Dear dear Family,
This week was crazy.
The mission secretary is having emergency surgery today, Monday, and will
be out for 2-3 weeks. So Adrienne and and I have been scrambling because
we need to take on many of her duties, which are on the computer. We were
not computer savvy when we came on our mission. We were nervous being
called to work in the office. By the time we get home we may be able to
teach you things on a computer. HaHaHa
This month the
missionaries have interviews, zone conference and get to participate in an
endowment session. Lots of scheduling is involved. Adrienne makes
all the temple arrangements. Because they get to the temple many of them
come early and stay after to visit the office, get supplies and just chat.
One group was late so they did baptisms. We have had many of the
city missionaries come. The city branches and wards are made up of Chinese
and Vietnamese. They have wonderful spirits and are having great success
in bringing souls unto Christ. The buildings in the city are open all
day, so the students come and study, eat, visit,& hang out.
There are two senior missionary couples serving there. They have
very long days. The converts stay very active while living here, most are
going to school. We don't know how active they are when they return home
to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Vietnam.
Between all the Asian
languages and the Australian dialect we often ask them to repeat what they are
saying. I don't think we will come home with an Australian accent.
The Australians don't say or pronounce the ER sound at the end of the
words. We Americans, on the other hand, say ER very clearly.
Went to our weekly
Temple session on Wednesday. We love all that we see and learn. The
workers are all starting to know, The Sister Sisters.
Thursday we were able to
visit one of our visiting teaching families, Rosemary and John Body. They
showed us around their beautiful English garden. The husband, who is
totally inactive, talks with us, prays with us and listesn to our short
message. They are in their 70's and very pleasant happy people.
Three of our other ladies got a written note. We gave our phone
number in case they wanted a visit. We are not very encouraged but we
will keep trying. The last lady likes our visits but doesn't get to
church, bad back. Her daughter who isn't a member likes us to come.
Yesterday, Saturday, we
took the train to the city at 8:45 am. We can walk to the station from
our house. We sat across from two great ladies who are originally from
South Africa. They came to Australia 35 years ago because of the
aparheid. They were going to the city for an International Convention of
Jehovah Witness. It is being held in the football stadium. On Friday they
had 96,000 people. They knew we were Mormon Missionaries. We talked to
them about Family History and gave them the familysearch.org site. Their
sister did genealogy. It was a wonderful conversation. We laughed
and enjoyed one another for 40 minutes.
As we walked around the
city we saw old and new architecture. They have combined the old and new
beautifully. It makes for a great city. Because of the lack of space the
buildings are all very very tall. There is construction of new high rises
everywhere. Interspersed are old church buildings. We walked for hours
and thoroughly enjoyed the day. Our first stop was a lovely candy store.
I bought dark chocolate covered almonds and Adrienne got milk chocolate
caramels. There are 3 separate shopping centers connected by sky walks.
Each one represented a different price range. We stopped for and
"American" hamburger with chips (fries) at the high end mall.
It was scrumptious. The young girl working the counter said,
"We don't get many Mormon missionaries here." She smiled and said her
mother was Mormon and her brother just got back from a mission in Russia.
We get happy when we talk about our church.
One lady told us to go
find the boutiques, It was a few blocks from the shopping centers. They
were lovely but we never went inside to any of them. The cheapest thing
in all these stores was about $600.00.
We were told to go see
the Victoria market. It was an experience of SMELL, food, cultures, STUFF
and now that we have seen it once, once is enough.
On the blog,
cannonsisterscalledtoserve.blogspot.com.au we posted pictures of the City and
Adrienne and I wearing fancy horse racing hats. Hats are a must at the races,
and formal events. We got a good laugh.
We walked the whole
city, got back on the train and walked from the station to home. It was 5:00pm.
. Our feet hurt but it was a GLORIOUS DAY!
Love to all,
The MOMS
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