Dear Fellow Americans, 23/4/08 in Aussie = 4/23/08 in American As you can see I got bored with the friends and family greeting. When you work with youth all the time you pick up their traits and boredom is one of them. Update on the two YSAs that were injured in the car accident 2 Fridays ago. Sarah, the girl that had her collar bone broken in two places had surgery last Wed. They put in a metal plate to hold it together because the fractures were quite serious. All is well with her and she is now back home. They will remove the metal plate in a year. Eddie, the one with massive head injuries is making remarkable, miraculous progress. He is still semi conscious to unconscious, but is off all life support, all major drugs and they sit him up about 4 hours a day. He has full use of his left side and moves his hand and foot when pestered by the nurses. He is now showing slight movement on his right side. He injured the left side of the brain which innervates the right side. He appears to be partially aware of his surroundings. The doctors say if he does recover it will take him up to a year in which you will see only slow gradual progress over time . The neural surgeon said she has never seen a person in 20 years of practice with this kind of head damage that has lived past the 1st day. The prayers of the YSA keep flowing up to the Lord. At every meeting- Family Home Evening, Institute & Sunday school Class etc prayers are said for him. Monday a YSA named Charissa a 25 year old Aussie who has been investigating the church since we first met her in November asked me to baptize her. The missionaries have been teaching her and we have had her over for dinner, and lessons and she has been coming to our institute class for a couple of months. Last night she told me how in her job working for the Australian Federal Government she had the opportunity to meet movie star Hugh Jackman. The new government had a huge meeting called 2020 in which they invited many Australians and many state, local and foreign government officials to a special meeting on how to improve the Federal government programs. She had a supportive role with the prime minister and got to meet many government leaders and famous people. Hugh Jackman topped the list. She said he was "just gorgeous". We spoke in a stake fireside last Sunday on strengthening our marriages and families. Pat spoke on the strengthening the Family and I spoke on what it was like to be a perfect husband and gave them a few of my tips! Well it was something like that. Last Saturday we had 2 other baptisms from our Orientation week booths in Feb. at the two universities in Canberra. One was a Thai, one was from We are really getting very close to some of the YSAs , in fact maybe too close. Last night an hour before our class two of the YSAs called and said that they would be at our class but they were running late and would not be able to prepare their dinner and would we feed them something. So mom took all the left over food that I had designated for my lunch today and gave it to them! Sometimes missionaries have to make great sacrifices for the Lord. I can now relate to Stephen the New Testament. Autumn ( Fall only occurs in the States) has brought out some new visual treats. They have different deciduous trees here than those we have in the States and the colours of some of these trees are more brilliant with extremely deep vibrant oranges, reds and golds. You will note in the above paragraph how Microsoft Word makes me spell colors . There is obviously a different Aussie/ We are now in the autumn school break period which is two weeks in April and the spring break is 2 weeks in September, the winter break is 6 weeks in Jun and July and the summer break is all of Nov, Dec. and Jan. with the Universities adding 2 more weeks in Feb. Australia has more holidays than any other Western country. This Friday is ANZAC day which celebrates a military DEFEAT of the Tomorrow the Olympic Torch relay passes through Enough of the culture and climate. I still love this mission and the weeks seem to go by so fast. We will pick up another class in May which will give us 5 classes a week with 4 different preps. We are in the scriptures hours a day and it is fantastic because when you study the gospel that much you really have a sweet peaceful spirit flow over you that lifts you up and gives you the feeling of joy and happiness. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is True! Love Elder Mac( aka Dad, Grandpa or Didgeridoo Doug ) |
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