The Bergers - Sydney Australia North Mission

Sunday, March 20, 2016
Monday, March 15, 2016
Sheila writes in black, Rick in blue.

March 1, 2016 we sent a card to our grandson, Adam, as a test for how long mail takes to get to Utah so that we would know for upcoming grandchildren birthdays. Erica let us know it arrived today so it took two weeks. Hopefully it doesn't always take two weeks. Just for Adam's entertainment we mailed the card from Wollomombi as it is fun to say.

We had a good day teaching seminary and were thrilled when our investigator, Jo, joined with us. After, we enjoyed delivering birthday cards to branch members after our wonderful skype times with our children and grandchildren.

A Bottle Shop is a Liquor store, how embarrassing.

Cute post office

I really like this quaint, little church in Wollomombi, painted in one of my favorite colors

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Once again, our investigator joined us in Seminary. She seems to really enjoy it. Today we scheduled visits with two of our branch members and discovered that they were feuding and neither of them seemed to know who started it. One of our visits found the sister sobbing as she had been offended by a church member. We sat and listened and realized it was not productive to do anything but listen as any words of comfort and/or advice were met with disapproval. Eventually we were able to see her reach a relatively calm state and we left her with a word of prayer. These types of visits are especially fun for me.

I am so thankful that years ago I realized that allowing myself to be offended only hurt me and after reading a quote from Elder Neal A. Maxwell that stated when we are filled with feelings of being offended the Holy Ghost would leave until we worked through those feelings because he doesn't stay where there isn't peace, I decided it was just better to not let myself feel offense. We hope these sisters will realize the same one day.

For dinner we decided to get Kentucky Fried Chicken and invite the elders to eat. I made a salad and french bread with grilled cheese on top and baked french fries to go with the chicken. We served ice cream for dessert. We had no leftovers.

The Corella birds decided to have a get-together in our yard

Corella close up.

What are you looking at, Mate?

Pretty Bird

A colorful parrot in our tree.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Today I practiced hymns with Sister Betts and then worked on the Sesame Street song, "I don't Want to Live on the Moon" which Sister MacDonald asked me to learn so that I could accompany her school choir as she is their chorister.

We drove to Kentucky to visit with Sister Pendragon and her darling granddaughter, Lilly. They are both sweet. She stopped attending church when she moved away from the ward she was comfortable in and it has been years since she has been to a meeting. We enjoyed our time with her. It would be good for Lilly to attend Primary. We told her grandmother as much.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

After Seminary we joined the elders for the discussion with our investigator, Jo. The Word of Wisdom was introduced and she accepted it quite well. She loves tea but said she would start cutting back. It is apparent that Jo is feeling the spirit and is willing to follow it's promptings. We were very impressed. As she attends seminary each morning,she appears engaged and answers questions. The elders had trade-offs with other elders so we had four elders attend seminary today. One of them, Elder Childs, is from St. George. Elder Finlinson is from Missouri. I asked him if he knew any Finlinsons in Oak City and he said they did attend a family reunion there one year. I spent some time working on my piano piece, "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon."

After our District Training meeting, Elder Berger joined the Elders' Quorum president and took him to meet the Batemans, who live an hour away. They live way out in the Bush, far to the west of Armidale. Our Elders' Quorum president is very friendly, likable and pins people down with exactly why they aren't coming to church and what they believe and what they struggle with. They had a great discussion and asked him to think about having his eight year old daughter baptized.

Our elders, Elder Kehler, Elder Peterson, Elder Finlinson and Elder Childs, serving in Tamworth, doing trade-offs. I remember Elder Child's family shopping at Harmon's.

Friday, March 18, 2016

After seminary we again joined the elders and Jo in a discussion. They are doing two per week to try to achieve an April baptism should she feel ready.

We went with the elders to meet with Aniak and her two sons, Wade (pronounced wah-day) and Dut (pronounced doot) and a baby that was sleeping. Her boys are 3, 2 and 1 years of age. They are from the Sudan. Her language is not a written language so the Book of Mormon in her language is not available. She has had to learn English and reading the Book of Mormon is a bit of a challenge for her. She has not prayed before and is learning to do that too. Her husband is a student at UNE (University of New England) and has worked out of town for months but has now joined her. So far, the elders have not met him. She has attended church twice. I feel like it would really help her to have someone read the Book of Mormon with her. Perhaps we can work that out.

Tomorrow we leave for Coff's Harbor for our District Conference. We will enjoy seeing the ocean. We have meetings Saturday and Sunday. The members there provide meals for us.

Saturday, March 19, 2016

This morning we headed for our District Conference in Coffs Harbor. We traveled the beautiful Waterfall Highway which goes through the Dorrigo Rain Forest. The trees are so close together it looks like a picture out of the old Tarzan movie with jungles where characters needed a machete to cut their way through. There are ferns growing up the sides of trees and many of the trees have pink blossoms, purple blossoms, or orange blossoms. As we got near Dorrigo we were inundated with a heavy fog that engulfed us for about 30 minutes. Much of the area was like California Highway 1 along the California coast, very curvy. Only the fact it didn't last long kept me from losing my breakfast. Today I saw a scene we have seen several times, a huge tree with many cows underneath. If I ever get a chance to take a picture I will caption it Relief society enrichment as it just seems like the cows are enjoying socializing.

Coffs Harbor appears very tropical. We stayed at Holiday Park on Emerald Beach. I really liked this place and wish we had known of such a place or had it available to us when our children were young. You can rent a cabin which we did, or camp in your own tent and use the facilities including restrooms and kitchen areas.

Our cabin was situated to feel like you were camping, with screened windows lending a lovely breeze and we could just barely hear the surf from the nearby ocean. First thing we went for a quick hike to the beach and Brother MacDonald found us and took pictures of us. He is about John's age and we really enjoy he and his family. They are staying here too camping in a tent. There is a huge trampoline type area which they call a jumping pillow, a room full of games and balls like McDonald's enclosed playground, water splash pad areas and swimming pools. The best thing is it is a five minute walk to the beautiful ocean. We are sorry we don't have more time to stay here.

The MacDonalds invited us for lunch which made us happy as we had not made plans and did not know where to go. We enjoyed their darling family and a chicken wrap sandwich. After Elder Berger and Brother MacDonald headed off to their District Priesthood meeting, I rested and then joined the kids to pet the campground kangaroos and then Sister MacDonald, the kids and I traveled together to meet the men for the adult session of conference.

Every speaker was excellent. We learned so much about trust in the Lord, the light of Christ and how a change in church policy can be viewed so differently according to how strong a testimony is in the Book of Mormon, the Prophet Joseph Smith and the modern day prophet. One speaker mentioned how changes did not affect him as his testimony was so strong in those things but one of his friends had to spend a great amount of time on his knees to have the Holy Ghost bear testimony as to the correctness of a change and others went to social media to discuss their concerns, relying on the arm of flesh rather than the personal revelation from Heavenly Father. President Checketts, our Mission President, was presiding at the conference. He was inspiring in everything he told us. He loves the Lord and his church. He knows the gospel and how to share the message. What a Great Man!

Elder Berger taking a picture of a waterfall on in Dorrigo Rainforest

Waterfall pictures Elder Berger took

Isn't she lovely.

Street to our cabin

Our Cabin

Saturday afternoon picture

Brother MacDonald and me

Windy hair day for me, not Elder Berger

We were not really dressed for the beach.

Jumping Pillow

Splash Pad

Lucy, Tessa, Kangaroo and Cousin

The kangaroo had enough petting and headed for the beach after one more nibble of spilled food

The patio of our cabin

Sunday, March 20, 2916

We love the ocean and as we have so little time here, we got up at 6:30 a.m. and walked the beach. It was overcast but beautiful as the sun rose. We were happy to find a mob of kangaroos on our walk above the beach. Elder Berger took some fantastic photos.

While Elder Berger was showering and I was dressing I heard a knock at the door and it was Brother MacDonald with his brother-in-law and sick son needing some consecrated oil which I gladly supplied. We are so fortunate to have the priesthood.

The conference speakers today were also very good. The choir was made up of ten women and two men but did a nice job. A light lunch was served for all as many of us had to leave for home and many had to travel long distances. The speakers talked of adversity coming to the righteous as well as unrighteous, agency, again trust in the Lord and doing a good turn daily, bringing joy to our lives.

On the way home through the rain forest, we stopped at a lookout to view the beauty. On our way we listened to Itzhak Perlman playing Motzart. It was beautiful.