23 February - 1 March

The weeks seem to speed by and are always full of new adventures and challenges that keep us on our toes!  The Australian government requires that foreign visitors to their country have either a tourist or temporary work visa before they can enter.  It is a fairly complicated and lengthy process to obtain one in the first place.  The mission has thirteen visa waiting missionaries, who have been assigned to temporary missions.  This week, there was great excitement because eight have been granted their visas.  The process by which the actual length of time to stay in Australia with the temporary work visa is arbitrary and with some of our missionaries their visa runs out before their mission is to be finished.  One of our sisters from the Philippines, whose visa extension Sandy has been working on, needed a special physical examination required by the country.  There are only a handful of qualified panel doctors in Brisbane and we were able to get an appointment with one on Wednesday last.  So arrangements were made to meet our little sister and her companion at the medical building in the city (downtown).

Parking in downtown is very expensive - Arlo just paid out a $57 reimbursement to one elder for parking 1 1/2 hours in connection with a medical appointment.  So, we decided that we would take the City Cat (Brisbane River transit system shown above), instead of driving.  The river and a City Cat stop is about a 5-10 minute walk from our flat with a catamaran coming by about every 15 minutes.  Cost was $6 each, one way, saving a fair amount of money! There are several stops along the way, so it took us about 40 minutes to get to our destination, but what a fun way to travel - sitting in your comfy seat speeding by beautiful homes and tall buildings!

Our travel took us under the Story Bridge shown above and we got off at the stop next to downtown shown below.

This was our first time venturing into the downtown area and we were pleasantly surprised at the well kept streets and manicured garden spots.  The buildings are really, really tall, but just amazing to look at.  Not being totally familiar with the area, we relied on Goggle Maps to get us to the medical center for visas, but it was a little off, so we saw more of the tall buildings that originally planned!  It was fun to spend time with our sister and her companion.  Sandy sat and visited with the companion, a sister from New Zealand during the examination.  She found out that the companion had a brother living somewhere in Brisbane, but had not seen him in ten years.   She felt like maybe she had been called to Brisbane to find this brother and share the gospel with him, but so far there has been no luck.  She is serving without the support of parents, who want no contact. She has two less-active sisters, who she is trying to help them turn their lives around with letters sharing her missionary experiences.

Our granddaughter Kamryn has been asking many times when were we going to see a koala. About 30 minutes from our flat is the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, where we found the chance to finally see a koala in the real.

A pair of Galahs - these have paired up and will remain true to each other forever!

Koalas can sleep up to 18 hours a day, not because they really want to, but they only eat eucalyptus leaves, which have low nutritive value and are hard to digest.   There are around 200 varieties of eucalyptus (gum) trees in Australia, but the cute koalas only eat about 15 of the varieties.  

Our kind and loving mission doctor posing with one of the participants in the koala lecture.  For a price, you can cuddle one of these fuzzy little animals and have your picture taken.

Pretty sure this is the lace monitor lizard,  and there was an abundance of them throughout the sanctuary.  He was willing to pose for a picture before scurrying off!

Strangest looking and acting animal!  As we were watching this wombat,  he was constantly attacking the tire with his teeth.  These are marsupial mammals that have very short muscular legs and are a close relative to the koala.

There is a large grassy enclosure, probably several acres, which housed many tame kangaroos, wallabies and emus.  For $2, we could buy a bag of kangaroo food (pellets) and hand feed them and there were many willing to come over for a treat.

While posing for our picture with the emu, Sandy could really check her out.  She has beautiful long eyelashes and a curly mane, but you have to watch out and not get stepped on or kicked!

Thursday morning was beautiful, not too hot and no rain.  We had to meet with an elder who needed to sign some paperwork so Sandy could begin the process for his visa extension.  Once every transfer, the missionaries located in the ten zones around Brisbane have the privilege of attending the temple. Since the elder's assigned area is about one hour away, we decided to find him after his temple session. Whenever we go out anywhere, we take the mail that has accumulated for the zone and it is such a happy time when the missionaries get a letter or this time several had packages.  These were belated Valentine surprises, but still much appreciated!

We had the opportunity to spend some time this week with the office couple and a young sister from the Tonga Mission.  They had been flown here for medical evaluations.  Sister Tavelea, above, was to have her tonsils out, but our mission doctor wanted her to come to Brisbane to be checked here and a good thing she did.  No surgery was required, just a course of antibiotics.  Sister Tavelea serves in her home country, loves her missionary work and has converted her uncle and his family.  She shared Sunday dinner with us and we learned so much about missionary work in Tonga.  One interesting bit of info was the way every sister missionary wears her hair - 2 plaits, start at the front and going down the back, tied with two black hair ribbons!  She was sweet to have as a visitor, but very anxious to get back to her missionary work!

Just wanted to share a miracle in the life of one hard working missionary to close our week.  Sandy received a call from the Brisbane Temple telling us of a package that had been delivered to the temple president. Two days prior, Elder Twogood called to the office saying he had lost his wallet. The package at the temple contained the lost wallet and was completely intact, nothing removed - it had been found in the street near their flat.  He feels that his temple recommend was the reason it was sent to the temple.  Small and large miracles happen quite regularly in our mission and we ourselves have been the beneficiary of some of them.  Our Heavenly Father does watch over His children in their lives and we have a strong testimony of this.  It is a blessing to be serving as missionaries and see the "hastening" take place.