Early in the morning on the 6th of August, President and Sister Henderson walked through the front door of the mission office with big smiles on their faces, which is usually the case, but they were being followed by Elder Cadeado (pictured below) from Mozambique. Sandy was confused because this elder wasn't suppose to arrive for another day. The Johannesburg MTC sent him out a day earlier than originally planned and his departure and arrival dates didn't match the travel itinerary we received. He arrived in Brisbane and of course, there was no one to meet him. Through the kindness of a woman in the airport, who spoke Portuguese by the way, she and her companion took him home with them and our elder was able to make contact with the MTC through email, who called President Henderson at 4 am. He is a strong young man, ready to serve and work hard and we are amazed at his command of the English language.
The Brisbane senior couples were given tickets to a rugby match between the Gold Coast Titans and the Parramatta Eels. It was exciting for all of us because we had wanted to learn more about this very interesting game. The home team won and with the help of some people in our seat vicinity, we were able to understand much of what was happening. Sandy thinks this is a much easier sport to understand than our American football! We drove one hour or so to a train station close to the stadium and then boarded for the 6-8 minute ride to the stadium. There is no parking at the stadium, so everyone comes by bus or train. The fare was free when we showed our tickets.
This past week has been transfer deliberation week in the office. The office staff take turns providing lunch each day and Sandy served burritos, chips/salsa and brownies for her day. A few days earlier, we were able to quickly feed our three assistants sloppy joes before they took off for Cairns. This simple meal was brand new to all of them and each ate three and probably more if there had been time.
Saturday was our p-day, with only a short time in the office. A couple from Emerald Branch, both were part of our Institute class, were in Brisbane. Martine was here for a work conference and Peter had flown in to join her. They called and we met them on the Southbank for dinner. Our meals are becoming cultural experiences, and this one was no exception. Our Turkish meal was shish-k-bobs (lamb, beef and chicken), turkish pizza and special bread served with eggplant dip and a chili dip. It was a fun evening to catch up on the happenings in the branch and see them again.
After our Sunday meeting block, we attended the baptism of a Chinese sisters and experienced a first while hearing the baptism prayer being spoken in her native language. There are so many accepting the gospel and being baptized, that a Chinese branch was formed about two months ago.
Sunday evening was a great blessing for us to attend a Voices of Brisbane devotional/concert. A well-known member of the art professional world here shared his thoughts and testimony of "What I Believe." The music was tremendous with such pieces as Amazing Grace, I Know That My Redeemer Lives and others talking about Christ. The evening was a wonderful way to end our week or to begin a new one and we can add our testimonies of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, with those who sang and spoke.
The following describes the happenings for week two of this blog entry.
Monday late afternoon, of transfer week, takes us over to the Mission Home to meet with the departing missionaries to gather support cards and then pass out the travel itineraries and passports. Usually, we stay for dinner and enjoy their company and maybe help to help keep order at the table! This particular night, there were five families coming to pick up their sons and Sister Henderson wanted it to be an orderly process, so she invited us to meet and greet the families and bring them to the basement from the outside, so as to not disturb the testimony meeting going on in the living area upstairs. Ir was a fun time getting to know these people, many of which had shared multiple emails with Sandy preparing for the big day. This departing group had twenty-four missionaries and their testimonies took several hours. Many memories were brought back to our hearts, as we watched these great young men fall into their parents arms, with tears streaming down all of the faces. One had an older brother (just graduated from SUU) come for him, whose wife had felt strongly they should take from their savings money for the trip - she stayed at home with their baby. This particular missionary had been struggling with desires to return home and when he found that his brother was going to make such a huge sacrifice for him, his attitude changed and has become a tremendous missionary. It was a late night when we finished "baby-sitting", a great experience for us which probably won't happen again, since there are no indications of any parents in the next four transfers coming to meet their missionaries.
One of the tasks to be taken care of and checked on at the Tuesday Transfer Meeting, is making sure a bike plate is attached to the correct vehicle's bike rack. Queensland has a law that since a bike rack obscures the regular license plate, that there has to be a miniature version bolted to the rack. This enables the speed cameras and police officers to be able to know what the license number is, if needed. These little plates are not free, and haven't been being adhered properly to the racks or are not even being attached, so the need for a little help by the car guy.
These sisters were companions when we first came into the office. Both were needing help getting their driver's licenses from their home countries, and Sandy was able to help with the process and developed a close friendship with them. They have not been companions for two transfers, but saw each at the meeting and called out to Sandy, wanting a picture of the three of them together. Sister Mwea, on the right, returns home the end of September and was so excited to see her past companion!
These five great ABM missionaries returned to their homes in Tonga a day after the other 18 left for homes spread throughout the world. The travel office alerted us to the fact that if they left on our regular transfer day the airfare for each missionary would be $3,100, but if they left the next day, the fare would be $635, so it was really a no-brainer as to which day they would leave - still do not understand the reason why, just followed the instructions! They stayed working hard unto the last minute. The elder standing between Arlo and Sandy was an assistant to President Henderson and worked the cars with Arlo. We were at the airport with them for nearly two hours, paying the excess baggage fees for each missionary, something we cannot do on-line before hand with this particular airline and making sure they were all settled. Our kind and gentle sister missionary is hoping to finish serving at home the last two months of her mission, which had to be cut short because her visa expires on the 27th of August. Visa expiry dates affect a good number of our missionaries, causing some to return one transfer early. If the expiry date requires the missionary to leave more than two transfers, often we can apply for a visa extension, which takes almost as much work to apply for as the original visa. At this moment, we have three Chinese missionaries leaving in September, because their visas cut short their missions by three to four months. These wonderful young men who want to serve so badly, cannot have their visas extended because they would have to return to China and completely start the process all over again and then return, but that can't happen.
This transfer also meant a change in one of our three office elders. After five months serving in the office, Elder Narramore (right) was transferred to the beautiful, northern tropical area of Innesfail and will most likely finish his mission service there. Elder Harvey will be coming in to help support the office.
Saturday afternoon came along with no situations that we needed to take care of, so we accompanied our office sisters to the Royal Queensland Show (EKKA). This ten day event every August attracts about half a million visitors. The brochures tell us that the purpose of EKKA (short for exhibition), is "to celebrate and champion the essential role agriculture plays in the everyday lives of Queenslanders." From many of the locals, we were told that this had to be on our "to-do" for our time in Brisbane. Not wanting to try to find car parking and then paying a huge fee, we opted to take the train downtown and it worked out beautifully. There were many competitions among the horses, dogs, goats, sheep, pigs and who knows what else. You could stand in a line for the opportunity to "pat-a-pig", hold a baby chick or pet a lamb or goat, which we turned down because Arlo felt like he had had plenty of those kind of experiences already in his life!
In addition to attending EKKA, we also had strict instructions to try the famous Strawberry Sundae. People were lined up to pay five dollars each to receive this tasty treat. The cone has a small amount of vanilla ice cream in the bottom, then a layer of cut up strawberries, two scoops of a special strawberry ice cream, made solely for this event, are added. Now comes the squirt of whipped cream, then topped with a sweet strawberry. The finished product wasn't nearly as beautiful as the advertised pictures, but tasted great. All of the funds generated by the sale of these sundaes go to a local hospital and from the amount of cones we saw everywhere, it should have been a fairly significant amount of money. Plus, all that served up the sundaes were volunteers. The EKKA adventure would be like a State Fair at home with the thrill rides, competitions, exhibits and amazing fireworks display. We were glad to have been able to be a small part of.
Time flies by with our busy schedules, but we appreciate every minute we can serve our Savior and be a help to these wonderful and amazing young missionaries.
