December 2015

It is almost Christmas.  Here is wishing you a Very Merry Australia Christmas!

Aussie Christmas Wish

On Halloween Sister Parsons, Sister Mickelson and I went to the New Farm Market.  They had wonderful produce, food and crafts.  The Halloween witch was also there.
























Had to take a picture of the road sign because I could not understand what it is trying to say.
 

The 4-7th of November we had a Senior Conference.  All the senior missionaries from the northern part of the mission came to Brisbane on Wednesday.  We had a nice chicken dinner at the Kangaroo Chapel next to the Temple.  A number of the seniors were involved in a training at the chapel that evening so the rest of us went to the Temple.  Thursday morning we had training until 12:30 and then we could choose from a list of City Activities for the afternoon.  Before we disbursed we had a picture of the group in the garden at the Temple.   

Senior Conference 10/ 2015

In the evening we all re-grouped for dinner at a Thai restaurant.  The meal was marvelous.  Friday we went to Mt. Coot tha Botanical Garden to view the Japanese garden and for a group picture.  We spent several hours in the gardens viewing the beauty God has created for us.

Japanese Garden Senior Conference 10/15

In the evening we all took the Kookaburra River Cruise on the Brisbane River.  What spectacular views of the city and all the lights.  The dinner was very good but the company was better.  Enjoy Brisbane by night and a couple of our senior missionaries.

Brisbane Skyline w/Story Bridge Lights

Brisbane Skyline

Elder & Sister Prigoone, Sister Parsons, Brother Gordon

Brisbane Skyline

Elder & Sister Prigoone 

Elder & Sister Prigoone served a mission in Canada a few years ago.  He is currently a Service Missionary and assesses and makes repairs to our missionary flats.  He is a tremendous help to the mission.



Saturday morning we had a continental breakfast at the Mission Home.  President Henderson recognized all the missionaries who will be leaving within the next 3 months.  I will be one of the missionaries leaving prior to March.  We all bore our testimonies about the Gospel and our Heavenly Father.   After the breakfast everyone dispersed for their homes or the airport for flights back to the North.


Elder & Sister Mickelson, Sister Parsons and I had discussed preparing an American Thanksgiving dinner for the office.  We asked Sister Henderson if it would be okay and she asked if we could possibly help her provide the same dinner for the Missionary Leadership missionaries who were meeting on Thanksgiving day at the Kangaroo Chapel.  So our dinner increased from under 10 to 50 missionaries.  It was a delight to do this for the young missionaries and even better to see the faces of missionaries from countries who have never heard about Thanksgiving.  They are amazed and enjoyed the dinner.  For the most part we enjoyed putting it together for them although we had to work through a couple of glitches.  Such as the electric roaster would not heat so we had to put the turkey roasts in the oven and cook the dressing after the turkey was done.   Sister Parsons was at the church roasting turkey while I was at the flat also cooking turkey, dressing and gravy.  Sister Mickelson cooked carrots and green beans.  Sister Henderson cooked the potatoes.  Desert came from Costco in the form of pumpkin and apple pie.

Turkey Dinner

Deseret

Elder Pitts, Elder Halo and Elder Tanner

Elder Halo is a wonderful missionary from Tonga.  He has worked hard in the mission and always has a smile on his face.  He will be a great leader when he returns to Tonga. 

Elder Matheus &

Elder Stringham

Elder Stringham is sitting in the left of the picture.  My mother's maiden name is Stringham.  I asked him about his ancestors when he came into the mission.  As it turns out we have Bryant Stringham as our common ancestor.  He married three sisters and Elder Stringham is from one of his wives and my family comes from another wife.
  
The last weekend of November Sister Parsons and I moved flats.  We have three Senior sisters coming into the Mission to replace us.  Sister Denton is coming from Sydney and will be serving for 1 year.  Sister Dever and Van Der Mewre are coming from the US.  They should be arriving the end of December after Christmas.  We moved to a three bedroom flat on the street level.  It has a large outside area with a small yard.  It is a lovely flat and will work well for three sisters.

Elder & Sister Michelson will be leaving the end of January and Sister Parsons leaves the 24th of December.  I will be staying to help the sisters get their feet on the ground.  I am hoping to leave by the end of February the latest middle of March.  The new office couple will be arriving mid March if the visa application is processed timely.

I will be flying to LAX the 20th of December to attend my grand-daughter, Kiera's, wedding at the San Diego Temple.  She is marrying her best friend Sebastian who she had a crush on when she was 15.  They both served missions in Brazil, grew up together in Juneau, love the outdoors and are both very bright and students at BYU Provo.  It will be a quick trip as I will be returning to Australia on the 23rd of December arriving Christmas morning.

 December 5 Sister Parsons and I went to the Steve Irwin Australia Zoo as we could not leave without seeing the Zoo and especially the Salt Water Crocodile show.  As you can see he is a huge croc.  The rhinos were really big as well.  It was a lovely zoo but did not have a large number of animals because they keep them in their natural habitat.  I think, we liked the bird aviary the best.  We saw several types of doves.  The Emerald dove is beautiful and of course the lorikeets are the most beautiful.  Just prior to the croc show they introduced a number of birds.  The one we had never heard of was a black cockatoo.  There were two; one orange tail feathers and one with yellow tail feathers.  They were so different from the normal cockatoo just the opposite in color.

One Large Turtle

Salt Water Crocodille

Rhino

Emerald Dove in Center

Lorikeets

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year.  May we all remember the true meaning of Christmas and the love our Heavenly Father has for each of us as his sons and daughters.