Buildings and a Party!

These pictures are of some beautiful buildings in Melbourne.

Adrienne putting sushi on the table for the Monday luncheon

This is from the surprise party Friday night.

The elders are very kind to us.

Elder Rice, Elder Harper and Elder Hollister

The surprise party and program.

Elder Seiuli conducting.

President and Sister Maxwell

The President enjoying the program.

Elder Cox.

Everyone asks if we are related.

Dear Family,

Last Monday the office had a birthday party lunch for President Maxwell.  Before we ate the President, the senior missionary men from the office and the AP's played a game of HORSE (basketball).  We had hot dogs, snags, sausage on wonder bread, and mini hamburgers.  Dessert was root beer floats.  We bought root beer at the USA store and bought the ginger beer at the Australian store.  Ginger beer is really popular.  We don't really like it.  The Islanders and Australians had never tasted a root beer float.  They have a similar drink they call Spider.  President likes all of the above.

A  MIRACLE FOR US

 There have only been a handful of nights that I have not asked the Lord to help us find someone who we could refer to the elders or sisters.  I also have asked to find someone I could give a Book of Mormon to.  Today we went to pick up our cleaning.  They know me because I use a credit card to pay for everything over here.  Most places don't want credit cards.  This cleaners let me use mine, know who I am and are so nice to us.  They are a Chinese couple.  Today while I was there the wife said, "My husband wants to talk with you.  Are you a Christian?  I said yes I was.  Do you go to a church?  I said yes and it is close by the shopping center.  She told me they weren't happy with their church.  I was near tears by this time.  She asked if I had a card to give them.  Adrienne was waiting outside in the car. I had cards in my purse.  I told her I would be back on Monday with more cleaning and we can talk then. I was ready to jump with joy.  I have plans to take a pass along card, Book of Mormon and the video Finding Faith in God.  I will ask if they want to go to church with us.  We have so many Chinese in our ward.  The Lord does hear our prayers and answers them, in His time and in His way.  I got in the car and told Adrienne while struggling not to sob.  I will thank the Lord for blessing me and Adrienne and giving us an opportunity to really be a missionary.  Thank you dear ones for keeping us in your prayers.  WE ARE GOING TO GO VISIT THEM TODAY!!!!!!

Sister Maxwell planned a surprise birthday party with most of the missionaries on Friday night.  There were about 180 that came.  I think he was surprised as he walked into the chapel.  We all stood up and sang Happy Birthday President Maxwell.  Sister Maxwell did a video about him and their family.  Our dear Sister Horne, office volunteer, "roasted" him. Sister Horne, the Australians and Islanders didn't know what a roast was.  They thought we were having roast beef in the chapel.  Anyway, she did a great job of embarrassing him.  He adores Sister Horne and laughed and laughed with the rest of us.  We have said in several letters that he has a wonderful sense of humor.  Adrienne and I bought a balloon bouquet and decorated the serving table.  It was a very good evening.

Saturday was a visit to the CITY.  We love taking the train and going to town.  It was a sunny, somewhat cool but a joyous day.  On the train we talked with a young Chinese girl from mainland China.  She is in Melbourne for two years on a teacher exchange program.  She is teaching Chinese in elementary, middle school and high school.  We told her why we were here.  She had not heard of the Mormons.  She told us she had no religion in her life because she lived in China.  We gave her a "Finding Faith in Christ" pass along card.  We asked her to check out the site www.mormon.org..  I think she will get on the internet and check it out.  HOPE she will.

We went to the Broadway show "Anything Goes" in the afternoon.  The music is by Cole Porter.  The young ones will not know him, but our children and the old ones will. It was a great production.  The lead, Carolyn O'Conner has played on the NY stage, the London stage and won several awards.  She is 52 years old and dances like she was 25.  Oh to be in that kind of shape.  The tap numbers were so fun to watch. It is a good possibility we might go again.

Got on the train to our home.  A FANTASTIC DAY!!!  GLAD SATURDAY IS OUR P-DAY.

Our thought for the day;

    "But that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be led by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long suffering."          ALMA 13: 28

We love you all,

The moms, The grandmas, The sister sisters

Sister Sisters

Benella Branch

Restaurant "The Sisters" and we are The Sister Sisters.

Sorrento beach on Mornington Peninsula

President Maxwell and Adrienne

 Cape Schank Lighthouse

The Melbourne Art Centre at night.  

We have been to the theatre here. Beautiful city!!!! Love the city!!! 

Hello

We celebrated Pres Maxwells birthday today in the office. After our weekly meeting there was a game of half court basketball and horse. Lots watched from the sides. Then we had " Snags" and root beer floats. Through out the afternoon we have had missionaries coming in. I have fixed the floats for those who have come in. Some of the islanders give me a weird look and are not sure what they are eating. I sure love these missionaries.

Well that was just a quick note

Love you all,Mom

Cleaning flats

DeeDee and Sister Stevens.

We looked like twins today.

Our ward had a genealogy ward get together.  Great activity. We filled in our 4 generations and they took our picture.

Cleaning the flats.

Dear Family,

Tuesday night we took Theoni and Rob Snow to dinner at our favorite restaurant, DeGani.  They have had us over to dinner many times so we were able to treat them this time.  As you all know we do very little cooking in our little flat.  Rob is HP group leader.  He has been a bishop, a stake president, served in mission presidencies and he and Theoni have served 3 missions.  Great wonderful kind people.  They have been in Italy for two months.  Their daughter underwent a stem cell procedure.She has been in Italy about 3-4 months. Part of the treatment is chemotherapy.  They feel it has been very successful.  Her Multiple Sclerosis will not progress.  They are very happy.

The weather has been extremely cold this past week.  Rain, wind and very low temperatures have made for very cold weather.  We have heaters right by our desks because the church building and office are always cold.  There is lots of humidity which makes it cold.  It was 36 degrees this morning, (Sunday). The building heater doesn't work well so we never took our coats off for the 3 hours.

Wednesday we went to the temple.  We have made many friends among the ordinance workers.  We get kisses and hugs from the sisters.

Thursday was an unusual day because The Hullingers, Sister Stevens, Adrienne and I went to clean another flat.  It was a very old flat.  Elders had lived their for 9 years.  It was horrible and needed serious work and cleaning.  Two sisters live there now so we went over for the day to help the sisters and see how it could be fixed.  Adrienne and the service elders worked on the yard, because she loves yard work.  This is the second time we have helped cleaning flats.  We will now be doing that service about every two weeks.  There are so many flats that are old and so many missionaries who have never learned how to clean.  We try to teach them cleaning techniques so that it will be easier for them to keep the flat neat and clean.  We enjoy a day doing that because it gets us out of the office and feels so good doing physical labor.

We just got home from an adult devotional.  Elder Quinton Cook was in Sydney and the devotional was televised to all of Australia.  Of course, it is always wonderful to hear an apostle of the Lord speak.

We don't have opportunities to introduce the gospel to people.  We make sure our badges are seen and always answer questions about who we are and why we are in Australia. We do hope we will be able to give away a Book of Mormon and introduce someone to the gospel.  I think we will start taking pass along cards with us.  We could easily pass those out to people.  We are in the office everyday and our calling is to serve President and Sister Maxwell and all the wonderful, beautiful, fun missionaries. It is a joy for us. 

Our parting thought.

    Elder Klebingat a Seventy;.

    "Acknowledge and face your weaknesses, but don't be immobilized by them, because some of them will be your companions until you depart this earth life.  No matter what your current status, the very moment you voluntarily choose honest, joyful, daily repentance by striving to simply do and be your very best, the Savior's Atonement envelops and follows you, as it were, wherever you go.  Living in this manner, you can truly always retain a remission of your sins every hour of every day, every second of every minute, and thus be fully clean and acceptable before God all the time. "

.

Know how much we love you and pray for you.

The mom, The grandmas, The sister sisters

Dear Family,

Monday night started the week on a high note.  President and Sister Maxwell asked us to go see the new Avengers movie.  We all loved it and had a great time.

Tuesday was a free evening which was nice.

Wednesday night we were invited to the President's home for dinner.  Sister Hemi was going home.  It was not a transfer day.  In attendance were the AP's, President and Sister Maxwell and Adrienne and me.  It was so we could say good-bye to her. Her wonderful companion, Sister Greenhalgh was also there. Sister Hemi's father passed away the day she was supposed to arrive in the mission. She has had a hard time.  In spite of her struggles she was an outstanding missionary and she will be missed.  Adrienne and I had gotten very close to these sisters.  It was very emotional.

Thursday I woke up with an eye infection.  Adrienne drove me to the doctor who sent us to an eye specialist.  We then went to the pharmacy for 2 prescriptions.  We finally got to the office and within minutes we were in the car again.  A companionship of elders had locked themselves out of their flat so we needed to take them a set of spare keys.  This kind of thing is NOT unusual.  We have to remember the elders and sisters are still young.

Friday was a great day of exploring.  Fourteen of the senior couples with President and Sister Maxwell rented a bus and spent the day touring the Mornington Peninsula.  It was overcast, a little bit of rain, and cold BUT we saw beautiful beaches and countryside.  We went to Fort Napean which is right at the bottom of Australia, on the water.

    Fort Napean;

        "The first shot fired by the British Empire in WWI was not on the battlefields of Europe.  It came from a windswept fort south of Melbourne

        half a world away.  It was at this fort where a 24 year old Australian soldier fired on a German Merchant ship, the SSPflatz.  It was on

        August 5, 1914.  The ship was carrying German officers and contraband.  It was ordered to stop but ignored the orders.  The remains of 

       fort are still standing.  We went down in the bunkers and through the caves.  It was kind of eerie!

Saturday we went shopping at our favorite mall, Chadstone.  We all saw the movie, A Royal Night Out.  It is based on a true story about Queen Elizabeth and her sister Margaret.  When they are both still princesses on VE day they leave the palace incognito and celebrate.  It really was

enjoyable.

Yesterday we drove to the bush for church.  We went to Benella which is about 3 hours north.  These small branches are always to excited to see missionaries come and visit.  We as missionaries are just as excited to visit.  They actually have a building which is nice.  The branch is basically older couples. There are only 2 children and no youth in the branch.  The one 17 year old has gone inactive because he is alone.  The missionaries are quite close to him so we will pray that they can be a good influence for him.  They had soup and bread for the ward after all the classes.  One of the only problems with their food is that they do not season their food, no salt and no pepper and no garlic or onion salts.  It is hard to eat such bland food.  But we do eat all they cook for us and in the members home they usually will give us salt and pepper.  We are very grateful when we get invited to a member's home.  Our ward has been very kind to us.

Back to our ride to Benella.  The stations or farms or ranches were sooooo green. They looked like fairway greens. It was a gorgeous site. Golfers would enjoy just hitting ball after ball on this land. Even the tall rolling hills were lush and green.  This bush is so different than traveling in the mountains.  The mountains are so thick with trees that it is like being in a jungle. Australia is BEAUTIFUL!!!

On these long stretches of road, while we explore, they have very unique signs.

    OPEN YOUR EYES.  FATIGUE KILLS

    LOSING CONCENTRATION?  POWER NAP

    YAWNING?  A MICRO SLEEP CAN KILL

    ONLY SLEEP CURES FATIGUE    

    BELT UP OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES

    DROOPY EYES?  POWER NAP NOW

    DROWSY?  DON'T MAKE IT A KILLER RUN

    We also learned that government owned land is called CROWN LAND.   Australia is still tied to the Crown in England.

We have included in our pictures today a couple of huge Cypress Pines.  They are used to block the wind and to border of the owner's  land.

We have never seen such unique trees.  We really will miss these long drives.

D&C 18: 23-24

    Behold, Jesus Christ is the name which is given of the Father, and there is none other name given whereby man can be saved;

    Wherefore, all men must take upon them the name which is given of the Father, for in that name shall they be called at the last day;

Love to you all,

The mom, The grandmas, The sister sisters

Hello

Dear family

The weeks keep going faster and I seen to run out of time to write come Friday afternoon, so I am writing today.

The weather here today has been COLD and rainy and windy. We had hail on and off during the night. Today the rain has been very hard. And then the sun comes out for an hour . The mornings are dark when we get up and dark when we go home. 

It was fun to talk with you over the weekend. Alex do you have a phone or anyway I can face time with you? Hopefully everyone had a good Mothers Day. Alex what did you do? How is Granna doing?

The next 3 weeks we have missionaries coming in to go to the temple. It is always fun having them come in. They like to hang around the office. Have I told you I love the missionaries. The reason I got on face book is so I can follow them after they leave.  Today at lunch,DD and I went to the shopping center and ate. We were watching people and realize what a diverse culture Australia is. And our missionaries are the same way. Color of skin or Nationality mean nothing here. 

We went and saw the Avengers ( I think that is the name of the movie) on Monday night. We went with the Maxwells. It was a fun show. Tonight we are going to their house for dinner. One of our favorite Sister Missionaries is going home. Her father passed away right before she came out and has been having a hard time ever since. Hopefully she will come back. It is always hard to see someone leave.

We are going on a Senior trip on Friday. We will write all about it on Monday. We love getting together with all the seniors

I love you all and miss you. Stay close to each other 
Love, mom

Phillips Island

Korrine and John Hullinger took us to see Phillip Island.  

They are a couple in the office.  They are so kind to us.

 On Phillips Island.

Beautiful country but it was very cold and windy.

This bird with the lime circle on his beak is called the Cape Barren Goose.

Found it on Phillips Island.

 This is the restaurant were we had lunch.  It was an old garage but very good food.

 Cockatoos are everywhere. We love to see them.

Dear Family,

Our week started off with a wonderful dinner on Monday night.  Two older couples invited us to their home for dinner.  It was delicious and the company was great.  We have some very dear friends in the ward.

The past week was very busy- TRANSFERS.  We had 11 new arrivals and 27 departures.  Transfer Tuesday is huge.  We have about 100 missionaries come for transfer meeting where they will receive a new companion.  We also had to bring 4 missionaries up from Tasmania and send 8 missionaries back to Tas. (That is the way the Australians refer to Tasmania). When you are transferred to Tas you can only take 1 suitcase.  We have a TASSIE room in one of the flats.  That is where all the extra luggage is stored.  We have 22 missionaries in Tas right now so we are constantly buying airline tickets. The Zone leaders come each month for MLC (missionary leaders council) meeting so it is always crazy getting them to Melbourne and back in the same day.  It takes 1 1/2 hours each way to the airport.

The transfer this week required renting hotel rooms in the city and renting a huge bus.  We had dinner and a testimony in the conference room, at the hotel.  The mission home is not able to sleep 27 missionaries.  We had breakfast the next morning at 5:30 am and were on the bus at 6:30 am heading to the airport.  We had missionaries going to Tonga, New Zealand, USA, Tahiti, Samoa and Queensland, Australia.  3 senior couples, counting Adrienne and me, each were assigned a different group.  President and Sister Maxwell had to run back and forth saying good-bye to each missionary. It is a very large international airport.  Once we got all groups through security we all went downstairs and waited for our new arrivals. We all got back on the bus and back to the office.  The new arrivals, called goldens not greenies went to lunch at the mission home.  They all come back to the office for a meeting with their new companions.  It is a very long two days, sad when they leave us and happy for our new arrivals. We always have more to love.

Thursday night we went to visit the TUI family.  They are the Tongan family who have adopted us.  They have a daughter, 25 years old, who has stopped coming to church.  The RS president asked us to make friends with her.  They have 11 children and they all live at home.  There is one daughter-in-law and 2 grandchildren also in the house.  They are planning a huge family reunion in Salt Lake next summer, .  We will be so excited to see them.

Friday was clean our flat night.  It had been two weeks since cleaning but it really doesn't get dirty or dusty.  It is not like New Mexico with so much dirt and dust.  

Saturday we went with Elder and Sister Hullinger down to Philip Island.  There was a beach town called Cowes that reminded us of a 1960 California hippie town.  We ate lunch at "the garage" which was an actual garage. The food was very good.  It was different but unique.

We saw tie-dyed shirts and vintage VW buses for sale.  The weather was cold and wet but the country side is gorgeous.

Saturday was stake conference for the adults.  The meeting was so good and spiritual but poorly attended.

Sunday, Mother's Day all the women were given a rose corsage as we walked into the chapel.  Very nice.  It was a very inspiring meeting.  The stake president, President Page, is a wonderful, kind, loving man.  I am very impressed.  He was very tender.

Sunday night all the senior missionaries went to Elder and Sister Jose's flat.  Jose is not Mexican.  They are from Perth, Australia. We had a lovely time and it was pot luck.   Love these senior missionaries.

We as Moms and Grandmas are blessed and very happy to be called Mom and Grandma.

"And now I bid unto all, farewell.  I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air to meet YOU before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead.  Amen"      Moroni 10:34

Mom and Grandma

Dear Family, 

Most of our time the past week has been preparing for transfers this week. This Wednesday some of our favorite missionaries will be going home. It will be an emotional day for us at the airport.

We were able to visit Rosemary and John Body.  We took some flowers to her (remember she is our friend who is dying of cancer). It is always a happy time with them.  They are such good people.  Rosemary is prepared  because she has a great love for her Savior and understands the plan of happiness.

All the senior couples got together Friday night for a pot luck dinner and to watch the movie Meet the Mormons.  We held our party at the mission home.  There are 18 couples which includes Adrienne and me.  We were celebrating  Adrienne's birthday, the arrival of a new couple and the departure of a couple.  We always have a wonderful time when we are together.  

Saturday we went exploring again. We found a wonderful little village in Hawthorn.  The old old buildings have been turned into boutiques.  We walked into most of the stores and managed to buy a couple of bracelets.  It was a beautiful semi sunny Saturday.  We enjoy just strolling through the little towns and just seeing the people.  Most of the people are very pleasant but some refuse to smile or say hello to us.  We always say hello as we are walking.

The area Public Relations for the church asked us to make a report for them.  They wanted to know how many countries and cultures are represented in the Australia Melbourne Mission.  We have 25 different countries represented by the missionaries; American Samoa, Australia, Canada, China, Fiji, France, French Polynesia, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Micronesia, Moldova, Myanmar, New Zealand,

Philippines, Qatar, Samoa, South Korea, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Wales, United States and Vanuatu.  You should look these up on a map for the kids to see.  EVERYONE OF THESE MISSIONARIES ARE VERY DEAR TO US.

This is a short letter this week but should be much better next week.

Our scripture for the week;.

    

    "Whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world. Yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh

    of FAITH, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being

    led to GLORIFY GOD."                        Ether 12:4

We love all of you and pray for you morning and night.

The Sister Sisters  The Grandmas    The Moms