11 - 19 October

G'Day Mates!

The week started with our General Conference weekend, which is a week behind the "real" Conference weekend.  Downloads from our computer were shown on Saturday and Sunday to a few members and us in the branch building.  Many of the branch were able to view the sessions on their own since they have access to the internet.  So enjoyed all of the sessions and the counsel we were given.  At our District Meeting Tuesday morning, our leader asked each of us to share our favorite talk with the group.  It was interesting to see the variety of what words touched whom, but there were a couple of repeats. Monday afternoon brought the Miller's to our home and they became our first houseguests.  Elder Miller is the Mission Patriarch and had made a loop to give a couple of blessings and came through our area because it was a shorter way back to their flat in Gladstone.  It has been said that he may be the only mission patriarch in the church.  In the Northern Zone, there are only districts, so no called patriarch.  A great need for blessings to be given, so President Henderson worked to get the approval of Church Headquarters to use Elder Miller, who is a patriarch from Burley, Idaho.  It was fun to share a meal, lots of conversation about missionary experiences and then attend District Meeting (via Skype as usual) together before they left for home.

Saturday evening we were invited to the home of the YW President and her husband - Peter and Martine.  Peter is from South Korea and Martine served her mission there.  She met Peter here in Australia a couple years after her mission at a YSA activity.  They had just spent the school holiday in Thailand, so our dinner was a fantastic mixture of South Korean and Thai foods.  They don't like the desserts from those countries, so we had berry tarts served with country cream.  Later in the week, Martine called and indicated her parents were up visiting/camping from the Brisbane area. She extended an invitation to us to come up to Lake Maraboon for a bar-b-que with her parents and brother.  This is their tent caravan and was parked in a caravan park close by the dam.

As we were preparing the dinner of flathead fish, the smells seem to bring birds from everywhere. This is a kookaburra (a terrestrial tree kingfisher native to Australia and New Guinea).  When we talked with our grandson Logan about the bird, he immediately sang out of the words of the Australian nursery rhyme - kookaburra sits in the old gum tree.  Even Sandy remembered those words, but can't figure out why we would know them.  These birds have a very distinctive sound, which our host recognized immediately before even seeing the actual bird - it makes a laughing sound.

Several lorikeets (small parrots with brightly colored plumage) flew in and landed on the rocks near the chairs.  Martine's mother broke off some bread and lured the Lories closer and closer,  finally they would come onto her hand.  A second piece of bread was needed to break up a fight over the bread!

Lake Maraboon, meaning "where the black ducks fly" is more than 3 times the size of Sydney Harbor.  People come to catch the red claw crayfish, so they launch their boats and spend the day trying to fill the nets.  A pelican was flying in and out of the water a good distance from the shoreline where we were, but never came close enough to snap a picture.  Note the water marks in the first picture indicating the lake is several feet lower than it has been in wetter years.  The boat was bringing water skiers back to shore.  The sunset picture was borrowed from the Lake Maraboon website, since we were not quick enough to get one of our own.

Lake Maraboon is about 16km (10 miles) from Emerald and an area that we hadn't checked out until the invitation to come to the bar-b-que.  Our concern was that we would be traveling back to our flat after dark and what about the kangaroos.  This Ute (word for truck) has a roo bar out front and can be found on most utes and suvs.  Since our Corolla isn't equipped with one, we were cautioned to drive down the middle of the road, with our headlights on bright!  It is not uncommon to hit a kangaroo driving the highways after dark in this area.  The roo bars minimize the damage.  Note the snorkel air intake, which is common, allowing one to drive through flood water.

As we were leaving our housing track, we came upon these two motorcycle riders.  Didn't think anything of them, until we were closer and one had stalled so we could read the words on the vests. It was a driving school - green vest has a L for learner and the orange vest has the word assessor (teacher).  We have seen cars with L signs in the rear window and know that means the driver is learning and has to have a licensed driver in the car.  Sometimes we see a P sign and were told that means they have a permit which allows them to drive by themselves during the day.  This picture also shows the "Give Way" sign which are everywhere - there are very few Stop signs in Emerald.  Lots of rotaries (roundabouts) which are very efficient.

Our teaching pool came to an abrupt end when we were told they were no longer interested in learning about the gospel.  Our time has been filled with trying to locate members and make preparations for our Book of Mormon Institute class - hope to get a picture to include next week.  We have six active young adults in the branch (two of them recently baptized) and five of them were at our first class - the sixth would have been there but had to work.  Sandy was asked to teach Relief Society and it was a different experience because of the size of the class.  Four sisters and two small children, who couldn't sit still, so finally their mother left, leaving three!  

It is our privilege to be missionaries and serve our Heavenly Father is whatever way is needed. Again, so thankful for General Conference and all the great reading and listening material we are blessed with.  Our love to you all.