Easter Sunday, April 16, 2017
Monday, April 10, 2017
Sheila writes in Black, Rick writes in Blue

Autumn" break for the school kids so no Seminary for two weeks.  It was nice to not have to hurry this morning.  After Elder Berger and I took our walks, we skyped and then travelled to Uralla to teach a Church History lesson the the Styles, at their request.  After, we went home, had something to eat and travelled to Ben Lomond to show the Benesch's a video by S. Michael Wilcox, "The Great Visions of the Pearl of Great Price. The Benesch's have great faith and seem to really enjoy in depth discussions of Gospel principles. This talk really gets into Moses' vision and really helps with our core understanding of the purpose of our creation and our ultimate destiny. It was a very spiritual evening for us all.

During our walks we took pictures of the beautiful changing leaves.  It is hard for me to have Autumn be in April 🙂.

The architecture of the cathedral where I walk is lovely.

     In Ben Lomond, a beautiful full moon, what we might call a Harvest Moon at home, again, April...






Thursday, April 13, 2017

Today I made sugar cookies and decorated them with pink frosting and pastel decorations for Easter. We delivered them to the Uryanis, Lacambras, MacDonalds and Lawrences.

We got to see the Lacambra's one week old baby boy, named Kirby.  He was so darling. We had a lovely discussion regarding the need for baptism with one of our branch members about their ten year old child.  We also saw Elder Berger's dentist, who lives next door to one of our members, and we had a nice talk with him.  He is single, very nice and we hope somehow to approach him about the gospel. It is difficult to approach the dentist while in his chair, for reasons that should be obvious. He is in a position to cause me great pain, should he be offended. It can be difficult to express mysekf when my tounge is numb and my mouth looks kind of like Woodstock with all the stuff packed in there. I am sure that the opportunity will come and it will be great. He is really a very good man.

It's been too long since I've held one of these sweet newborns.

Meet five day old Kirby Lacambra!

Friday, March 14, 2017

Today we travelled to Inverell to give Rishaad Ali the rest of the Frosted Easter cookies and see how his family is doing.  They were denied their resident visa after living here several years and have hired an attorney which will cost them $12,000 to $18,000 dollars to fight their case over the next year with no guarantee of winning.  We feel so badly for them.  The issue seems to be totally a result of poor communication and advice from the immigration department when the Alis first came.

The drive was so beautiful with all of the changing leaves.

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Easter tomorrow and we will be eating on our own.  I will try to create as close of an Easter meal as possible. We bought a lovely Easter Ham for $15.00 Australian which would be about $12.00 US. It is a little larger than a softball and weighs 850 grams or almost 2 pounds. It is Gluten free, although I personally love gluten and I may make a ham sandwich out of the leftovers, if there are any, using delicious Gluten-Filled artisan bread. There is a picture of the Ham in my hand below.
      Australia has food that is varied and delicious but we do miss some things. I really like Hormel Cure 81 spiral sliced ham for Easter and it is not available here. I sometimes need to remind myself that we are 10,000 miles from home because Australia really is so much like the U.S.  On the other hand, if you like to eat lamb, (maybe you are a wolf or a coyote) you would find yourself in heaven here, they have great lamb. For me, even though lamb rhymes with ham I still find myself missing my favorite ham.

The Checketts came to Armidale today to have missionary interviews and they took us to eat at Subway with the elders which was fun.  We love to be with the Checketts.  The elders and Elder Berger are singing Brightly Beams our Father's Mercy tomorrow so we practiced after lunch. After that, we delivered a Microwave heating bag I made to Sister Clarkson who was in the hospital a couple of days ago with accelerated heart rate and vomiting.  She seems to be doing better.

President Checketts told us that they do not have a replacement for us so they will be letting our flat go and we will need to assist them in getting it ready to end the lease.  We sent a rocking chair home with them that we never use. The flat has a perfect location and situation for senior couples so I am sad that they will have to let it go.

Sunday, April 16, 2017

The day was beautiful, a lovely Easter Sunday.  We had lots of visitors from the Sully family which was good as very few of the branch members were there.  The Missionary Elders and Elder Berger sang, I spoke on "Seeing Without Believing", a topic given to me by Brother Smith and we had a vaguely familiar meal of ham and funeral potatoes.  Neither tasted the way we were hoping but it was a nice day. The Missionary Elders also spoke in Sacrament Meeting on short notice and they were inspiring in their talks. We spent the last part of the block by separating into Priesthood and Releif Society ad the Sisters watched the Women's Session of conference and the men watched the Priesthood session. It was a wonderful day.