For The Beauty of the Earthl

As we walk each morning at 6:30 for exercise, we see the most amazing sights.  God has truly created a beautiful and varied world for us all to enjoy.  The purple blossoms on this tree are magnificent and we see this tree in quite a few yards.  It is supposed to be the fall season here, but someone forgot to tell this tree.  The area is quite hilly - full of hills - so our walk is up and down, around and around, for thirty minutes we go.  We try to start and end on this hill.  The plant with the "corn on the cob" blossoms, is a Blanksly, I think.  The seed pod is down here at the bottom, and is hard enough that some people actually carve it into clever things.  Apparently, the seeds fall out and require a fire, or heat, in order to germinate. The other crazy thing with green growing out of its head has a name that is not politically correct to use anymore.  So I cannot tell you its name.  Only that it is found in the bush and is protected now because too many people were bringing it out to civilization.  This little long legged bird is mean and ornery and has scared away all of the sparrows.  So he "rules the roost" in our front yard.

The Aussies are happy to share their knowledge with us and we are full of questions about the wonderful world we now live in.

During the week, Mon-Fri, we work in the Mission office keeping track of 200+ missionaries.  We help with their apartments, travel needs, information, and supplies.  On Sunday, we attend a ward assigned by the Mission President.  Saturdays is our preparation day.  We clean our apartment, wash our clothes, shopping, and then we do some sightseeing.  We have access to a mission car, but driving on the left side in Sydney can be daunting to say the least.  So, we used the transport system for the first time.  The trains are smooth, quiet, clean, and fairly easy to use once you understand the routes and signage.  It is reasonably inexpensive.  Armed with confidence, that old people can learn new tricks, we set off with some instructions from a local, Alita's mission friend.  We did ask the ticket master some questions, and he gave us a great answer that we could only understand "change train at Central".  But with more help from friendly Aussies, we made it to central and looked for the "Circular Key" line.  Only after asking several others, were we able to discover that "Circular Quay" or "Circular Qy" is the correct spelling of what we understood to be "key".  Obviously, our Aussie is not so good yet!  :)