So Much to DO

I had high hopes of being able to write on this blog every week but we are having long days and short nights with not much down time. I suppose that all missions in the church are going through growing pains right now but here in Australia ours are being compounded by visa issues. The Australian government changed the kind of visas that they grant to missionaries and they are issued for exactly two years.  Therefore, if the visa is applied for too early then the missionary must leave the country earlier than his release date.  This is resulting in many visas not being issued on time - we were expecting 44 missionaries for Aug 28, but then it dropped to 28 - some we knew had been given temporary assignments in other missions, but 6 we have no idea about.  In an effort to understand this, the president called our travel representative to inquire and we were told that we really won't know until Monday morning SLC time because a visa could still arrive for them and they would be put on planes that afternoon.  That is Tuesday here that we will actually know the exact number of missionaries to expect to arrive as early as 5:10 a.m. Wednesday morning.  It really does take a lot of planning for each missionary, having chosen a trainer, having enough housing available, enough phone lines, making sure you have received their debit card and that there is money on it and etc, etc.  This situation is driving us all crazy. Salt Lakes solution is sometimes they try and just keep sending missionaries all sorts of different days which President Henderson is saying no more of that, It is just too disruptive - how do you plan zone conferences, training meetings and interviews if you continually are having transfers.  As a result of this visa policy, we now have missionaries here whose visa will not last for their entire mission, some by 2 or 3 weeks.  We just received a statement saying if we have missionaries in that category then they should just be sent home one transfer early.  If it is 3 months or longer, then we will apply for new visas, which entails a whole lot of paperwork, chest x-rays for anyone from the islands, and an additional $1200.  Then you have the problem of tracking all of this -- the missionary system will not let you change the departure date if it is more than 30 days before the original release date and we don't have copies of everyone's visa so that is my main project right now building a spread sheet to track the information and trying to obtain a copy of everyone's visa.  Also, all missionaries have to obtain a blue card when they arrive, which is a card issued after an investigation saying you are safe to work around children.  These are usually issued for the duration of the mission plus some but once in a while you get a shorter date - another thing that has to be tracked.  We also driver's licenses expiring and even one passport.  It can all make a person crazy!

Enoch spends his time getting new apartment leases, making monthly rent payments and paying bills.  Plus answering a continuous ringing phone to keep the missionaries in supplies.  Most days we go to the office with a plan for the day of what we are going to get done and often come home with having never touched the work.

Saturday we did get a couple of attempts at a p-day - We went to the office at 6:30 and worked for an hour and then drove to a suburb about 45 minutes away to meet up with a couple from Townsville that had come to visit their children that live in the Brisbane area, we had breakfast with them and returned to the office, because we were having our internet upgraded we could not really work so we left the office and came home and went for a walk on the Brisbane river. We found that we were able to walk right to the heart of the city.  We really enjoyed that.  We'll do it again and take our camera so that we can share the experience with you through photos.  It was about a 6 mile walk there and back.

Even though we are working hard, we enjoy it and our association with the young missionaries. I don't know if we mentioned before we have about 12 Chinese speaking missionaries-we even rent an office space downtown to teach in because they find these people in the streets of the city and take them there for a quiet place.  We are teaching and seeing many of these Chinese people accept the gospel.  Many are here for schooling and will return home - China will be one place when it opens for missionaries that the leadership will already be there because of all those who have accepted the gospel in other countries.  It truly is miraculous to see all of this unfold - especially when you know the end of the story.

Sister Henderson has started a mission blog if any of you are interested in seeing pictures and reading more about our mission. It is www.australiabrisbanemission.com.

It is springtime here now and everything is blooming and the weather has been perfect, the nights still a little "fresh".  (we love some of their word choices)

Guess we better wind down and get some sleep - it will be a long week with 28? new missionaries arriving and 16 leaving.

The best news of all is that we get a new bed tomorrow - -we have a worn out queen size mattress and are getting a king -- can' wait for that.

Love, The Miles

August 18, 2013

We're celebrating 42 years of marriage on the 19th.  Who'd have thought it would be in Brisbane?  Extremely busy here with all the new missionaries arriving.  The growth in missionaries also means more apartments, more furnishings, more bicycles, more cars, more of everything.  Some days seem like a week's worth of work and there's no time to squeeze in much else.  You have to get innovative to put 36 hours into a 24 hour day.  So, you do things like take the "city hopper" ferry to do sight seeing.  Here's some pictures from the city hopper which is a free ride on the Brisbane river through the central part of town.  The free ferry only does the most central part of town.  If you want to go further in either direction, you get on a catamaran type ferry, called a city cat, which is very fast.  Of course you can also go pampered and slow on a paddle wheel style river boat.  The attached pictures start on one end of the free ride and show the tall apartment buildings where many live on the river bank and have beautiful views.  The Brisbane ward bishop lives in one of those pictured.  From there we go under the Story bridge that connects Kangaroo Point (where we live) with the central part of the city.  We drive across the Story bridge every day.  In one of the pictures you can see people who've taken the stairs to the top of the bridge for a view of the city.  As darkness descends the city takes on a "New York City" kind of appearance, with very tall buildings lit up in the town.  On the southbank of the river there is a long stretch of park like facilities, including a ferris wheel and on the opposite side of the river, there's a beautiful, spacious arboretum.  Between the southbank and the arboretum is a footbridge and you can see folks crossing from one side to the other.  You'll also see a fuzzy picture of the top of the Brisbane temple.  And then there's this amazing "light show" that appears to be light bulbs in the sky changing colors and moving shapes.  I don't know how that works physically, it's like the lights are connected on

hanging on wires, but from what you don't know.  A few years ago stuff like this would have been called flying saucers or close encounters with aliens.  The pictures end with a shot of the Story bridge at night when it's all lit up in different colors.