Food for thought

Food for Thought                                                                                                     Dear Friends and Family,   We are finished! Finished with the spring semester at least! We had our last University class yesterday. Last week we finished our Institute and our eternal marriage classes. This week we finished our uni classes at Canberra University and at Australian National University.   The Class at Canberra University was a challenge.  When we got there Wednesday. it was the last week of classes for the spring semester and it was also  "Stoned week". That's right "Stoned week", many of the students were drinking, drunk or stoned on something. Our class is in a building right above the student center court yard and there was a Very Loud rock band playing right below our classroom window in the Spiritual Living Center. So loud you had to shout to be heard.  We moved the class to another room farther away and much quieter. Some of our students were quite stressed out, because they wanted to study for exams, and their whole dorm was drunk and noisy, so they could not study or sleep.  ANU which is the top University in the southern hemisphere and rated 16th  in the world was a whole different story the next day. It was quiet and the students were going about their studies.   We have grown very close to some of our students. We received the highest compliment from some of them. Besides calling us Elder and Sister MacPherson, they also call us Grandma and Grandpa MacPherson. They have told us that they consider us as surrogate grandparents.   We now have no classes for 3 weeks, but during this time we have our Canberra seminary and institute graduation, our Southcoast district seminary graduation and our opening summer institute social.  This Sunday is the 1st graduation and we are expecting about 100 students, parents and friends to show up, and mom  has been coordinating  the graduation and has to feed a meal to these 100 people  Its also the fast breaker meal  for the Y.S.A., as Sunday is also Fast Sunday. She will hopefully have lots of help, but all the planning and buying of the food in her lap.   We picked out a park to have the  Institute opening social on Nov. 11. It is right near the Australian Parliament House on Lake Burley Griffith. Burley Griffith was the Chicago architect  that designed the city of Canberra in the early 1900's. It is a beautiful setting.   Latter in November we will travel to Nowra  for the South coast district seminary graduation. We have to go though the 2 mountain passes that lead in and out of Kangaroo Valley ( the place where  "Babe" the movie was shot) and Mom really gets scared because of the sharp turns,  narrow roads and my driving. It takes about 3 hours to get there and then 3 hours  back the same day.   We are up into the 90's today and all of the trees are leafed out. We take walks about 3 times a week in the large Woden cemetery right next to our apartment complex. The cemetery has 3 gates which are open in the day but locked at sunset. This last week we have seen a medium sized kangaroo roaming the cemetery. Somehow, it wondered in even though the cemetery is near the center of suburb of Woden. As they lock the gates at night it can't get out and during the day, there is lots of traffic around the cemetery. They water the grass in some places, and as Canberra region is in a drought, the Roo must think it is in heaven with all the lush grass it can eat.   We are now going into the food part of our teaching, party, and food mission. Mom has decided to invite small groups of members over once or twice a week and just fellowship with them.   Our teaching will end one Dec 16th when almost all of Australia takes off 2 weeks for Christmas. Rob comes the 20th of Dec and we start our cruise to Tasmania and New Zealand on 4th of Jan.  So essentially  our mission work will be done on the 20th of Dec.   Hope all is well with you   Love Elder Mac _,___