Getting ready for next intake

As if last week wasn't busy enough, next week is transfer week and we'll have 30 new arrivals plus a new senior couple which puts the total over 250.  Missionaries going home leave Wednesday, and the new incoming missionaries arrive starting Tuesday night, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  And we don't have enough flats for all of them!

In anticipation of never seeing the sun next week we went on a drive to Mount Tamborine yesterday.  Up the mountain the tropical rainforest meets the more typical vegetation so there's quite a mixture of tropical and semi tropical flowers and trees.  We strolled through the botanical gardens, listened to the laughing kookaburras and took a few pictures, notably of the camilia tree blossoms since we have a daughter in law by the name of Camille.  We then drove to the Gold Coast which has Queensland's best surfing waters and because this is "Labour Day" weekend in Australia and the first holiday of summer, the Gold Coast was a big traffic jam with no vacancies galore.  It felt like Southern California.

Here in Brisbane the Jacaranda trees are in full bloom and the blossoms emit a wonderful scent.  They are scattered all over the city, with some right on the street where we live.  We took pictures of some in the neighborhood and also on the University of Queensland campus.  The saying at UQ is that if the Jacarandas are in blossom it's too late to redeem yourself for not studying up to this point in the semester because finals are near!  (See Matthew 24: 32-33)

New Experience

Today we had a new experience.  We have a missionary whose visa expires 3 months before his mission should end and we are starting the process of getting him a new visa so that he can stay to the end of his mission.  It entailed us meeting him and his companion at the temple and taking a ferry to downtown to get a physical.  It took us over 4 hours in travel time and waiting time at the appointment. We asked what he would do after his mission, he said "I have no education, I did not go to grammar school or high school so I will just get a job. He is from the Philippines, and he shared his touching story with us.  His mother passed away 7 years ago and his father has lost his sight. After Elder P's older siblings left home - he became the father and mother to his younger siblings.  He did not attend school but gave all his time to his siblings.  About 4 years ago, a friend asked him if he wanted to come and listen to the missionaries that were coming to his house to teach them. Elder P went, listened, learned and received an answer that the church was true and was baptized. He was able to share the gospel with his siblings and baptize them.  He decided he could leave his family to serve a mission as they had all gotten a little older and could care for themselves.  They do all attend school and he will finish his mission in time to go to some of their graduations.  He told us how he always wanted to be a rich man, but now he doesn't care because he is rich in the things of God. He could barely read when he got to the mission but he has now read the Book of Mormon 4 times, he says I now understand what I read.  He said "I am glad that I was not educated because I am very prideful and maybe I would not have accepted the gospel if I had education".  He is the first missionary from his ward to serve outside of the Philippines. When he got his call he said "I cannot go to another country, I am not educated" - then when he was visa delayed, he said "maybe I should just serve here. He was helped by a senior couple to work through the whole process and finally obtained a visa and got here after learning English. "He says I am now an educated man, I have been to another country, I can speak English, and I can read".  He is a happy man. It was our privilege to help him today - we hope and pray he is granted a new visa so he can finish his mission in Brisbane.

A different view of Brisbane

Sunday night we were invited to dinner by a young couple in the Ward who live on the 32nd floor Casino Towers downtown Brisbane.  They had also invited a family that had recently moved here from Singapore, they are Christian and he is even serving as a minister in his church.  We told them some about the church and hope to be able to share more.

The view from their apartment was a little different from any other we'd see.

It would scare us to live up there.

This young couple met at institute at Queensland University - there are 2 classes with about 8 in each class. Tasha should have finished her course work and be off doing residency somewhere else, but she was nearly kidnapped, an experience that caused her so much trauma that she flunked her classes, resulting in her being on campus one more semester allowing her to meet her future husband at institute.  They were married 3 months ago in the temple.  Her husband has been accepted into medical school at same University.  They are a great couple.

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!



.

 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.

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.