Sunday, June 23, 2013

The Missionaries In Our Lives

We are not always involved in the day to day missionary work of teaching and baptizing.  But we always enjoy the missionaries' powerful spirits as they come and go from our offices each day.  Elder Bettridge from Utah is kind, pleasant and always smiling. And as you look at these photos, you can see that all are happy in serving the Lord, and helping others.  We are uplifted by their examples and hope that we too can exemplify the love of the Savior for all.

 Sister Haynes, Polisetti, and Pea.  Sister Polisetti is from India.


 Elder and Sister Baker are from Washington and have been teaching ESL in Sydney.

 We are definitely multi-cultural and enjoy learning how to say hello in 7 different languages.

 Elder Keresoma is from New Zealand and Elder Shim is from Korea.

 This past week we saw 13 missionaries finish their missions and leave for home.  The next day, 12 missionaries arrived from the Provo, Ut. MTC and the New Zealand MTC.  Here are their tired but happy faces.  Sisters Tuilotolava, and Hoeft.  They are islanders from Samoa or Tonga - I think.....

 Elder Hoer is an assistant who is helping with new missionary training.  This is Elder Ripley from England.
 Elder Tilini, I think is from Samoa and Elder Aguirre-Reyes is from California, but they had some fun that morning, even though Elder Aguirre had lost his luggage.  The airlines gave him a $100 to make up for the inconvenience.  Not to shabby.
Elder Po Hung Lee, from Taiwan had a hard time understanding my English but when I held the camera up he sure knew how to smile!
 Elder Vaele is from Tonga?  and Elder Balenavaikau is from Fiji - he had been waiting for his visa since February.  And it has taken us that long to learn to spell his name and pronounce is correctly.  :)



 President Howes and Elder Feil teach them about budgeting and spending money and to help ease the pain, Elder Feil brought along candy bars, which helped everyone stay awake and smile.


 Elders Amsler from Switzerland and Matu from Tonga will be in the Sydney South mission - we will miss their jokes, smiles, and big handshakes!  They are close to the office and we see them at least once a week.
 Our weekend trip was to Canberra ACT - like the Washington DC of America.  It will be in the south mission so we needed to go down now while it is still with our mission.  This view is from Mt. Ainsley which is about 827 Meters high.  It is cold in Canberra - about 2 degrees Celsius but it warmed up to 11 degrees.  The Polynesian Missionaries really complain about the cold in Canberra.  After coming here, I can understand their moans and groans.  It is humid and cold - reminds me of Jersey.

 These next few photos are the War Memorial.  We learned about the sacrifice of the Aussies in WWI and II and Korea and Vietnam.



 This is the Capitol Building - and from there on to the embassies of countries from around the world.   Can anyone explain why the Polish Embassy has the largest sign in front of their building and the US has a small sign but has the biggest lot and the most buildings? :)  Something to ponder.

 Indonesia Embassy for Elder and Sister Greenway!  We were thinking of you.



 Finally, we went to the National Museum of Australia  and this man enjoyed taking us on an hour long tour.  We got our money's worth.



 This is a "map" representing Australia and all the islands.

This symbolic trail represents "dreamtime" in the aborigine culture coming to modern day Canberra.

 And as the sun sets in the west, we head for home in Sydney, where there are smiling missionaries and a heavy downpouring of rain.  Hagonee'

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