Sunday, August 17, 2014

Dear Family,

Tuesday; Went to the Melbourne Temple, of course, it was a wonderful experience. It is a small temple but very beautiful.  All the people were excited to meet us and have us come.  We are going to try and go every week, after all it is only 40 steps from the mission office.  We don't have much social life at nite and no tv so weekly trips to the temple will be great.

Wednesday: Work, work, work, and cold weather.  Thank goodness for individual heaters because I haven't been warm even one day.  Adrienne said her toes haven't been warm since we got here.  We decided that Australian people have much thicker blood.  They are always hot and wear shorts all the time.

Thursday; After work went and got a new IPhone for us to use. It is only a 3G  It is way expensive to text or phone. so far it hasn't worked but we will make another trip to the mall to try and get it working.  You can call and text but I can't.  I am giving you our numbers for emergency; 011 61 4 446 886 915  mobile        011 61 3 9801 5980  office
We drove to the Apple Store about 35 minutes from the office.  The largest mall ever and very high end.  Phone didn't work so we drove back again Friday they gave me my 3O day pre-paid and here it is Monday and it is not working.
Also I GPS quit working after 2 weeks and at least we can get ourselves to work without it but no place else. 
We did LOVE the mall.

People stop us because of our name tags, oh by the way while we write this letter we are listening to the Homecoming by Hagood Hardy. Reminds us of home.) Most people stopping us are Mormons, but we introduce ourselves every chance we get and to all the clerks who wait on us, the grocery store, the cleaners, etc. One of the apple sales clerk was a member.

Today, Saturday was a very busy and spiritual day for us. We drove to the mountains with 2 elders for a 7:00 am breakfast meeting for the missionaries in the ward.  It will be a monthly meeting for all missionaries serving in the ward. so glad we are included.  There was frost and fog everywhere, but beautiful.  A little bit of home. Saw a darling quaint little village town on the ride up. It will be a stop off for ANYONE who comes to visit. At our meeting we discussed Clayton Christensen's missionary book. Each of us had had to give a favorite scripture and tell why we liked it and what it meant to us.  Adrienne read 3 NE 1:13 and I read D&C 84:88.  It was a wonderful meeting.

Came home and cleaned the house, it takes us 30 minutes.  The sun came out and we decided to drive to Healsville Sancturay.  We are enclosing some photos and a small video of a baby koala eating. It is rare to see any Koala awake so this is priceless.  They sleep 20 hours a day.  We also saw kangaroos, emus, tasmainian devils, large pelican, lots of birds and even mean dingos. It is quite different from any American zoo.  The ride to and from the zoo was spectacular.
We saw large sheep farms, horse and cattle farms and the rest were all wine vinyards.  They have large farms but do not have large houses, no mansions but nice. There vehicles are small also.

We ate at the zoo and had our first taste of fish and chips. The fish was blue grenidare, and it was delicious.  Usually they make it with shark.  Everyday is a new experience.

Finally got the house fixed up and feeling very comfortable.  
I AM SENDING PICTURES TO ERIN TO PUT ON THE BLOG SHE IS DOING FOR US.  PLEASE CHECK IT REGULARLY. WHEN I GET WI-F- AT THE HOUSE, ( SUPPOSEDLY THIS WEEK) I WILL ENCLOSE WITH LETTERS.        cannonsisterscalledto serve.blogspot.com.au

We have been missionaries for one month now.  We love our ward , we were asked last week to bear a testimony. We will be participation each month in a cottage meeting, didn't know they still did that, a monthly correlations with ward mission leader and missionaries, we will be in charge from now on of the Mission President Fireside first of each month for missionaries, new members and converts.About 150-200 come.  President Maxwell is great.  He is wonderful, kind, and has a great sense of humor.  You have to have that.

Sunday night; We just back from dinner at a ward members house.  They invited us at church today.  It was so fun, a family of six came and also the Patriarch and his wife.  So much food and delicious.

Annie sent us a link to a talk given by Elder Bednar

Great  great talk.

Scripture of week from Adrienne; 
3 Ne 1:13
Lift up you head and be of good cheer, for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow I come into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfil all that which I caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets.

Back to work, love you all dearly,
Sister Cox, Sister  Higginson

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