Off hours

 Here's a few pictures taken in the off hours, which there are few, but by taking advantage of Saturday's there are things that are close enough that in a few hours you can have a mini-holiday.  We've visited botanical gardens with all types of vegetation and flowers.





This is Redcliff, which has a terrific beach area and is also great for whale watching and is noted for being the hometown of the BeeGees.

 We drove to festival days at Toowoomba, which is due West of Brisbane and much higher elevation and much less humidity.  Festival days were like the Idaho State Fair, a rose parade (sort of) and tours of local gardens.  It was big on floral arranging, quilts, parade and of course food and beverages.

 The quilt work was world class, the women who do this surely work year round to bring their secret handiwork that filled an auditorium.

Meanwhile, the men engage in lawn bowling, which is like big time bocci ball, some very accurate lagging was seenThe parade had something for everybody and we mean every body!



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 There were lovely flower gardens open for viewing, got some great ideas - to bad so many of the plants will not grow in Idaho

 Saturday was the last day of the Brisbane festival - it had lasted all through the month and featured live entertainment, a light show, craft fair and etc.  We walked through several times during the past weeks.  It was capped off with "River Fire" which is a big fireworks show which we watched near the temple.

 Thousands of people attended the fireworks - from our vantage point we could see them go off from 7 different locations.  It wasn't the 4th of July, but was a pretty good show.

A fast week

Can't hardly believe a week has passed by.  It was very busy as usual.  Monday and Tuesday (26 and 27) were spent preparing for our big arrival of missionaries on Wednesday and saying goodbye to 13 . We attended the farewell dinner and testimony meeting of those going home. Even though we had not known most of those leaving, we were deeply touched as they shared their testimonies and growth they have experienced.  We had a couple who go home to less active families or non members and are terrified of their future as they try to remain faithful to the gospel.  We were deeply touched by a Tongan Elder who had to learn English to come on his mission along with our assistant Elder Caby who is from France and also spoke no English before his mission.  He extended until Oct 4 so we have a few more days before we have to say goodbye.

I started this post last week but will finish it today, we have a bit more time before church as it is stake conference.

After we said goodbye to our 13 missionaries, we started the 28th with our first group arriving on a 5:10 a.m. flight.  We fed the first group breakfast at the mission office and did an orientation and then just had them study for a while.  We had only one hiccup in meeting all the  flights and one Elder that arrived by himself at 7:00 a.m. was forgot, but when the President arrived a bit late to pick him up he was on the sidewalk surrounded by people that he was sharing the gospel with.  The next group arrived at 11:15 from the New Zealand MTC, we had expected 6 on this flight but got 7.  One sisters visa had come through that morning so they just put her on the flight with no advance notice.  We had word that she was going on temporary assignment to American Samoa, where she is from, we quickly made arrangements for one more at the hotel and moved on. This group came to the mission office for lunch and orientation - we started moving the first group to the mission home for lunch there - the last flight was 12:35 with the last group -more lunch and one more orientation.  We received a total of 31 missionaries that day.  It was too big of a group to stay at the mission home so we had to put them in a hotel that is near the temple and owned by a member.  Sister Henderson stayed with the Sisters and the assistants stayed with the elders - the next morning they had exercise by the river and then had a trainer meeting at 9:00 a.m. and left for their areas by noon.  It was a wild and crazy day but actually went quite well - the trainers are chosen early but aren't actually paired up until after the new missionaries are interviewed.

This past week actually went well and we were able to work more normal hours and give us a chance to get some exercise.  We did the 45 minute walk to the city along the river two nights - it is really interesting being down there at night - not a place you would want your young missionaries!

Yesterday we actually got a p-day (only 1 phone call all day).  We went whale watching - it was a beautiful day and were out on the water for about 4 hours.  Always amazed at the beauty of the earth.  It went well the first 2 hours then I got sea sick ----- made me so mad to be having such a grand experience and not able to enjoy it.

It is time to get ready for conference- it is being held at the Brisbane convention center in the city - thinking about walking.

Enoch will post pictures later from the whale watching.