Hello from Downunder

Hi fabulous family & friends:

It has been since last month since I've written; oh, alright it was actually on th29^th of last month, just a week and a half ago. But doesn't time fly when you are having this much fun; isn't that Dad's line? For me it is pure and simple; this is hard work, but never-the-less, it is satisfying work. The YSA's

continue to be interesting to work with. One of them came to me with a  

concern and two were beyond concerns/ it was heavy duty; my heart goes

out to them for some of the difficulties that are in their lives. Just as in all of

our lives, somethings will take a lot of prayers and changes, etc. I did not tell Dad the specifics, as they did not give me permission, but they lay heavy

on my heart and Dad said that's why men are bishops (they don't internalize

as much as we do as women). It is nice to be trusted and frankly with one of

them, I highly recommended they see their bishop.

Dad continues to be in hog heaven with the teaching and we are still trying to figure out when we can teach an eternal marriage class. In the next couple of weeks, we have an in-service meeting to prepare and present and talks at the stake level the following day for a special meeting for adults after our block of Sunday meetings. It is the prep that continues to challenge me, just  trying  to keep things straight.

Our trip to the coast was really lovely. Frankly, as pretty as this planned city is, it pales in comparison to the lush and green areas of the coast. We attended two seminary classes in two different towns/ cities and did a new seminary appointment in the lovely coastal city of Narooma; where we had a

nice lunch with the LDS  owners of the large resort area. On our way back home we drove along the slower, scenic but lovely road right along the coast. We saw quaint lovely towns & cities we may never see again. Couldn't believe Dad took the time, but he did and we both enjoyed the trip and it probably only added 20, maybe 30 minutes more to the trip home. The

weather was lovely. It was sunny, sunny, sunny! But fall/ autumn is really in

the air; I'm already wearing warmer, winter skirts and pulled my sweaters out of the drawer to wear.

As usual, we try not to miss our zone meetings with the 12 young missionaries in our area, including the two spectacular sisters; these wonderful young missionaries are soooo fearless and we feel spiritually fed

in their meetings. I practically always bake some homemade goodies for them, which they always seem to appreciate.

This past Friday night; talk about fun, we attended our first union rugby with two of our YSA's. It was fun to watch as the ball is practically always in action. The home team lost, but we're used to that. Hey we're used to the Cubs. Each of the YSA's seemed to feel badly, the home team lost even though we tried to reassure them otherwise. The next night we had a couple of YSA's over for dinner on Saturday for supper; they came over to our flat at 6:30 and didn't leave until 11pm. About 11:45 that same night, the phone rang and as I got up to answer it, Dad commented it must be something bad from the states. Nope it was one of the YSA's we had been with the night before at the Rugby game; Jeremy had misdialled, said he thought he was calling his mom ( he said she works nights).  He apologized. The next evening Dad and I saw him at the fast breaker for the YSA's and told him,

he doesn't have to call us when he gets in at night.

Last night was neat, we were asked to sit in on a missionary discussion to commit/ or actually invite a super young woman to be baptized on the 27^th of this month. They had her read Mosiah 18:10 Now I  say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have  entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him & keep his commandments, that he may pour out  his Spirit more abundantly upon you? v.11And now when the people had heard these words, they clapped their hands for joy, & exclaimed: this is the desire of our hearts. This is of course Alma bapizing the righteous of the evil King Noah. Charissa had several of her YSA friends there and although she didn't clap her hands for joy, she agreed to be baptized. Several of her close church friends, along with us old folks, were there with her and shared our feelings about being members of the church. I shared, now having been a member of the church for the past 45 years, that over that span of time, I may have questioned many other decisions I have made. But, I said I have never, ever, ever questioned being baptized and becoming a member of this great church and having the gospel in our lives. Her Mother and Grandmother had been encouraging her to wait,wait, wait; how knows for what or how long? She is 25 and certainly at an age, she is capable of making such important decisions. We are looking forward to attending her baptism. It is neat to sit in on these meetings, there is always such a great spirit there.
Well, time to close. Guess, I just have to repeat myself: I have never, ever, ever questioned the choice I made just weeks before Dad, to be baptized and have the Savior's restored gospel in our lives! I want you to know I love the Lord and appreciate this time to serve. If if weren't for the gospel, most of you probaly wouldn't be in my/ our life/ lives. And I can't imagine you not being in my life.

Love you all, your momma, grandma, sister,friend etc. aka sis mac

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Another download from downunder

Dear Friends & family,

Today is "Hump Day" The fun is ½ over. Nine months ago today we entered the MTC in Provo. I can't believe it went that fast! Maybe I can get Mom to extend for another 6 months. Let's see - Grandkids verses Mission? Hmm I guess I'll forget that! Grandma will never go for it.

Anyway, today was an interesting day at Canberra University. We were in the middle of our weekly class in the Spiritual Living Centre where all the religious teaching, church services and counselling goes on at the university, when a obviously distraught woman in her late 40's walked in. She asked for the head of the Spiritual Living Centre who was not there. Usually, there is a chaplain of some faith on duty, however, today no one was in the office. She asked if we were Christians and I said, "Yes we were." She then asked if we could pray for her. I told we would be glad to pray for her. At that point she just opened up all her current problems in front of the class. She was a single mother with 5 children and 4 teenage boys, some were into drugs, one was going blind and needed to be placed in a special school. She was on government assistance and was required either to work or go to school. She had chosen to go to the University to become a nurse. The woman named Kate went on for about 15 minutes obviously needing to unload her burden. She was to have a big meeting for her nearly blind son this afternoon to determine if he would get into the special school, In preparation for this meeting, this morning she had an altercation with some government employee who had caused her a lot of frustration.

We knelt in prayer and I said a prayer for her and then Mom & I tried to build her up. Telling her that she was making the right decisions as we understood her and that she apparently was a good caring mother and that the Lord would be with her later in the day when she had this big meeting. Her sad countenance began change and she started to smile and thank us for listening to her and building her up and then she left. We had 5 minutes left in the class so we talked about what just happen and bore our testimonies and closed the class. 

Our institute classes on Tuesday night are getting bigger and with much more student interaction. We have changed our teaching style to ask many more thought provoking questions. Last night we taught about Abraham's attempted sacrifice of Isaac.( Genesis 22) We asked questions such as "If God knew with His foreknowledge of all things what Abraham would do in this situation, why would he want to test or prove Abraham? Why was Abraham so obedient to an obvious traumatic commandment? What is the application of this Biblical story in our lives? Etc The students, many are returned missionaries, take off and discuss various thoughts and opinions many times for 5 to 10 minutes until I stop them. They teach each other, they bear their testimony to each other, and they disagree with each other, but they seem to enjoy the experience much more then the standard lesson.

We got back from two days on the South Coast of New South Wales. We have small branches of the church strung along the coast. We visited 2 seminary classes and trained a new seminary teacher. This is the area where many of the Aussie's in Melbourne and Sydney vacation at. There are literally 100's of beaches and resorts strung along the coast in this area. The last place we visited was in Noruma, where we trained a brand new seminary teacher. She is the young woman's president and the seminary teacher. She has 3 young woman and one seminary student. We trained her at a member's home in a Holiday Park they own. Australia has lot's of Holiday Parks that are near the beaches and have prefabricated Cabins some of which are very plush, They also have pads for vacation trailers that contain electricity and individual small buildings that are stand alone, self contained bathrooms with tub or shower. The also have spaces for campers. The one we visited and taught at had spaces of 2 man tents all the way up to 5 bedroom cabins that sleep 18 people. They bought most of these prefab cabins from the Sydney Olympics. The cabins were originally used in the 2004 Sydney Summer Olympics. The weather was perfect and we taught the new teacher outside in the shade. They have very colourful parrots that are "wild" but will eat out of your hand.

Coming and going to the coast we have to go through the mountains. The are covered with huge gum trees that are over 100 ft high and the forest floor is covered with huge ferns some 20-30 ft high. It is very beautiful

Slowly. but surely, we are getting closer to the YSAs, and I can see some positive effects of our gentle influence on them as we bond with them. Mother and I have been invited to go to a professional Union Rugby Game this Friday night with a few of the more red neck YSAs . This sport is more fun to watch then American football. The two we are going with are YSAs that had not been coming to our institute classes until this last month

It is getting colder at night sometimes dropping into the low 40's but each day it warms up into the high 60's or low 70's . And of course 5- 6 days a week we have sun. We go off Day light saving time this Sunday.

We continue to have many of spiritual experiences and our prayers have been answered a number of times. I can not express to you how much I love this mission , the work we do, the people we meet, the different experiences we have had that would not happen in the States because of culture, climate, plants and animals. Sometimes I am like a little kid saying to myself' "Wow I never seen (or heard) that before! Such as birds that can sing so many different notes that you think they are playing a musical instrument.

Keep having the Grandkids pray for Grandma's knee as the insurance will not pay for a partial knee replacement over here. So she will have to wait until we return to the States to have it done with your Medicare dollars.

We miss you all and love the pictures you send us. The walls in our flat are covered with grandkids all smiling at us.

Love Grandpa Mac

---

You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.

It is long past that Indian summer/ aboriginal summer here, burr it is cold, cooling.

HI fabulous family and friends: Hopefully, this will be short and sweet. It is Sat. evening and Dad
has wisely gone to bed. We need to get up at 5:30 AM on Sunday to travel down to the South
coast, first Nowra for meetings starting @ 9:30 with Sacrament and then attending a seminary
meeting. THen after that, we will travel along the coast until we get to Ulladulla, where we will
attend early mornig seminary, starting @ 6:00 AM on Monday. Then on the way back to Canberra
that day, on Monday, we will stop in Narooma, to visit some members of the church that manage/ own?
a large resort area. They have 5 children under 7, with twin boys, who are 18 months old. They have
invited us for lunch. Should be a lovely drive going down the coast. We go thru the scariest mountain
pass every time we go to Nowra, which absolutely scares the heck our of me; but once we get thru
the 2nd pass, the view and beauty of kangaroo valley is almost breath-taking. Or is it the scary drive
thru the mountains, that takes my breath away?? It's one or the other. The highway system, just isn't
what we have in the states, but in defense of why not; they have a population of 1/ 10th of ours.
The first part of our week, is always so busy with teachng, again becuase we have 3 separate preps,
the BOM, Old Testament & Pearl of Great Price.
We had our mission president and his great wife in Canberra for a zone conference on Thursday. We
both love and appreciate their great spirits, again always so upbeat and happy.
Last week for Easter Sunday, we had two of our YSA's over for dinner in the evening; I always love
the one on one time with them and wish we could do that more/ most often.
This Sunday, while we are on the coast, our YSA's will see a much delayed replay/on DVD of Sister
Julie Beck's talk given at BYU for YSA's. We received a copy from Sydney and previewed it before
we turned it over to our media specialist YSA. Wonder if Megan was blessed to hear it; I believe it
was live at the beginning of the month. It was on the Abrahamic covenant and on marriage and was
very uplifting and fun. The Church sure does neat CES firesides for YSA's.
Believe it or not, I am really looking forward to seeing a professional rugby game with some of our YSA
men at a stadium here in Canberra this next Friday.
Want you all to know, this gospel is without a doubt the Great Plan of Salvation/ JOY. Our greatest
joys have always been our family-all of you. You are so missed and greatly loved. You are in our daily
prayers and we appreciate your loving kindnesss and support.
Love mom mac/ grandma mac aka sis mac

---

Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.

resend of last down under update

9Mar. 2008

Dear Friends and Family,

 

     What a week!  It was busy, challenging, but very rewarding.

The first part of the week we taught classes every day.

Thursday Mar 6^th  we taught a University lesson at 11 AM  in the flat  to a girl that missed our lesson at Canberra University on Wednesday. Then we went to Australlian National University to teach another Uni class at 1 PM  We were expecting 3 to come but only 1 showed. However, an investigator came,  Kotai  a 21 year old Chinese young man who grew up in Japan, moved with his family to Long Island NY in 2001 and is here for 6 months at ANU.
We picked him up from our ANU orientation stall 2 weeks ago. I dropped the lesson and we spent part of the hour letting him talk about himself and then the last half on gospel subjects he had questions on. It went very well. We then hopped into the car and drove an hour north of Canberra to Goulburn, NSW to visit a daily home seminary that is held late in the afternoon. The father & mother teach their 2 teenage boys. The father is the captain of the prison guards at the state prison for NSW(New South Wales) one of the  8 States in Australia. He is Samoan. and his wife is Maori.    After the hour lesson, which we observed, they fed us supper and we immediately jumped into the car and drove 2 hours & 15 minutes North to the Church temple motel near the Sydney temple.

By 7:45AM Friday we were at the Baulkham Hills chapel in a Sydney suburb, to hear Elder David A. Bednar speak. When we got there most of the other missionaries were already there even though it was not to start until 9 AM,  All the missionaries that are assigned cars in Australia are issued white 2007 Toyota Camay's.  So in the church car park(what Aussie's call parking lots) were 60-70 white 2007 Toyota Camray's. What a sight!  Even though the chapel was full and the over flow was almost full with about 275 missionaries, because we were senior missionaries they told us to go down front and sit in the very front row right below the speakers stand. So we did. Right before 9 AM in came the mission presidents from Sydney North & Sydney South missions with their wives, then came in three General Authorities, Elder Sabrowsky the Australian Area President, Elder Hilbig his 1^st councillor and then the Apostle  Elder Bednar. All had their wives with them.

The meeting went for 3 hours with no breaks.  Elder Bednar took up about 2 &1/2 hours of it with his wife and the 2 other general Authorities taking up about 20 minutes all together. The rest was prayers and hymns.

Half of Elder Bednar's talk was on some new perspectives on the Holy Ghost and on prayer, None of which I had ever heard before. He supported all his "new' principles with scripture. The subjects are too long and intricate (not complicated but simple) to relate. However, the general theme is that if you use these principles in every, yes every, meeting in Church ( from temple , to sacrament, to missionary lessons , to all gospel teaching classes, etc, members will have  a "Revelatory Experience" with the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost will reveal knowledge to the members of these groups based on their adherence to these principles. None of these principles are earth shattering but I never have looked at the Holy Ghost from this perspective before.

The Apostle referred to Sister MacPherson  in a couple of his examples as she was no more then 4 ft away from him as he looked down from the pulpit. I asked him a question to which he responded. About an hour of it were questions by the missionaries and his answers.  At the end of the meeting we all filed up in queue and shook the hands of all the leaders including Elder Bednar.

We then rushed to the car and drove directly to the temple grounds to make a 1PM session to do sealings in the temple. We did 25 male and 25 female child to parent sealings, and 12 spousal sealings, both in moms line and my line.  We then went out to lunch at about 3 PM and then went to a Seminary inservice meeting in the Villawood chapel that night. Villawood is a southern suburb of Sydney. After that we went back to temple motel which in northwest Sydney Suburb of Carlingsford.  Saturday we got up and drove 3 hours plus back to Canberra. Later that day we attended a baptism and in between arriving home and the baptism I had two, yes two, migraine attacks. I think I'm getting more migraines down here because we are "down under" and therefore upside down from you and thus more blood to the head, and of course more migraines! Now there's a great diagnoses. I should have been a doctor!

The leaves are now changing and a tree in front of our flat is dropping leaves, Autumn is here. Yet when we were in Sydney this last week we saw trees 20 -30 ft high, full of large deep purple flowers like we saw in the spring time. When I walk, I go through a grove of oak trees that are full of acorns and large white Cockatoos. They are eating the acorns but in the process they break off the ends of the branches and the ground is full of these branch ends and cracked acorns. There are no squirrels in Australia so the nuts are eaten only by birds. 

Well this is way too long, so I'll sign off.

                 Love Elder Mac

 

 

---

Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

Interesting Story

We are also going to a missionary conference talk in Sydney this Fri
to hear David A Bednar. It looks like Australia is getting close to
being translated to Zion! Yep, the rumour is Australia and New Milford
are going at the same time. Love Elder Mac

Part of a talk given by Sister Ann M Dibb the daughter of Thomas S. Monson
Given at BYU Idaho devotional on 19 Feb 2008. The Kellie is Kellie Neill
Brown the daughter of Anthony Neill our CES supervisor, who we directly report
to.

“I’d like to share a very recent example of encouragement. Our son, Mark, served his mission in Australia. One of his companions, Adam Brown, from Adelaide, Australia, came to Utah in order to attend general conference. He attended every session. In between two of the sessions, we introduced him to my father. This is an excerpt from the letter of thanks we received two weeks ago:
“As you were aware, when I returned home from Utah, I planned to propose to my beautiful girlfriend, Kellie. Her family is great, but I was still very, very nervous about asking her Dad for permission. I knew he would say, ‘Yes,’ but I was petrified. I think one of the things that got me over the line, because I chickened out the first two times, was President Monson’s comment when I showed him a photo of Kellie while visiting with him in his office. He said, ‘I approve.’ I gained courage from this. I figured if Kellie’s Dad were to say, ‘No, you can’t marry my daughter,’ I would be able to reply with, ‘Well, President Monson said that he approved.’ With this added courage on my side, I asked, and after the twenty-minute interrogation, he said, ‘Yes.’”
Adam Brown and Kellie were married on February 2nd in the Sydney Temple. My father was pleased to learn that his word of approval may have encouraged a temple marriage! “

An Elder's Epitome from Emuland

Dear friends & family,

 

 Well another month has gone by since I last wrote. Fall has officially arrived in Australia as of March 1^st. They don't go on the same fall equinox system the States use. As a matter of fact it is not even called fall here it is only called Autumn.. Rugby has started and cricket is winding up. I understand you will soon go on Daylight savings time and we   will go off it a few weeks later. That means the time difference will increase by 2 hours. Now it is 6 hours different MTS time 7 hours different CST and 8 hours different EST. When you go on and we go off Daylight savings time it will go 8, 9, and 10 hours difference.

Seminary started a month ago and we have visited all 3 of the Canberra seminaries. This month we go to the outlying seminaries of which there is there is now 6  spread over 300 kilometres.

We also start our regular institute class and our 2 university classes (called Uni classes) this week. Last week we had our opening social at Uriarra Crossing, a park about 15 kilometers from Canberra on a river.

 Canberra is shaped like a giant octopus with the body the city centre, with all the federal buildings, parliament house etc, and all the embassies and central downtown area. Reaching like tentacles from the center are all the suburbs extending for miles away from the centre but unlike other cities there is open space between the tentacles (suburbs) in which are either parks or wilderness areas. Thus you have kangaroos getting in all the way to the centre of the city and when you drive from one end of the city to the other you can drive for 20 minutes at 100 Ks / hr  in these wilderness areas and not drive by one house in the process. A few weeks ago the car in front of me hit a medium sized "Roo" and broke one of its legs and it could not move and was just lying in the middle of the road with it's head up. The government has a kangaroo unit that handles injured Kangaroos and Wallabies (smaller kangaroos). So the unit was called and they responded.    

Anyway, back to the opening social. About 30 YSA showed up. 3 were ANU student investigators. We ate and barbequed Australian sausages, which they absolutely love, but I think taste terrible. They swam in the river, played football, had a scripture proverbs scavenger hunt that I made up, and they roasted marshmallows and had a testimony meeting around the fire and nearly everyone bore their testimony. We even had the 3 investigators get up and had them tell us about themselves. It was a great night that turned out to be very spiritual.

Yesterday(Sunday) we attended two ward blocks for fast day and then went right into a baptism that was after one of the blocks and then as soon as that was over we went the the YSA fast breaker at  the "Belco Boys" home. (Four YSA men from the Belconnen Ward rent this large home). Afterwards  we took one of the YSA's home who lives 40 K's from our flat. We left our flat about 9 AM and got home at 8:30 PM. The baptism was a 10 year old girl of one of the YSA's who joined the church 5-6 years ago. We discovered that she had never been baptised, but was attending regularly with her mother. Her name is Jordan DeAlvia. Jordan MacPherson has a female name sake.

This summer has been almost perfect as the temperature was in the 70"s, 90 % of the time, and in the 90's only 4-5 days with the rest in the 80s. The sun shines about 80-90% of the time. In fact, the big Australian cancer is skin melanoma from the sun.  All primary school children are required to wear wide brim hats or they can not go outside for recess. I have a "Crocodile Dundee" hat that I wear when I take walks. About a month ago I was walking and this "Auaker"(another name for Aussie) about my age came walking towards me in this hat that had a bigger brim than my hat and he said to me " I really like your hat but my hat is much better" he smiled and I laughed and we kept right on walking past each other.

Because of our assignment, we are in the scriptures hours each day. It is amazing how much this very act makes one so much more spiritual. We are constantly being prompted by the spirit to teach this or that, or to call this person or that person who was, as we had been prompted, struggling with some aspect in their lives. We have found that our benefit to those we serve is not so much what we teach them in class, but in the bonding that occurs with these people.  Who then ask us for advice in their personal problems, of which many of these problems we have experienced and hopefully can give them some helpful answers.

I can not tell you how much I love this work, the people, and this place. A mission can give you a tremendous amount of joy and self worth. I recommend it for all my grandchildren. Granted it is not easy but rarely in your life will you feel the spirit so much in your daily life, and get so much satisfaction and joy in what you are doing.    

Well this is long enough.

     I love and miss you all

                  Elder Mac( aka Dad, Grandpa, and Doug)

---

Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.

What's with the faster updates and shorter emails?

Hello American's from those American's from down under and no we are not Aussie wanabees,
anymore then they are American wanabees; don't we all/ each love our own free countries??
Hope this finds you all well and kicking.
Love from Mom/grandma/ sis mac

Hi Fabulous family & Friends: Can't believe the past several weeks have flown by; it is early Sunday AM and this will be a long day. We practically always attend two sacrament blocks of meetings alternating between the two ward buildings each having

two wards, so we will be on the north end of Canberra today and into this evening.

Early in these past two weeks of which I'm trying to report: on a Monday evening,

we had two of the missionaries at our flat for a teaching appointment for a young Aussie

woman to have a gospel discussion; taught by the Elder from Burma and his companion,

who we have known since we arrived here. Elder Nielson had been down in Merimbula

(now that is NOT a tough place to be, as it is coastal and lovely at that). Charissa is a referral, of a Brett, less than a year convert himself, and has been meeting with the missionaries for the past several months and had set a baptism date; but  out of respect deferred to her Catholic Mum and Grandmum about taking her time to consider being baptized. The missionaries taught with a sweet spirit; but couldn't commit her to baptism. Last week Charissa went back to see her Mum and Grandmum, and we haven't heard, but it appears she is trying to honor and respect them. Brings back to memory our baptism and the fact we didn't even tell Dad's folks and I didn't tell my Dad that we were going to be baptized; and we know that was right for us. We were a young married couple and knew that was our own decision to be baptized and frankly we just didn't want any negativity or lack of support for that decision after receiving a testimony that the Book of Mormon was the word of God and that this great, beautiful church is certainly the Lord's Church. Hopefully, we will see Charissa today and if not, I will give her a call.

We continue to have YSA's to our flat for food and gospel discussions. This past week, Joel, who pretty much comes for lunch and a BOM lesson/ discussion every Monday had been in our flat the night before to celebrate a birthday for one of our YSA's and then he

was at our Institute class on Tuesday night and I kiddingly asked him, can you take us

three days in a row?; he survived. Joel, is the young man who has just passed his first

year in the church and previously hadn't felt quite ready for receiving the Melchizedek

Priesthood, but today is his day to be so blessed.

Wednesday evening our flat doorbell rang at 9 PM and it was a wonderful YSA, who gifted us with a lovely box of chocolates for the next day, with a sweet message about

Valentine's day; good thing (and so kind), as that was the extent of our recognizing

Valentine's day. This lovely YSA stayed until 12PM++ and Dad's eyes had glazed over,

but believe it or not, I baled him out by looking at my watch and telling her how late it

was. We saw this lovely young woman at an engagement party yesterday and she said

her roommate said to her the next morning, " got home a bit late last night, eh" Sometimes, I'm not sure how it goes for them (the YSA's ) when they spend that kind of

time with us; it seems they are checking us out about marriage and other good things.

Last night we attended the Church Leadership broadcast on the family with Elders Oaks

and Holland with Pres. Packer reading the Proclamation on the Family; it was good to

hear him read it in it's entirety. It is certainly sooo inspired, how blessed we continue to

be as members of the Lord's church. Brett L., who is a recent convert of less than a year

(and is the great member, who referred the Charissa I wrote about at the beginning of this

letter) sat next to us last night and leaned over to me and said I bet you're going to be on

our backs about getting married and I leaned back over and replied, you could probably back me off, as you're taller. But he heard the truth, the family is central in the church. And just as in the states there seems to be a slight problem with young people dating and committing to marriage, so is there also here and maybe even more so. I not talking about teenagers, it is definetly geared to the YSA's and especially those who are 25++++ or ?

It will soon be time to get ready for church.

After our 6 hour block of church meetings, we have a YSA meeting, followed by a meeting with our Institute president meeting at his flat starting at 7 PM to plan orientation

meetings at the Uni's prior to the next week, when we start Uni Institute classes. SO, this Sunday will be our day of REST?, starting at 9:30 AM and last meeting at 7PM probably going until 8. It is good thing your Dad is used to long, long, long Sundays and I'm adjusting.

We are also still working on setting up a class for recently married couples on Eternal Marriage at the request of several couples; it just will be a bit challenging finding a suitable time for these busy couples, some who may still be students, working and starting  their families.

If we take on the Marriage classes, we will be teaching at least 4-5 different subjects/ scriptures and the accompanying preparation that goes with that. We know, we know

what do we think you all did on your missions; but just have to remind you, you never

never had to worry about those senior moments. And these senior moments aren't exactly blessings?!

Well, I'd better close and try to get this e-mailed. I had written a fairly long letter directly

on the our e-mail and then totally lost it as I sought to send it.

Want you to know, you are all in our prayers and we appreciate your prayers. We pray

for you and your most beautiful families.
For the several times I said it was hotter then heck it and it was at those times; but it has

mostly been a lovely summer here.

Oh, just have to share this: this past Wednesday, we had Elder Keith Hilbig here for a two zone conference meeting; Elder Hilbig is from Milwaukee and although we didn't know him at the time, as he was serving a mission and/ or a student at Princeton U; his father was the very first home teaching companion Dad had as a new member, now almost 45 yrs.ago. What incredible speakers he and his wife were, they just weren't fun and entertaining, they were also edifying and uplifting and encouraging. Elder Hilbig spoke at the last Fall's General Conference.

I'm sorry I go on and on, but that's just the tip of the iceberg for the special blessings in

our lives at this special time in our lives.

Miss you all sooooooooo much; but KNOW we are where we are supposed to be at this time in our lives with these wonderful YSA's and besides we're out of your hair.
Love to all of you; you are the very best.
Love, Mom/ grandma mac aka sister mac

 

 

---

Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.