22 November 2011

Two more days till Thanksgiving in the U.S.  That I'm sad to miss.  Tomorrow we will try to talk on the internet to our family, but I'll still be missing them on Thursday.


I told about my service opportunities last time, but I forgot that Elder Ashby has helped a couple of families move (actually, I helped with one those), and he went with the YM to restore the yard of one of the less-active members last week too.  There was a member who has a mentally ill son, who is very protective of him, but trusted Ray enough that she asked him to come over and meet him.  We gave her a little dryer that was in our garage.  I certainly don't want you to ever think that Ray has been slacking!  Ha, far from it!


There is a law in Australia that allows any 16-year-old to leave school if he has a job.  Then at 18 he is an adult and can move away from home, and parents can do nothing to stop him.  I think this is definitely a way that Satan is getting his foot in the door here so that he can discourage education and eventually destroy families.  It's working.  But we are doing what little bit we can to stop him.  We need a bigger army.


We had a meeting on Sunday night at our home with the young adults, married and unmarried.  Elder Ashby called them to repentance first, and told them that he would be interviewing them now as a member of the Branch Presidency over the young adults, so that he can help them to get ready to go to the Temple.  After the really serious part was over, I fed them cake and ice cream, and we had a brainstorming session to get ideas for our activities next year.  Many of the ideas had to do with the beach...oh, dear...My companion is okay with that!  One of the young men even suggested that they all buy ukeleles, and learn to play a few songs together.  (Ray bought one this week.)  He asked them if they could get their numbers up by inviting friends so that we could get a guest speaker.  I think there was a general feeling of excitement when they left, and we exchanged names for small Christmas gifts too.
 


I've told you that I am teaching the young adult Gospel Doctrine class in the Albany Branch.  Some people felt that the young adults had to be separated from the adults because they needed help understanding the material.  Then when they have these Fast Breaker activities I've told you about, they also have separate groups, and even names for the two groups.  We have never felt quite right about the tradition of separating the young adults from the older adults, although they do need a chance to do activities together; so now that Ray is in the Branch Presidency here, he has already had an opportunity to bring it up in Branch Council Meeting.  We have to be careful, though, because we don't want to give the feeling that we Utah Mormons are coming down here to straighten everybody out, you know?  We have to give respect to the members who hold positions over auxilliaries, etc., and do everything with love.  They had a branch president down here once who went so much by the rules that he forgot about leading with love, so now the members are very wary of anybody referring to a handbook.  The church is true, but we are not perfect members, are we?


Another thing he brought up in Branch Council Meeting was the purpose of the Fast Breakers.  Several of the members joined in asking that question.  So Ray suggested if they want to do it, that it be held at the church on Sunday evening, all together, and that they have a half-hour spiritual time before they break their fast so that they remind themselves of their purpose in fasting.  People here always hug each other, going and coming, even the young men.


Things seem to be changing now toward summer.  Hills and fields (or paddocks) that were a brilliant green a couple of weeks ago are beginning to turn brown.  We haven't even turned our heaters on for a few mornings this week, although we still use the comforter at night.  This morning as I sat in my chair studying, I counted around 20 different bird calls, just from where I sat! 


We drove out to some of the beautiful places along the shore again yesterday on our P-Day with Megan Bailey.  She's a wonderful young woman who is leaving for Sydney in a couple of weeks for a mission.  Actually, she will be going to the MTC in New Zealand first.  She has introduced many people to the church here, and I saw her at work while we stood at the lookouts on the beaches yesterday.  She just went right up to 2 young men and started asking questions, ended up getting their phone numbers and inviting them to play sport with some other young people in our church, and introduced them to the Elders when they came back from the beach hike.  She's amazing.