Knackered Out

We had an incredible P-Day at Paronella Park. More about that later! 

Hello everyone! We are "March"ing along in the Tablelands of Far North Queensland! Here's some adventures since the last time we spoke!

We had a baptism! Daniel Hughes! (Not to be confused with my nephew Daniel Hughes) Daniel signed up through FaceBook to have the discussions with the missionaries  (Elder Pao from Samoa, Elder Labaste from Tahiti, and Elder Taylor from New Mexico!) a few weeks ago! He loves the gospel! So he chose to be baptized March 7th. Just yesterday! It was a wonderful day for the many members who came and of course for Daniel. 

 

Our Elders are teaching like mad men! We get to go quite often and I try to sneak a picture. They are currently actively teaching Trevor 1, Trevor 2, Nolene, Josephine, Alex, Sandy, Dorthy, Boston, Mitchel, and then a few others here and there! We haven't been this busy teaching since we got here so we are basking in this glorious time and grateful to God to be a part of it!  

Every Sunday we have the Elders over for dinner and we try to have some of their friends and someone in the branch we feel will match up with them over as well. I usually forget to take a picture but we have found hospitality is a great way to get to know people, connect with them, and help the missionaries get them connected to us and other members in the branch. 

We also had 6 neighbors over a couple weeks ago. They all live across the street from us and are all young couples so we decided it was time for them to get to know each other! Everyone pitched in to bring something. Joel was grill master and made delicious hamburgers. When I returned Jade's dish from her potato salad she said, "We should do that every month!" I was glad they all had such a nice time! 

This is one of the couples we had to dinner. Alex and Emmie and their new puppy Pepper. They brought him over to introduce us and I thought that was adorable. Alex is taking the discussions with the Elders. They just recently moved here. Alex's father is the head of a large peanut processing business in central Queensland. His company bought the peanut factory in Tolga where we live. I'll have to get a picture of this place. It's super old but Alex is up here to bring it to life again! 

Joel and I go down to Cairns (Pronounced Cans) 1 1/2 hours away, a couple times a month for district activities. There are 7 missionaries serving there and it is part of our responsibility to make sure they are doing well as well as the Elders serving in Atherton with us. The North Queensland District is huge. About 1000 miles from North to South and 800 miles East to West.  Brisbane, where the mission president lives, is even further south so getting up here and around to see the 41 Jr missionaries who serve here can be tricky so they count on us, and 6 other senior couples in the district, to check in and make sure they are physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally well off.  We also check their apartments every 3 weeks to make sure they are keeping tidy and to do minor repairs....like buying batteries for carbon monoxide monitors or fixing sliding screens so they lock. (These were from the most recent inspections)  The above pictures are from a going away party for one of the senior couples who help out with this. The Horsely's are from Georgia. They served in Cairns for a year. Great people! We will miss them immensely. And as of now they are not being replaced with another couple so hence our heavy involvement in Cairns. 

Of course service is a big part of what we do here. This was a branch service project cleaning up Sandra's yard. The Kose family are here and some of their friends as well as the missionaries. We got a lot of clean up done and the young men got to drive Sandra's truck on her property which has a standard transmission so they felt good about learning that! 

 

We still work every fortnight at the food pantry. The food is donated from local farmers and grocery stores and we set it up and disperse it to the 70 or so people that come in for help. We are utterly nuckered out after our 4 hour shift.  But it feels good to be helping. We also have made good friendships with the others who are volunteering. Many of them are Seventh Day Adventists. Their church has a pretty large presence in  Australia. We actually went to one of their services yesterday. Pastor Ray was preaching and he's a friend from the food pantry. Lovely people doing lovely work.  Michael is in the background of this picture. He comes every fortnight as well. He has a walker and some physical difficulties but still he's there helping as much as anyone. So impressive.  

We have weekly district zoom meetings unless we go to Cairns for those. We usually have the Elders come over. This day they were chilled, a rare occurrence during the summer here,
but it was a nice change. They put the blanket on to warm up but also to make the others on the chat jealous of our nicer weather. Haha. They are sitting on the floor for their part of the meeting which was a get to know you game. We love our Elders! 

This is what our branch council meeting looks like. Thank goodness for zoom! We have on this call the branch president, young woman president, the branch clerk, 2 branch presidency counselors, elder's quorum president, relief society president, branch mission leader,  primary president, and the missionaries. Joel had me snap this picture because it was so well attended...just like our units in Utah! 

We try to acknowledge each branch members birthdays. One nice thing about a small branch is goals like this are not overwhelming. Joel made a hit with this one. This is Phoenix. He just turned 12. His basketball standard has been netless for months. The sun just eats away the nylon ones. So Joel bought him a "prison grade" chain type net and a new ball and installed it all! Phoenix was wrapped! And quickly showed off his shooting skills! 

This is D'urville and I. We're in Mareeba, a town 1/2 hour north of us. Many members and friends live here. She and I are trying to visit the less active sisters as well as some sisters the missionaries are working with. This day we attempted 3 visits and weren't successful with any. So we decided to get lunch. 

Always a win!  

Meet Indy

and Chelsea. They live in Mareeba. I teach them piano at their house every Saturday! Hopefully they will keep practicing and be able to play for the branch someday! Don't you love their pink key board! 

Stake (district) Conference and Zone Conference

President Gomez

Zone Conference

Singing with all the Elders and Sisters. 

The courtyard in the Cairns Chapel.

We found ourselves in Cairns again for Stake Conference Saturday and Sunday last weekend. I didn't know but when you are in a branch rather than a ward the "Stake President" is actually the Mission President and the Stake is actually called a district. So anyway President Gomez, our mission president was in Cairns which doesn't happen much because of distance. So it was nice to be there with him. We stayed in a motel near the chapel. The motels here have been not up to the same standard as one might expect in America but we keep trying to find one we like. Anyway this one was so convenient

and looked nice on the ad. At least the inside. 

You'd stay here right? 

I tried to ignore that the outside looked like offices in a strip mall.  Maybe that was my fatal flaw. Anyway we walked into our room around 9:00 pm Saturday night after having been pretty busy all day,  Two, two hour meetings, two apartment inspections, two bikes fixed, and one driving lesson, (a brand new missionary learning to drive on the left side. She did marvelously by the way!) So we were pretty tired. We flip on the lights and they all go out. Luckily the Air Conditioning was still working as was the TV. Just the ceiling lights went out. We called the manager who couldn't do anything about it that night and couldn't move us because apparently all the rooms were affected.  I took my shower by the light of my phone and we used the TV light for the main room. When I plugged in my phone, (remember it was only the ceiling lights that were out) I got shocked and my phone said it couldn't charge because there was too much currant. Hmmm. Anyway we went to sleep. Sunday we were up early for another meeting. When we came back to the room there was a big sign on the bed.... call management right away. We need to move you! Haha. You think? So housekeeping came to move us to a new room and said that our room lights were tripping all the other units lights. They had had a big storm and water got in the system and it would be a while before they could fix it. So we moved and all was well. And they gave me half off! Yay!

The Huskinson's, whom I'll introduce in a moment and we made lunch for zone conference and 30 missionaries. It's great to be with these amazing young people working so hard for the Lord. It's a pleasure to feed them and spoil them whenever we get the chance! 

Like a quick lunch at McDonalds to celebrate getting Elder Taylor's Blue card. A card the government of Australia requires one to have if you will be working with people under 18. It usually takes 4-6 weeks to get but Elder Taylor, for one reason or another, has been working on his for 7 months. I myself had to go with him 3 times to the office that processes them! Apparently 7 months is a mission record for how long it took to get it to go through, although I've been involved with 6 of these now and it's never easy!  

Meet the Huskinsons. They are from Washington State and serving in Innisfail which is about 1 1/2 hours from us. South of Cairns on the coast. They started their mission about 2 months ago. We took a day to do some sight seeing with them at some places between us.  The first place was Paronella Park. A beautiful park with a waterfall and lovely gardens where Jose Paronella built his mansion in 1935. 

This fountain is run by pressure from the waterfall. No pumps. 

Feeding the turtles. 

Those are the falls in the background. 

The moss is taking over the buildings and these tables. It's quite lovely actually.

47 stairs. I didn't get a picture but on some of the stairs they mark where the flood water was during different cyclones. One marker was halfway up the stairs! That's a lot of water! 

Next stop was the local pub in the nearby town of Mena Creek. Each town no matter how small seems to have a local pub. They all have similar items as well. Fish and Chips, Chicken Shnitzel and Chicken Parmesan are typically always available. 

Next stop was Mamu Rainforest Canopy Skywalk! 

On the way up.

This tower is 121 feet and the top offers fabulous views! 

There were also these skywalks so you are walking at the level of the tops of the trees! So cool! 

It had been raining all during lunch and as we drove up to the location, we were unsure if we'd be able to take the walk but it cleared just as we got there. Tender mercy! 

The last stop was Millaa Millaa Falls. We've been here before but this time we came prepared with our suits! We got in the water and swam behind the falls! It was amazing. We're in the rainy season so the falls were strong and powerful and to be so close and behind them was so exhilarating! If you know me at all you know I'm not the bravest person so I don't have a long list of amazing things I've done like this but this was up there with one of my favorites! I hope to do it again! 

And last but certainly not least let me introduce you to.....

Ronnie Rae! Ellis's new baby sister! 

This little sweety was born February 5th to Seth and Malorie. 

We love her and can't wait to hold her! 

I hope you get the sense that we are working hard to do the things that Jesus would be doing if He were here. At least that's our hope. We love being knackered out in His service and feel it a pleasure to have this time to devote to Him. We miss and love you all.