4 December 2011

The stars here are spectacular!  They show up so well because there are no big city lights to interfere with the view.  We can see Orion, but he's upside down.  And he's in a different part of the sky.  Instead of the Big and Little Dippers, the most prominent constellation is the Southern Cross.  Perth is the city that showed up for John Glenn when he flew over Australia in the spacecraft years ago because they turned on all their lights for him as he passed over.


There are no water heaters here.  Hot water is heated "on demand," so you can't run out of hot water in the shower.  I think it's a nice way to do it because you're not paying to heat the water unless you are using it.


There are "heaps" (lots) of second-hand shops, called "op shops" around, and everyone uses them!  They are usually run by church groups or chariity organizations.  I bought a shirt in one the other day, but it's hard to find things.


We had an activity at our flat on Friday with the young adults making "hampers" for some of the less active members in our branch.  Tonight we are taking them out and going carolling.  A couple of the girls put up our little Christmas tree for us, but I just can't get in the spirit of the season yet.  It's not nearly so big here as in the U.S., which is good in one way, but it just doesn't seem like Christmastime.  I'm missing my home and family just now.  Maybe tonight will help.


We had a going-away party yesterday for Megan Bailey, who is leaving on her mission Wednesday.  Then this morning was the Primary Sacrament Meeting Program in the branch, which is always inspiring.  This was Elder Ashby's first time to conduct Sacrament Meeting, and you'd think he'd never done it before, he was so nervous!  (JK) 


We were all pumped for our lesson with the two ladies on Saturday, but they had unexpected visitors, and also have asked us to postpone the baptism, which we kind of expected because it's been so hard to get together with their schedule and ours.  So no Christmas baptism this year.  But at least she's still investigating!


Have you seen the photos?  I've still plenty more, but just lack the time to put them in, because it has to be done here at the church.  This week our mobile phones have been down too, because they tore up the wires to the towers, or something!  It's so hard to do our work without a phone!


Many of the little towns south of Perth have names ending in UP, a leftover from the aboriginals who used to live here meaning "place of water."  We have Kojinup, Manjimup, Kirup, Jerimungup, Boyinup, Balingup, Malalinup, Boyup Brook, just to name a few!  Plus, a lot of streets have similar names.