspberries and blueberries.  Hope it turns out okay.  Dad is giving a lesson on the Mormon Battalion.  We will let you know how it goes next week.
On Friday Elder and Sister Moore came into the office to visit for a few minutes and said we needed an outing so let’s go to “Pancakes on the Rocks”.  We decided to meet there at 6:30 last night and they said we could ride with them, and she would let everyone else know.  We go past this place on the way to Church but had never been there.  We left here about 6:00, it is about 15 min away, and when we got there the line was out the door. She had made reservations so we were able to walk right in.  The Smith’s, Archibald’s, Smylie’s, Killebrew’s came just after we walked in the door.  The Feil’s had another commitment.  The menu offered breakfast and anything else you wanted from steak, ribs, salads, sandwiches, pizza, nachos, and fish.  The pancakes came with anything you wanted.  On our table we had regular pancakes with eggs and bacon, pancakes with ice cream,(no it wasn’t me), filled with fruit and topped with cream.  Dad had potato and onion pancakes with cheese sauce.  You could just barely taste a little onion.  They were really good though.  It was Elder Killebrew’s birthday this month and some of their kids has sent a gift certificate for cheesecake so they brought it to share.  It was chocolate and really good.  The restaurant brought it out with candles lit on it.  A fun evening. 
We had 4 days of capturing cards with the holiday last Monday and we did one whole box, sending in 18,830 images.  We had really big days and did not stay late any day.  The cards were all the same size so they go pretty fast.  We are hoping this week is as good.
It was so fun talking to all of you last week that could get on.  With not having to work we talked for about 3 hours.  We missed those of you that weren’t on.  We decided on leaving to go to Parametta to get Mexican food.  We had just paid to park the car and was putting the ticket in the car when the heavens opened up and we had a down pour.  We jumped back in the car and waited about 5 minutes for it to slow down.  Then we got the umbrella and walked around the corner to the café.  It just sprinkled after that and had almost stopped when we got out.  The rest of the week has been mostly cloudy but no rain until yesterday and the weather man got that one right.  I guess he is entitled to be right once in a while.
Guess that is all for this week and we have no birthdays.  We are supposed to go to Ulla Dulla but when Dad called the Branch President his wife said he is in the hospital with a broken leg, and his one counselor is in Israel,  the other one is out of town, and they lost their lease on the building they were renting so are looking for another place to meet.  She said to call back this week and see what happens, but I doubt we will be going there.  Maybe we will find another place to go.
We got a letter from Ann and Dan this week.  It is so good to get news from home.
Love you all!!
Mum and Dad


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