New Missionaries

Today we picked up 2 wonderful new sister missionaries.  Welcome Sister

Rooarii from Tahiti and Sister Vaioleti from Tonga.  We could tell in about 5

seconds that these are great missionaries.  They are so very kind and surprised

us with these beautiful shell necklaces.  How lucky are we!  We love them and

we love you sisters.

Sister Rooarii with her new mission president.  We are so happy you are here Sister

Rooarii.  You will do great things and feel great joy as you invite others to come

unto Christ.  We love you.

This is Sister Vaioleti with her new mission president.  Sister Vaioleti has great

faith and will bring great blessings to her and her family as she serves valiantly.

We love you and rejoice in your willingness to serve the Lord in the Australia

Adelaide Mission.  

Just 1 righteous daughter of God can make a large difference in this world and 

we are blessed to have 2 more of them.  We welcome both of you.

Back at the mission home we are pleased to introduce Elder Garbutt from Tahiti.  

He arrived yesterday and we are so excited to have him in the greatest mission ever. 

Thank you  Elder for answering the call and for being prepared to serve your

brothers and sisters here in the Australia Adelaide Mission.  We love you.

And......we have great news!!  Elder and Sister Wilmott arrived on Monday from 

Brisbane.  They will be serving in the office.  We are so excited to get to know them

and serve side by side with them.  Thank you for sharing your talents and your 

love of the Savior with this mission.  We are promised such wonderful blessings

as we lay aside the things of the world and serve a mission.  We love each and 

every Senior couple that bless all of our lives.  Welcome, we love you already.

It's always a great day when we receive new missionaries!  All smiles here because

we love this work and love these missionaries.  Welcome to all of you.

Dinner in Muldura

Like it says on the door, this is the Hog's Breath Cafe. Since we had driven so far 

to see this great group of missionaries, we decided to soak in a little more

time with them.  Plus they were hungry!!

  

This is what I call a little dessert after dinner!  Eat up Elder Kata, Elder Chalke, 

Elder Litster, Elder Wilkinson, Elder Hefa, and Elder Martineau.

Waiting for dessert at this table.  I'm pretty sure all of these missionaries got

enough to eat tonight!  

This was a fun day.  These powerful missionaries are ready to share the gospel

of Jesus Christ.  Today they were fed physically and spiritually.  It's great to be

in the Australia, Adelaide Mission!!

Specialty Training in Mildura

After our wonderful drive to Mildura, we attended Church in the Mildura Ward.  

President and I had the privilege of speaking and meeting the wonderful leaders

of the ward.  Then we got back in the van and drove to Robinvale.  It's about

another hour and a little bit.  These 2 great Elders were there to help us find

the church since we were a little lost.  Thank you Elder Punou and Elder Hefa

for rescuing us.  Here they are in front of their very clean flat! 

We made fast friends in Robinvale.  This is Brother and Sister Soni.  Brother Soni

serves as the 1st counselor in the Robinvale Branch and his sweet wife is the

Relief Society President.  This is a busy couple.  We were very happy to hear

they had stayed after church so Brother Jurgens could help them with their 

family history!  This branch is engaged in family history.  It's wonderful. 

Monday morning, we were ready to start training.  The assistants once again did a 

fabulous job.  We were grateful they made it safe and sound as they had a run in

with a kangaroo and their car! These great missionaries are ready to let the spirit

teach them about obedience and service.  We love you Elder Chalke, Elder Boyd,

Elder Kelese, Sister Siale, and Sister Tamana. 

More great missionaries.  Elder Martineau, Elder Punou, Elder Hefa, Elder Chalke 

and our assistants, Elder Pitcher and Elder Pitama.  We love you.

It was so great being with these missionaries and getting to know them better.

We sure love you Elder Litster, Elder Kata, and Elder Martineau.

Great obedient missionaries ready to learn together and go out and work hard.  We 

love you Elder Wilkinson, Elder Paeu, Elder Tolbert, and Elder Barnett.

Elder Boyd and Elder Kelese.  The zone leaders of the great Mildura Zone.  These

are great, powerful missionaries.  We love you.  

Thank you Elder and Sister Jurgens for providing a wonderful lunch for all of us.  

We love you too.  

First trip to Mildura

On Sat. Aug. 22, we took off for Mildura for specialty training.  Mildura is about

a 5 hour drive from Adelaide and it was beautiful!  Here are a few scenes from

our drive.  

We passed some gorgeous rivers with riverboats and huge pelicans floating

on the river.  

It's almost springtime in Australia and the blossoms are coming out.  We saw fields

of orange trees, lots of vineyards, fields of lemon trees, and many of these

blossom filled trees which we aren't quite sure what kind of trees they are.  

I didn't get a very good shot of this but the rivers were just beautiful and the 

sunsets magnificent. 

We are getting used to driving on the opposite side of the road, but the speed limit 

signs still make us do a double take.  

I finally saw some kangaroos and some emus!!!!  They were awesome!  We were 

able to get close enough to take these photos while they were just standing

still but when they started to jump away it was very cool.  

Another shot of the beautiful riverboats. We had so much fun on this drive.  Can't

wait to go again. Australia is beautiful country no matter where you go.  We 

met such nice people everywhere we went.  Mildura is world famous for their

delicious fruit.  We saw fruit stands all along the road and kept thinking we'd 

stop and then it got dark on us.  Another reason to go back!!

Specialty Training

Today we had a wonderful day with the Modbury Zone doing some specialty

training.  The morning was spent being taught about the blessings of service

by our great assistants. Then everyone was ready for lunch but wait..............

first we are singing happy birthday to..??

Elder Smith, who actually had a birthday yesterday but we couldn't catch up

with him so we celebrated today.  

This is one very loved couple of missionaries.  We are in denial that they will be

completing their mission soon!  We love you Sister and Elder Smith and wish 

you a very happy birthday!

And now it's time to eat!  Isn't this a great sight!!  There is nothing better than

sister missionaries and their beautiful smiles.  We love you Sister Boswell, 

Sister Soh, Sister Payze, and Sister Asera.

Training all morning works up an appetite!  These great missionaries are working

so hard to apply what they are learning from the spirit as we are all taught.  

They are blessing the lives of many here in Adelaide.  We are proud of you all.

Elder Rivera, Elder Orr, Elder Johnson, Elder U-Fa, Elder Ware, Elder Hayes,

and Elder Fa.  

More great missionaries and leaders.  The legendary Elder Pitama, Elder Jacobson

who is one of the great Modbury Zone Leaders, and another wonderful missionary,

Elder Makai. We love you all.

Is this a great group of missionaries or what!!  They are happy because they are 

sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We love you Elder Hale, Elder Ngapaku, 

Elder Aguilar, Elder Henderson, Elder Pitcher, Elder Barnes, and Elder Flinders,

the other great Zone Leader of the Modbury Zone.

And we are smiling because we are serving in the best mission ever!  We love

these missionaries and we are so thankful for each of them.  We are so blessed

to be able to be a part of this great work. We are so grateful to be members of

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  

Specialty Training

Today, we had a great experience as we joined with the Firle Zone for specialty

training.  Again, the assistants did a wonderful job training on losing ourselves

in service.  They showed the tender video called "Lift."  If you haven't seen it 

go to LDS.org and find it.  Its wonderful.  Then after a great lunch, President

did training on why we are obedient.  The spirit was strong and we were all edified.

Our mission is so blessed to have great sister missionaries.  I think Sister Craig

and Sister Aspinall were really excited about those Subway sandwiches!

What a great group of Elders.  They have been letting the spirit teach them all day 

and are ready to bring others unto Christ.  This is Elder Fleming, Elder Callahan,

Elder Soli, Elder Pitama, Elder Betonio, and Elder Hobbs.

More great Elders ready to let the power of being obedient bless this mission.

Elder Betonio, Elder Hobbs, Elder Wilkins, Elder Fuhriman, Elder Togia, and

Elder Pitcher.

This is a great group of elders.  Besides feasting on the words of Christ, they are

feasting on a great lunch so they can be ready to go teach and invite!  We love you

Elder Hobbs, Elder Pitcher, Elder Godfry, Elder Jarrett, Elder Tanner, Elder Van 

West, Elder Togia, Elder Matekohi, and Elder Acker.

Specialty Training

Today is Tuesday, August 18th.  We had the great privilege of driving to beautiful

Mt. Barker for Specialty training.  The drive was so gorgeous.  We were surprised

to see the beautiful green rolling hills, the trees and the cows and sheep.  It reminded

me of up above Heber City, Utah where my parents live.  We just loved the drive.

I loved it so much I asked President Parker if I could get transferred there, but

he said no!  Anyway, we had a great day with the missionaries in the Marion

South Zone.  After some great training by our assistants, we split into groups to 

do some role playing.  Here, Elder Pitcher listens in as Sister Rongomate and 

Sister Esplin have the added challenge of doing a role play over the phone with

the elders who were joining our training by phone. 

Here we have Elder McClutchie and Elder Taleo role playing with Sister Fa'alogo

and Sister Abonales.  This is a teaching pattern that blesses both the missionary

and the people being taught. Even as we role play, we feel the the spirit of the 

Lord powerfully directing us.  

This is the Zone Leader for the Marion South Zone, Elder Johnson, and his new

companion Elder Lapenmal.  They are also role playing with 2 of our elders

who have joined us over the phone for the training.  We are so blessed to have

leaders in this mission who lead with love and by great example.  

And it's lunch time.  These are great, wonderful sister missionaries who have the

Light of Christ.  Thank you sisters for working hard and serving valiantly.  We 

love you.

These are hard working, happy, obedient missionaries!  But they are hungry!!  We 

love you Elders!  Thank you for all you do.  We have had a wonderful day. President

trained on obedience and having the Light of Christ.  A powerful message.  And now, 

we get to drive the beautiful drive back to Adelaide.

This is the view we saw most of the way.  We've had a lot of rain and everything is 

so green.  It was just breathtaking!  We enjoyed reading all of the signs that were new 

to us.  

What a gorgeous scene!

Since in the States, speed limits are posted in miles per hour instead of kilometers,

this sign as well as the one that said 110, caught our eye.  President thought he could 

really put the pedal to the metal until we figured out that 110 is really just about

65 miles per hour!

These were beautiful tunnels that ran through a gorgeous mountainside. This country 

is so amazingly beautiful.  Every place we have been we have marveled at the 

beauty and diversity of the land.  We are so blessed to be here.  

Specialty Training

Today was our very first Specialty Training Day.  We started with the absolutely

great Marion Zone.  Elder Pitama and Elder Pitcher, our wonderful Assistants 

did some fabulous training.  Then Sister Smith and Sister Hannan

delivered a delicious lunch.  Here is Elder Coraton trying to decide which Subway

sandwich he would like!  And for dessert, Elder Smith spoiled us with his 

irresistible brownies!  We love you Elder Coraton!

I think Elder Lee is telling us "peace", or he could be telling us he has 2 sandwiches?

Actually all the Elders have 2 sandwiches!  We love you Elder Lee!

Elder Briscoe, Elder McMurray, and Elder Tonga having a great day!  We are so 

grateful for these incredible missionaries.  After always letting the sisters go 

first, they are ready for lunch!  We love you Elders!

President with his assistants, Elder Pitcher and Elder Pitama! The best of the best!!

We love you. After a wonderful lunch, more training by President Parker.  There

is nothing better than a day spent with faithful, obedient missionaries!