Update from down under! Summer continues to be hotter then heck here; but then it cools! Whew!!

Hi fabulous family & friends: We are mostly enyoying the type of summer they have here,
a bit like Utah, hot but little humidity. Just got thru a couple of days from heck, again.
Mostly we do fine without air-conditioning, as we have 3 great fans; but there are usually
a few days we sweat like heck. But mostly, of the Aussies we know, don't have C/A. But
when it cools off like now, it is actually quite cool. Reminds me of how the desert probably
can be, unbearably hot during the day and scary cold at night.
It was sad to hear of the passing of our much beloved prophet, Pres. Hinckley-he sure set an
example of serving right up to the end. We should all do as well, right? I felt sad, and yet
happy for him, he is with his beloved wife, Marjorie and I really appreciated that we saw him
remain strong up to the end. Yesterday, in an e-mail message we received from a missionary
couple, who we had known in the MTC and who came over here just days before us. In it
Elder McKell wrote this most beautiful poem / tribute to President Hinckley. I e-mailed to Elder
McKell that I would certainly credit him properly as the writer, and that I would include in my
weekly? update:          

To our Beloved Gordon B. Hinckley

Decades at the feet of prophets prepared you:

Man of faith to Prophet of God,

Builder of Temples now dotting the earth,

You lifted our souls and our spirits,

As you focused on Family and

Traversed the world with the energy of many

half your years.

You are the sweet example

of all the things you asked us to "be."

We've witnessed your Charity and Love of the Savior,

in His name asking us

to stand just a little bit taller,

to be better, kinder, gentler.

We'll not soon forget your humor and wit,

Your inspiring Vision of Faith.
Inclusion is your Legacy.

Such influence does not end.
Adieu, our noble Prophet-Friend.

Elder McKell-Syndey So. Mission, AU

 

Last week we appointed and trained the last of the three brand new early morning seminary

teachers, this is a Cooks Island native, extremely well educated thru ANU (Australian National

University); father of three, his youngest at home is 14 or 15 years old, so he will be teaching

his son with the other seminary studends. This brother had taught 15 years ago, so lots of

changes since then. At the end of the nearly 2 1/2 hour training, this soft spoken brother,

said he had wanted to volunteer a couple of months ago, but his work schedule just would

not permit at that time in the morning, and then just very recently, his work schedule changed

and lightened up-actually as a promotion. He is a demograper. He is a very sensitive man

and teared up, just a tiny bit that he has been blessed to have the time in the morning to do

this. As we sat with him, we knew this was one of those tender mercies of the Lord. It continues

to be difficult in this fairly small stake, especially when it comes to callings and appointments

as this; pure and simple, they lack the numbers here to really staff the stake.

A week ago Friday, we met with our district missionaries, who were all from the U.S. and knew

transfers were in order. So, today, of those 10 Americans, five were transfered and we got

our first Sister missionaries and what gems they are: one is Polynesian and the other from

mainline China. The Polynesian missionary told us we should hear Sister Wei's conversion story

and that any/every time she hears it, she crys. Sure enough, she cried, as did I hearing the

conversion story of Sister Wei. Sister Wei is 9 months into her mission and she went as quickly

after her baptism as she was allowed. Sister Wei, from mainland China, no less, talked of talking

to a young woman, who was waiting for a visa and was encourgaged to attend one of our church

meetings near where she was. She showed up and loved it and when the branch president met

her to introduce himself to her, he asked if she was a member. When she responded no, he told

her she could not come back, as only members could attend or their relatives; as China allows

no proselyting at all, it is illegal. He said only baptized members could attend. She asked, baptized,

what does that mean? She was told that the church was more openly allowed in Shanghi. Well

she got to Shanghai, but didn't even know the name of our church and was directed to where

there were several churchs together. One church was a Baptist Church and the other was ours.

Apparently she had seen someone in the first branch she attended in China and saw someone

had a missionary name tag on (can't quite explain this all) and when she went into the church

in Shanghi, she saw the missionary type name tag and knew she was in the right place. She was

taught the discussions and was bapized very quickly. SHe said she had lost her Dad, when she

was only 9 or 10 and was told about families can be together forever and that she would be able

to see her Father again and that helped her. As she shared her conversion in greater detail then

I can convey, sure enough her companion cryed as did I. The Spirit was so strong as she talked

about miracles in her life to bring her the gospel and now miracles continue as she serves. These

two beautiful sisters have been together I believe the 9 months Sister Wei has been over here

thru 3 transfers. They had been in Sydney all that time. They had loved being with the McKells,

who wrote the poem above. So even though these two lovely sisters are in the North part of

our district / zone and we are in the south part, we will be able to see them weekly. Just a short

while ago, Dad commented to me, how Sister Wei sat very close to me and kept holding my hand

or arm as she bore her testimony. How about this one, also at our district meeting one of the new

missionaries just came over here from Northern Utah three days ago, but one of the other new

missionaries to Canberra is the very first missionary to serve from Burma! Again, what a priviledge

to serve with these strong valiant young people.

This past Sunday, we had a taped broadcast of Elder Tingley's YSA talk from the week before

after church at the stake center @ 6. It was supposed to be right after a convert baptism

for a young Aussie woman, age 25, who the missionaries had taught and had scheduled her
baptism. But Chrissa's Mom & Grandma asked her to take her time and wait a month. Charissa

told me Sunday, she was a bit embarrased and I said, don't be. Elder Mac had previously said

to me, she was showing respect for these two good women in her life. Anyway, that sort of made

some sense to me and when Charissa said she was embarrased, I spoke Dad's thoughts, that

she was honoring / respecting them to take just a bit more time to really think this over, and added

my two bits, by saying the gospel will still be true in a couple of weeks or  a month as they had

asked her to wait. So, I invited her over for dinner this coming Monday with a great member friend,

Kali also, along with one of the remaining missionaries who had been teaching her. Saw Elder

Nielson at our district meeting this morning and asked him if a salad with shrimp and mangoes was

okay. I practically always take some kind of baked goodies to the Elders for the meetings and they

always snarf it up and are appreciative of the sweet goodies. So Elder Nielson said he loves to eat

and he couldn't wait to have dinner at our flat and to teach Charissa again. I guess they are just

like Dad, prefer someone else's cooking.

This past Monday, one of the YSA"s had a barbeque party at his home (the one with the outdoor

pool), which was well used as it was hot that day/ night. It was a party to help encourage one of

the young men to prepare to serve a mission. All the attendees at the party, were to bring a

necktie, they had picked up at a resale shop (like St. Vincent DePaul-called Vinnies) or something

like it. There was lots of food; Morgan is a great barbeque chef and put on quite a spread. The YSA

who is being encouraged to serve a mission, had made a pineapple shaped homemade pinata. He

must have had it reinforced with super glue, because it took a lot of banging around with a base-

ball bat before it shared it candies. I continue to state this is a party / food/ fun mission. With a

big emphasis on FOOD!  And food is not cheap here, let alone inexpensive. I truly believe most food

products inluding fresh fruits and veggies are 2 to 5 times typically what we pay in the states, so

sometimes I wonder how families do it over here, let alone even the YSA's.

We are back to having more YSA's into our flat, this week two separate days for lunch / dinner/BOM discussions and sometimes just some plain and simple fellowshipping. I've started

back a bit with the Tuesday night Institute, but prefer Doug to do more of the teaching. He not

only does a better job at it, he loves it. He is better with the bigger groups and I prefer the smaller

groups or just a few YSA's. Dad always says I a bit better at the smoozing with them.

We continue to be so blessed to be involved in their lives and become more and more aware of

some of their struggles and frankly in addition to praying for our own family, we pray for them as

a group and for many of them as individuals, which they are of course.

Whew, I'm tired and you are probably to just tryig to read this.
We feel blessed to be able to serve and know we are where we are supposed to be. We both

struggle a bit with some health things, that we didn't seem to bring over here; guess that is just

part of life, but we continue to SHUFFLE along. We both knew when we came over here, we

were older than dirt; now we're just  rusting our a bit faster than we expected.

You are in our prayers and we continue to feel yours and thank you for them. I continue to really appreciate the prayers of our grandchildren. Miss you all.

Love, mom /grandma aka Sister mac

                               

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