Can't say it's a cruisey experience!

I heard "cruisey" used to say easy....So not easy here but I've always said hard is not bad it's just hard and I'm not sure if I'd feel like I was doing a good job if it was cruisey so there you have it! The picture above is from our hotel in Townsville, a town on the coast about 220 miles from here. We got to fly! 

This is the little prop plane we flew! And here are some cool photos from the plane! 

We flew down for a mission tour. Elder Wakolo of the Pacific Area Presidency came to tour the mission so all the missionaries from all over Queensland were brought into one of three places and ours was Townsville. 

This was a meeting for just the sisters. Sister Wakolo is sitting right next to me and next to her is Sister Gomez, our mission leader. I don't have a picture yet of all the missionaries that were there but there was around 75 in all. It was such a spiritual, uplifting meeting and we felt so loved and appreciated as senior missionaries. Not cruisey, but valuable! 

Here we are at lunch with some of those Seniors we've come to love from left to right, Horselys, Kasparians, Sanders, and Hadleys.  We all have our copies of the Book of Mormon with us. We were given a charge to carry that book for the 4 days leading up to the tour. Elder Wakolo carries and places one everyday! It was an interesting experiment and a "Joyful inconvenience" as our mission president, President Gomez said! 

We've had some good teaching moments since the last update. The Cipola family who got baptized years ago but haven't come in a while came to an activity and invited us to their daughter's birthday sausage sizzle. Here's us meeting with them outside their home. 

President wearing Vincent Cipola's new shades! 

Sharing a scripture with the Cipola family.

This is Max and Magani from Papua New Guinea. Max's tribal name is Helaman! They've been coming to church and taking the lessons for about a month now but are heading back to PMG in a few weeks. Hopefully we can pick up where we left off once they come back! 

Here are some of the young men President Kasparian is working with. The one in the yellow tie is the only member, the rest are taking the discussions and Dahrias, the other young man in the white shirt, is on date to be baptized December 20th! What a Christmas gift that will be for all of us! 

And this is our sweet Sister Susuvuro from Vanuatu teaching Deano, another seasonal working from her country in his language! What a church! 

Just finished a prayer before meeting with a referral. These sisters are amazing! Nothing Cruisey about these two! They are hard working, obedient Sisters! 

We sure love our sisters! 

Our parting hug!

Tolga Scarecrow festival! We invited 2 to church and left a pass along card! 

Meeting Sister Susuvuro at church. 

Lake Tinaroo 

Mt. Hypipamee 

We are pretty isolated up here in the Atherton Tablelands so we spend many p-days together and also lessons and community events. Here's some shots from those events. Sister Warren is from Mapleton Utah. Just 15 minutes from our home in Salem. Not at all surprisingly, she was just made a Sister Trainer Leader and so was transferred to Cairns yesterday. So sad to see her go but she's done a fabulous job here and will be a great leader in our zone. And she's still in our mission district so we'll get to see her now and again! 

One day they showed up to my house with this batch of bananas from a member of the branch! So of course we made banana bread! 

We took it to a couple activities! Dorothy Cipola's Birthday sausage sizzle, 

Our Relief Society/Young Women Karaoke night.

And our Linger Longer we held 2 Sunday's ago when another small branch in our district, Innisfail, joined us for our Sunday meetings. The electricity in their town and branch building was planned to be out during the meetings so they caravanned an hour and a half, nothing cruisey about that, to join us! I think we had like 60 people that day! Felt so good to all be together! 

Islanders love to sing! 

Sister Susuvuro had a birthday a few weeks ago. So we took her to Kuranda to see some Kolas, 

They sleep like 20 hours a day. Haha. Talk about a cruisey life!  And we took them to lunch! Take a look at the interesting Australian  menu items! 

And Sister Susuvuto had never had a birthday cake so of course we had to take care of that with a few of our branch members! It was a mini surprise party! 

Joel has been working very hard with the young men, getting that program up and running. They are meeting once a week for a Young Men lesson and a volleyball game. He made a portable volleyball stand so he can take it to the town 30 minutes north of here where all the young men live. There is a professional volleyball coach in our branch from Tonga teaching the boys and really making a difference in their lives. Plus the young men program is growing and has potential for many more to join! These pictures are from the first trial run of this program and is at our church and we invited the whole branch.

Pizza was involved! 

The man hitting the ball is Brother Maka the coach. 

This is Sam, another member strutting his stuff!

And here's some pictures from the Young Men Volleyball in Mareeba. 

This is Khyrum Kose and his parents Pauline and Tonga. Khyrum is 8 years old and decided to get baptized! It was a great day here in the Atherton Branch. 

Many wonderful friends, family members and people taking the discussions themselves were able to participate in this great event! I'm so proud of Khyrum! 

Another great branch activity we had was our branch Christmas party! We had 50 people attend! Pretty good for a 25 member branch! D'urville McPherson, our relief society president did a lovely job planning and executing it.  It was a Bethlehem theme although in the end most chose not to dress up but Joel and I did our best with what we had around here! 

These are the trays of roasted vegetables I prepared for the dinner and president is showing off a lovely sheet and robe tie.

Not to be out done here I am in my garb. Well one does what one can. 

Some of you may recognize this! My Baklava made it to Far North Queensland! 

Here is the lovely and talented D'urville with her 9 amazing Charcuterie Boards! 

A good time was had by all! 

Christmas season comes early here. There is no Thanksgiving to hold it back so it's in full swing once Halloween is over. Plus kids are out of school soon for their summer break and many families will be on holiday so we had our party early.

Oh, I almost forgot! Halloween! 

Here's our little set up in front of our house. Halloween is not as big a deal in Australia as in the US but in our neighborhood it was celebrated by many families and kids! We had over 40 kids come in the end! 

This fine young man was cruising around on his scooter scoping out the participating houses for his younger sister. When I asked what his costume was he said, "I'm a great Australian kid!" Perfect. Of course I had to show you a picture of that! 

I hope you can tell we are busy, happy, and working hard. There is much to do, many people to serve and heaps of friends to make! We pray everyday for our family and friends back home and love and miss you! Until next time....hope your life is cruisey!