Missionary moments from down under

Jun 26, 2008 Dear Family and Friends, Another week rolls by and some interesting  spiritual experiences occurred. We had  a double Zone Conference last Thursday here in Canberra. Usually there are one to three missionaries going home after serving for 2 years. Last Thursday 5 missionaries were going home in the next few weeks. It is a custom to have them bear their testimonies in the Zone before they go. The first was a missionary, Elder Broadbent, who seemed very distant or shy and gave the appearance that he was mentally already home. However, when he bore his testimony it was apparent that that he was very knowledgeable in the gospel and had done well on his mission. We found out that the mission president, when apparently finding out about his intelligence, asked him to learn Samoan on his mission and serve in the Samoan Wards; which he did.   There are almost more Samoan's and Tongans in Australia than there are in their own islands. If you remember in one of our first letters, we went to a 4 stake seminary scripture mastery activity near Sydney and I mentioned that over 90% of the seminary students there were of Polynesian descent.    Another missionary got up to bear his testimony, an Elder Sutton. He was one of the assistants to the mission president. Normally there are 2 Elders that are assistants to the president. This time there were 3 because he was going home in a week and the President had already called his replacement. The AP's usually do some teaching in the zone conference and always accompany President McMasters and his wife when they come to our zone conferences. As he was leaving, his replacement did the teaching and Elder Sutton was assigned to check out the all the missionary cars in the parking lot (called car park in Australia). At each zone conference elders from the mission office go over the missionaries cars looking to see the if elders are keeping up with their car's maintenance and cleaning. There were 14 -  2007 White Toyota Camrays in the lot.   . He collected all the keys from all the missionaries and while we were in the first part of our 4 hour meeting he checked the cars. As he was checking the cars,   a middle age Chinese couple walked through the car park taking a short cut through the lot to get to shopping center (called "the shops" here). The shops are across the street from the chapel. Elder Sutton waved at them and said Hi, but they just looked at him and said nothing. He waved again and said "Hi' again and this time they smiled and waved but said nothing. They continued to the shops and Elder Sutton went back to work on the cars.    About a ½ hour later, back came the Chinese couple with some groceries in bags and this time they stopped and looked at the row of white Camrays,  all looking exactly alike. Elder Sutton looked at them and felt prompted to go up to them and said Hi again, but they said nothing. He then felt prompted to say Hi in Chinese. He knew only a few Chinese phrases which he had learned because the Sydney area has ten's of thousands of Chinese. They smiled and immediately started talking to him in Chinese as though he was a fluent Chinese speaker. He stopped them and then using his hands and a few words, communicated to them that he knew only a few Chinese words. They shook their heads and smiled and walked away. As they walked away Elder Sutton realized that one of the elders inside the chapel spoke Chinese fluently and had in the trunk(called the "Boot" here) of his car a Chinese Book of Mormon and some missionary pamphlets in Chinese. He knew which one of the cars was the Chinese speaking elders', but he had in his pocket 14 sets of keys and had no idea which of the sets was the right set unless he looked at a number list that was in the chapel. Franticly, while saying a quick prayer he grabbed a set of keys out of his pocket and pushed  the trunk opener button. Miraculously, the trunk of car of the Chinese speaking Elder popped open. He ran to the car and fished around in the elders back pack until he found the Book of Mormon and the pamphlets in Chinese and then ran after the couple who were almost a block away by this time. They stopped when they heard him yelling. Elder Sutton, after about 5 minutes of using sign language, was able to convince them to take the missionary materials and to hopefully read them. They smiled at him and apparently thanked him and as Elder Sutton walked away he turned around and saw them looking at the materials. He finished his work and then came in and a few minutes later bore his testimony to us what had just happened and thank the Lord for giving him one more missionary experience. .   In that meeting was a new Sister missionary from Nepal. She had just come from the MTC  in which she had learned English. She is the only member in her family and speaks 5 languages. Her bible is in Hindi( Indian), and  her Book of Mormon is in Nepalese, She also  speaks Japanese, Chinese, and English,.      It is amazing how many times the spirit will prompt you when you are doing the Lord's work. Last Tuesday while preparing a lesson on King David from the Old Testament, I was not feeling good about the way the lesson was coming together.  We don't have an Institute teacher's manual so we use the seminary teachers manual to get ideas on what to teach. However, their manual has 5 lessons of 50 minutes each for  a week and we teach only one lesson of 90 minutes a week from the 5 lesson material. Many times, it is hard to put together a lesson from this. During this prep time I prayed for some inspiration,  and  I got the idea to compare David and his encounter with Bathsheba  to Joseph of Egypt's  encounter with Potapher's  wife, and  listing  of consequences that occurred because of David's bad decision and Joseph's good decisions. It all came to me very quickly, and I wrote them down as fast as I could write. During the lesson it  became a powerful teaching moment and I could feel and see how the spirit was effecting our students, especially as we pointed out to them that similar small decisions we make can have eternal effects on us also. It turned out to be one of our better lessons.   We are now officially in our down time. We only have 1 lesson a week for the next 2 weeks and then 1 week of no lessons, just an Institute opening social. Back to the genealogy and trying to learn  about the New Family Search Program. We went to the Sydney temple today( Sat).   Miss you all, Love Elder Mac

Elder Mac's Aussie Aboriginal Adventure Account

Dear family and old, old friends,
Things are slacking off a bit as the winter break season is here. Our university classes are done for 6 weeks, the institute class 1st semester is over next week and we will be off for 3 weeks. The only class still going is our married Eternal Family class.
We decided to take the day off after last nights institute class. So we drove to Tidbinbilla nature reserve about 30 kilometers for where we live. It is about 15 square kilometers of wilderness area nestled next to the Brindabella mountains. (mountains that look like the Appalachians mountains in Pennsylvania). There we saw dozens of kangaroos, and wallabies( smaller kangaroos) and emus (ostrich-like flightless birds). All are native to our area. We walked along paths through woods and wet lands and visited an ancient aboriginal camp site whose main feature is a huge 10 story high and wide round boulder. They would camp under it to protect themselves from the rain. They came to this area to hunt for native mammals, birds, and huge moths which they ate in great abundance during the moth season. They would roast them by covering them with fire heated sand and then eat the whole insect. Yum, Yum, doesn’t that sound delicious.
The Australian aboriginals have lived in Australia for 1000’s of years and pure bred aboriginals are very dark skinned. They have great respect for their elders, and I have been told by one of them that it annoys them when they see our young LDS missionaries with badges on that say Elder so & so. He said they are obviously not “elders” that need to be respected. I wanted to tell him that I begged to differ.
The land of Australia was & is divided into 100’s of aboriginal tribal areas and many times when a celebrity or especially a politician performs or speaks, the custom is to say “ I want to express my respect to the such & such tribe (the Ngunnawal tribe in the case of the Canberra area)” before they perform or speak.
At one of our YSA outings a part aboriginal YSA , who was about to play the didgeridoo but was not of the Ngunnawal tribe said “ I wish to give my respect to the Ngunnawal tribe before I play”
As I said before, almost all the animals, birds, and plants are different . Also the sky, especially at night, where the constellations are totally different, No north star, big and little dipper that I learned as a boy scout, but directly overhead is the Southern Cross that is also displayed in the Australian Flag. We are in the middle of winter and many of the trees, usually gum trees, like the eucalyptus tree, have their leaves on. They don’t loose their leaves each year but shed their black bark in big long sheets sometimes 15-20 feet long. This leaves a trunk that is a white as a birch tree but very shinny. The temperature ranges from a low of 30 degrees to 65 here in Canberra but in Sydney 3 hours north and on the ocean it is between 45-75 in the winter and the trees and flowers are in full bloom all winter long. Here in Canberra they planted the pansies a month ago and they are a winter flower here.
I understand that you have had a little rain in the Midwest. The Aussies are jealous and wish some of that rain would fall here. Canberra is in an almost decade long drought. Our water reservoirs are only about 45% full, and we have water restrictions all year around.
Rugby, Australian football league, and soccer are in full swing now. Cricket (BORING) is finally over. Cricket matches can last for up to 5 days(morning to Sunset). Not even a diehard Cub fan could handle this game.
Well, we have had another missionary transfer period and we still are in the same area as we started and I still have the same companion. The mission president must think I’m married to my companion.
My scriptures look like they are 20 years old even though I bought them in late 2004. We are in them every day, and many days for hours. I am, however, getting pretty good at knowing where various scripture verses are. Sister Mac & I are currently reading in Proverbs in the Old Testament. We have read the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price and most of the D& C since we have come out on our mission and I read and wrote a verse by verse summery of the New Testament right before I left for our mission. I have also completed a written interpretation of Isaiah in my own words. Well so much for the bragging.
I miss you all, but I do love being here and serving the Lord in at least a small way. It gives me joy that the Lord has chosen Mom and I to serve him here in Canberra. Hopefully we have had some positive influence on some of the people living here in Canberra. To Geof, Ryne, Josh, Jordon, Nathan and soon to be Brandon, my Aaronic priesthood grandsons, WHEN you go on your missions you will find some of the greatest happiness you will ever know, especially when you realize that you have brought the opportunity for eternal salvation to at least 1 soul. I realized just now that I have 15, and soon to be 16, “Sons of Helaman” that will have the great opportunity to serve the Lord on full time missions.
Love Elder Mac aka Dad & Gandpa

Sunday update from down under

Hi fab family & equally fab friends: Well, hopefully I can keep this short and sweet, NOT! I've told Elder mac not only don't I like calling or answering the phone here. It is a corded land line, I can't move around and we all KNOW I don't know when to stop talking, although I'm practicing. Dad can get on the phone and in a moment or two he's done. It's partly because of his extreme sensitivity, NOT! Even though we don't teach our two "uni" classes now and for the next several weeks and I still feel like "whew", we keep busy. A week ago Sunday, we had been invited to a surprise party for Kiki, one of the most fun YSA's for brunch and she was surprised, it was a great fun group of people, probably close to 30 people, including a couple of babies under 1, several young children, of course we are practically always the senior's wherever we go. But such fun. We are so blessed to be involved in their personal lives. That evening after attending just one block of our native ward, the Woden ward, we were blessed to be invited out for dinner/ supper at a the lovely widow, Sister Loveland's (the same sister, who invited us over for Christmas Eve and who made it not quite so difficult to be away from family) home for dinner that evening. The past week we attended FHE and Dad gave the lesson and did well, although sometimes I struggle with a little too much of what I call, intellectualizing of the gospel. This is where I would say, let's cut to the quick and talk about application and just plain and simple, date and get married! and get on with your real lives! Don't I sound empathetic? and I know just last week's letter I said I would try to be more empathetic! Well, shame on me, even though I don't say that, I just think it!! We did our Eternal Marriage class this past Friday and today I had moments of what we are teaching/ sharing these first few weeks, seems so serious and as warnings to keep their marriages strong and seem just a tad bit negative. As we shared comments from our most recent prophets, etc. warning of the dangers of divorce, porn, etc; I commented about so many years in the church, we have seen good/ great people fall on these issues and I said, I KNOW none of them starting out their marriages with those ends in their beginning thoughts and hopes in their marriages. You all know us too well and know we don't claim to have all the answers and certainly don't claim to be experts to any degrees, we just have the experience of years. Well, again we were blessed this past Wednesday to drive into Sdyney to attend a lovely senior missionaries dinner at the Mission home and I have to say, if the church owns that home and I'm fairly certain they do; even though it is an older home, the quality of the construction inside, was some of the best I've seen since we've been over here. The kitchen was granite counters and state of the art kitchen. The food was lovely, the company even better and we / especially me came home happy! Today, was our typical long Sunday attending two - 3 hour blocks of meetings starting at 9:30 PM and finishing @ 4:00, with YSA's meetings following for another couple of hours. But, it turned out being pretty darn productive. We still do not have an Institute president or assistant; but are told it was in the works. Today, after attending the first RS meeting, afterwards I thanked a Sister, who had helped chaperone the most recent YSA dance and she was gracious, but talked about two of her son's who are just giving her a real run for the money. So we talked back and forth for a good 10-15 minutes after RS ended. She ended up crying, hugging me and thanking me for being a listening ear and said she knows I'm over here for more than just Institute and YSA's. It was kind and nice to hear and helped me feel that maybe we are being useful, even in such small ways as we pray we can be. It makes me realize all the more, we truly do live in the very best of times, side by side if you will, with the most difficult times. Well, to change the subject, EMILY'S birthday is Monday, June 16, so we all want to wish the mother of triplets a special HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Oh, by the way, we came back from Sydney after being with the senior missionary couples there, in time to attend a scheduled fireside with Elder/ President Snow and his lovely wife this past Thursday evening @ 7 PM. We were a bit afraid, if we didn't get there real early, we would be sitting way, way back in the stake centre chapel. We picked up one of our YSA's on the way, got there about 5 to; and were greeted with hugs from the Scottish older Sister and her younger companion and the Scottish Sister told me she needed an extra hug, as it was her birthday, but she didn't want a fuss and hadn't told her companion, but along with her second long hug whispered into my ear, her only daughter about age 29 had called her and she had been happy for that. She has been told that she will be pairing up with a senior sister from the states once her Aussie companion finishes her really short mission time of less than 3 months. It had apparently been five years since there had really been Sister Missionaries out here, so we know our days are numbered having them in our zone. So, even though they are the north side of Canberra, which means we will need to pick them up, we are having them over for dinner this coming Friday, as transfers come very regularly here. Anyway, after the great fireside with Pres. & Sister Snow (he is a President of the 70's); we went up to shake their hands as the attendance was incredibly low and usually if there are a lot of people, we don't like to bother them, the handshake thing and all. As I shook the hand of President Snow, he asked where we were from and when I said, Rockford, IL., he said he and his wife had just been there several weeks ago for stake conference and had in talking with our stake president, Pres. Ward  asked how many missionaries were out from the stake and Pres. Ward talked about a SENIOR missionary couple in Australia, us. OH HOW SMALL THE WORLD IS, ESPECIALLY IN THE CHURCH. This morning, prior to us leaving for church, we picked up an e-mail from Art saying he was on his way to Singapore and also saying the stake boundaries will probably be changing and probably a new bishop is being called for Rockford 2nd. So, probably the Rockford 2nd, will undoubtedly have changed from when we left. Well, I KNOW I sound like a broken record, but can't help it, plain and simple we miss all of you sooooooooooooooooooooo much; you are in our thoughts and prayers. Not only do we miss you, we love you love, mom/ grandma mac/ sis mac

Slightly wordy update from Sis Mac attached

Family & Frieinds My update comments 'ditto' Elder Mac June 5, 2008 Dear fab family and friends: Time flies when you're having fun, (ie working away)! Do ya think Elder Mac's going to let me have fun, when he can work both of our ½ brains out?! We finished out 2nd uni-class for this semester. Whew! There will be a 6 week break before uni starts up again, so we will be down 1 fewer preparations. I actually love the uni more than the Institute. I was initially ex-cited to be studying the Old Testament in Institute, but we have to pick and choose as there is so much material to choose from and never enough class time. For instance in Institute, several weeks back we had Exodus 20-40, which is a lot of reading and having to narrow things down. In our Uni-classes, we are studying the Pearl of Great Price with only a hour per class versus 1 ½ hrs. for OT-Institute, but so much more material. I'm loving the Pearl of Great Price, because we have a more in-depth time to study less material. Elder Mac continues to be in hog heaven with all the teaching going on. Next week will be our 1st week of the six weeks without uni-class/ prep, etc. and thanks goodness that small void was filled in before we might actually have a few more spare moments; when last Monday at FHE, which we usually just attend and participate in But don't give the lessons, Dad was asked to give the lesson this coming Monday, so he's a happy camper!! We've been blessed to attend the temple two separate days, Once on Saturday, May 24th when we took one YSA with us to Sydney to attend one session & return the same day. It is close To 3 hrs. up, the session about 2 hours, then return trip of 3 hrs. It almost seems we should try to hit 2 sessions, but it depends on what's going on when we return. That Saturday night we attended a going away party for our Institute president, who has now been released as he is moving to the states, Utah in fact. He wanted evevyone to come in PJ's so we obliged with Dad's Scooby-Doo! Pj bottoms with the waistband saying HOT STUFF; of course we still played by mission rules, because we wore our name tags so we wouldn't forget who we were (escapees from the old folks home/ flat). There is an added measure of remembering each others names, we just look at each others name tags as a refresher!! A week ago for Institute one of our YSA's, a convert of about 6 years with a 10 yr. old daughter, showed up at Institute having just been released from the Emergency room for a bad fall off a mountain bike; it was part of her job as a soon to be teacher graduate in about 6 months. She had 5 or 6 stiches on the front/ right side of her head, bloody clothes and limping: but she was there. We took her home afterwards and so that was one of those 10:30 PM nights by time we returned. Had Uni the next morning @ 10:30. I know, I know, your missions were harder, but just like Mary, you were younger and in better shape. Thursday, Mary called around 7:30PM and asked for some help, she had an infection and high temp and needed help with her daughter; so we drove over helped with cleaning things up, ie dishes and settled Jordan down for the night and got back to our flat @ 11 PM. The next day was a partial day off, but we chaperoned the YSA dance that started @ 7 and ran to midnight; Mary minus a fever, attended and danced the night away (never ceases to amaze us the resilience younger people have ), she still asked if we could take her home earlier than the ride she could get if she stayed to the end, but she couldn't quite cut that, Friday night we got home at midnight just as we turned into pumpkins. Saturday night, Dad generously agreed/ suggested we pick up fish & chips at a take-away place near by, called Naked fish; they are really quite good and reasonable for Canberra, the Capital and we've been told because of all the government workers with expense account cards,that keeps the restaurants pricey. Can't wait to eat at Rumbi Café, Café Rio; Mary's Market and Panera Bread back in the states. Sunday, we attended our own ward block and the other ward for not quite both 3 hours blocks on the south side of Canberra, where we live; and took food to the Fast Breaker on the north side and lucked out getting home just before 9PM. Yesterday, we drove into Sydney again to attend a temple session prior to meeting with our Seminary/ Institute CES Co- Ordinator, Bro. Neill. Afterwards, we were invited to a lovely dinner at his home with his wife and two remaining sons at home. I always appreciate spending time with other women close to my age or is it closer? As we were leaving, she said every week this month is: get a new jacket from Coldwater Creek Outlet. She finds steeply discounted clothing, and shoes and has them shipped here. She showed her phenomenal deals like $100 to $200 jackets that she got for less than $9 -10. Several were leather and for anyone who knows their quality, it is top notch. She had some leather shoes she got for $7 or so. She said they know her on a first name basis as she calls frequently thru her internet phone service, she said last month for only a $20 monthly fee, she could call the states free and made 80 calls. She's my kind of shopper & gives me new shopping ideas! Watch out Dad/ Elder Mac. Well, enough of that fun gibberish: we stayed at the temple accommodations and didn't return until after our 3 hour drive from Sydney to Canberra just about an hour before our last uni-class previously mentioned. Hope you don't mind, but while in Sydney, at the CES building/ office I had the privilege to spend some quality time with Ann, who is the administrative assistant for the 3 CES Coordinators there and is always so friendly and helpful in more ways than I can tell/ describe. She is always so kind and interested as well as interesting. She had told me one time,that she had a son who had been murdered, but hadn't said much else and I guess I felt it was pretty personal and didn't want to intrude. However, Bro. Neill had said recently the trial for the murder was soon to start. So, I asked how she was doing, as she has had a radical mastectomy since we've been here and has lost way too much weight with the chemo and all. In addition to her working for all three of these fine men, she also teaches early morning seminary and the murder trial of her slain son was finally coming to court after 5 yrs. She really opened up and what a unique and special lady she is. Two things especially touched my heart and had hurt her heart as she shared. She said for years members at church, thinking they are comforting her, would say to her, he (her son) is in a better place. Every so often, it just plain gets to her; as now it is in the newspapers and although we don't read any papers and surely not the Sydney papers, it brings to the surface more the pain she feels. One time, she just simply replied to the supposedly comforting words of he's in a better place; she responded unless you've ever seen a beloved son laid out on a mable slab to identify him, understand I (Ann) just plain miss seeing him right now. The other comment she said, was periodically, the prosecuting attorney, a woman, would call her to update her ( how about waiting and receiving those updates for the past five years?). Usually the attorney would start with the murderer has the same rights as your son (for some reason, that was how she would start her conversation with Ann). The last time, when the attorney said that to her after her hearing for uncountable times, she simply said to the woman attorney, please don't always remind me about the murderer's rights being as important as my murdered son, he has no rights. Ann said, he (her son) will never marry, never have children in this life, etc.; she said the attorney was very quite and said she hadn't thought about it that way. Sure reminds me of our justice system somewhat, in as much as there seems to be great concerns for the rights of murderers, etc and forgotten somewhere is/are the victims, including surviving family members in the case of murder. Ann was not vindictive in speech at all, just kindly added her feelings. I am amazed about her incredible strengths and such depth of goodness and character. She had kindly asked me about the bum knee I have and I responded my murmurings aren't anywhere in the same ball park as hers; but I so appreciated her loving kindness and concern. She is definitely someone who has been there and back. She has tasted that which is almost the most bitter any of us would ever have to taste. Ann, also said when she goes to court, she has to go alone and is not allowed to refer to her son, as her son; but rather victim such and such and not by his name either. Her husband will also be required to testify, but alone. Interesting, how it is done over here; seems more weighted to the person on trial than the victim or family. My heart is heavy for her and she will continue to be in our/ my prayers. I feel the Lord's tender mercies to count her as a sister in the gospel and someone who shows such concern for others, when she has experienced such sadness. I believe her son was only 20 yrs. old when he was murdered. Just talking to her, makes me want to more carefully measure some of my words & be more empathetic. Time to close; I know, I never know when to stop. I apologize. Want you to know, you are all sooooo missed and soooo loved. Everyday, we pray that in ever so small ways we can be useful and hopefully uplift and edify, even by small means. Love, mom/ grandma aka sis mac Tomorrow, as in most Friday mornings we meet with the 14, usually young, missionaries in our zone and always walk away uplifted by attending their meetings. We've had sisters for the past several months and have loved it, including the sister, closer to our age from Scotland, no less. How we love the sisters and elders. What great missionaries they are!!