25 September - 1 October

The big news of the week was our move to a new home in Emerald!  Our Tongan Elders Quorum President organized and sent a Tongan moving crew from amongst his family and work associates. With their muscle and good nature, the move was made quickly.  One afternoon the washer, refrigerator, beds and miscellaneous items were moved to our new house.  Only wish that we could have a picture of the washer being loaded single-handed - it was amazing!  The next afternoon, our great crew returned to load the trailer with everything going to the "tip" (dump).  To give them some refreshment as they traveled to the tip, we gave them some bags of donuts and bottles of ginger beer, which we referred to as our "mormon beer."

Our new home is 3 bedroom/2 bath with a two car garage - "very nice" and we feel extremely blessed to have it as many units that we looked at quickly disappeared from the market.  There is another unit behind/to the side of ours, which we assume is a duplicate.  There is landscaping to be dealt with, which will become our duty!  A shed in the rear yard comes complete with a mower and other necessary yard equipment.

This is the lounge/kitchen and is the area where we spend most of our time when at home, with the dining area off to the left.  On the wall is the split system air conditioning (very efficient), which you also find in all of the other rooms, except the bathrooms.

This is the view of our neighborhood looking down the street from our driveway.

The red bottle brush shrub is everywhere - this is one in front of our neighbor's home.

Tuesday morning was our first Zone Conference by Skype.  We use the branch computer in the Branch President's office as seen below.  This is also how we participate in our District Meeting each week.  The squares on the screen are the other missionaries in Gladstone, McKay, Townsville and Rockhampton, plus the feed from the chapel in Brisbane where the conference was being held.  It began at 9 am, but there were some problems with the connections, so the missionaries in the chapel at Kangaroo Point started at the appointed hour, while our young leaders worked to get the four northern areas working properly.  Throughout the day, because the calls kept dropping, we missed out on portions of the training.  There was a lengthy discussion on Lehi's Dream which we wish we could have heard all of it.  The closing session was a training from President Henderson, and it felt like we were back in St. George being taught so powerfully by our then Stake President Henderson. He wanted us to prepare for the upcoming General Conference and to come with questions in our hearts, then we need to follow the words of our living prophets.  Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's General Conference talk in October, 2012 closed the meeting and we were grateful that these two sections came through without dropping.

Arlo spoke in Sacrament Meeting about an experience that we had in Florida teaching a young father

about why membership in this church was worth it.  Another speaker was a young man (26), a life long member who had fallen into in-activity, who was found by the sisters before we came.  In his talk, he mentioned that for four years he was the Golden Gloves champion in Queensland and that was part of his back sliding in his gospel commitment.  His remarks were impressive and indicated he had a firm foundation that was bringing him back.  We look forward to helping him.  We had another meeting with our investigator (Gary) and continued to work with a new member who has stopped coming to church.  Our efforts continued searching for less active members, but we have just about exhausted our list for Emerald.  

Besides moving into a new house, our big accomplishment was making a few phone calls and sending some emails resulting in getting approval to teach an Institute class.  We have approval and the go ahead from the CES Coordinator in Brisbane, our Mission President, the District President, and the Branch President of this branch.  We will be teaching Book of Mormon and will start as soon as we can get organized.   

Arlo has been using the Emerald Botanic Gardens near our house for his morning walks.  This morning he saw our first live kangaroo (maybe a wallaby) which looked to be about 5 feet tall. Kangaroos are prevalent in the country side, but not seen often in town.

Hard to believe that we have been serving a month and have been blessed in more ways than can be counted.  The prayers offered for us and all the missionaries serving so valiantly throughout the world are much appreciated.