Mission Report No 5

June - from Port Douglas

What I am not writing about in my mission reports is much detail about the actual work we are doing, mainly for confidentiality reasons. Sometimes I will mention some of the work we do in helping people, without mentioning their names, and sometimes I will mention their names without mentioning much in the way of personal details. In any case, please don't think that what I write here is a complete description of all that we are doing. More than anything, it's really about events and people that I would like to remember. The older I get the less I retain and writing about things both helps me to retain the memory and will act as my memory in years to come.

I'm also trying to write a fairly realistic description of what it is like to serve a Senior Couple mission for the Church. I think that a lot of potential Senior Couples might avoid making themselves available, thinking that the demands and disciplines that apply to young missionaries will apply to them. As Member and Leader Support (MLS) missionaries, we are not proselyting missionaries, although we do proselyte if we are not busy in MLS activities. We set our own daily schedule and we are as busy as we want to be and can physically and mentally handle.

The case may well be a little different for seniors serving in the mission office. They can be very busy! But you can choose if you want to do that. It is certainly different for Mission Presidents and their wives. They do set their own schedules but they are very busy people. Just like one would not aspire to be a Bishop or Branch President or Stake President, I don't think one would or should aspire to be a Mission President, unless for some reason you wanted to age prematurely. It's a very demanding role.

I must say that Margot and I love President and Sister Ence! They are a little younger than us, and kind and gentle but firm leaders. In our observations, they are involved with the young missionaries much more than with Senior Couples. I think we have had up to about 250 missionaries (post Covid it is down to around 60 but growing) here in the Brisbane Mission (mainly young ones of course) and that is a lot of 18-26 year olds to be supervising. There is a good leadership hierarchy where the more experienced missionaries are called as District Leaders and Zone Leaders and that certainly helps with the day to day problems that these young Elders and Sisters may encounter. But the ultimate responsibility for the success and safety of the Mission and the individual missionary rests with the Mission President. It is a large burden on ageing shoulders, but with the Lord's help most Mission Presidents do an amazing job.

Here in north Queensland, the Mission President also has a number of Mission Districts (leaders and members of the Church) who he has ecclesiastical responsibility for - Cairns and Townsville Districts, are about the same size, plus Rockhampton district. Fortunately the Mission President has two counsellors, Presidents Oliver and Pittman, who assist him with his responsibilities there. 

Monday 18th April

We live really close to the Cairns Botanical Gardens. If you were to land at Cairns Airport and come to visit, you would actually drive through the gardens to get to our place. It's a very popular walking spot and there are some great views over the airport from Mt Whitfield, which is beside the gardens. So early this morning Margot and I walked in and around the gardens, but not up Mt Whitfield, which is just a bit much for one of Margot's knees.

The walk was not quite enough exercise for me, so I decided to go and do laps at the pool. Being Easter Monday, the pool didn't open till 9.00 which I didn't realize until I got there and saw how crowded it was. The Pain Train was there, a crazy group who do 100 by 100 by 100. Not sure what the last 100 means but I think the first bit means 100 laps of 100 times. 

I also noticed a tiny bike by the pool, and I didn't realize why that was there until I was leaving when I noticed the owner of the bike getting out of the water. It was Grant Patterson, who won silver and bronze at the last Olympics. I could not help but go and talk to him and tell him how much I admired him. We chatted for a couple of minutes and then as I walked off I said I couldn't wait to get home and tell my wife that I had met him. He then said something like "Come back and get a photo with me!" 

"Yeah, is that OK? I would love to", I replied

Grant is not the typical Olympian. His arms and legs are very short, his hands (and I guess his feet) are not quite what you would normally expect to see. To me, it is a miracle that he can even swim at all, much less do what he does do. He's an inspirational character.

 

Tuesday 19th April

Taula family had us around for dinner this evening. Great Family - he is a counsellor to the Branch President and Sr Taula is the Institute teacher. Br Taula is related to one of the counsellors in our Stake Presidency back down in Victoria.

 

Wednesday 20th April

Made another batch of my almost famous hot cross buns for Marcella and her hubby Nimai, who we were able to meet this afternoon. Great conversation with him. And to top it all off, he is an aspiring kite surfer - has the gear but has not learned how to use it. Good to have something in common with him.

  

Thursday 21st April

 First day of lots of rain. It didn't rain all day, but it seemed like it. We had planned to go up to Kuranda, but we spoke to Julian Pitcher, whose family we were planning to visit, and he thought it was a bit risky for us to drive up there with all the rain. Kuranda is a little town, at least part way up the range, and we are not familiar with the road, but we know that it's steep and winds around a lot, and when it does rain up here, it really does rain a lot!

 So, while we were still deciding whether we should go up there or not, we received a txt message from Paul, our new friend who came to Church with us on Sunday. He was in town (he's been staying up on the tableland) and wanted to drop in and talk to us. He arrived about 20 minutes after he called and came in and sat down for a chat. We chatted generally for a while before we started talking about matters of faith. We asked how much he knew about the Church already, how much he had learned from his mother, and built our conversation around that. We talked a little about the Book of Mormon and the need for a Prophet in these latter days. I suggested that we check on what the young Elders were doing and see if they could come around to properly teach the first discussion, that they are much more used to doing than Margot and I are. They'd had their appointments for the afternoon fall through, so they were excited about coming around to our place to teach Paul and he was very receptive to that.

Unfortunately, Paul is not staying in Cairns, so all we can really do is prime him for where he will go for work. He's probably going to be based in Narrabri, where there is a branch of the Church.

 Friday 22 April

Running around doing errands today. Finally got to pick up our rubber stamps so that we can distribute booklets with phone numbers and Church meetinghouse address on them.

Saturday 23 April 2022

After spending the early morning giving our unit a quick tidy up, for the "open for inspection" that the Real Estate guys were hosting, Margot and I had a drive up to Port Douglas.

There are several members on the Church records at Port Douglas and Mossman, but it is over an hour’s drive down here to Cairns for them to come to Church and not many of them come down. 

We found a beautiful older (well, she's younger than me!) Maori lady named June, who has had very little contact with the Church in the last 30 years, since she's lived in Australia. It turns out that she's a second cousin of a friend of mine from New Zealand, and he has her whakapapa going back to the year 1250 roughly so we hope she might be interested in seeing that. She has a 21 year old son living with her and he has a computer and is a gamer, so we might be able to link them up via Family Search to see all their family history.

June also has a younger friend called Matt, who is a kitesurfer. I sent him a message and he called me back and we had a good chat. Kitesurfers have a bond with each other, not unlike the bond that Church members have with each other. The difference is, kiters have a shared faith in kites, Church members have a shared faith in Christ. There could be a good lesson in there. A kite typically has 4 lines each with a breaking strain of say 250kg. This would theoretically give a breaking strain of 1000 kgs. As a kitesurfer, my life could depend on the breaking strain of that line. But what is the breaking strain on the spiritual lines I have attaching me to the Saviour. If one line breaks, is that life threatening in a spiritual sense? What might be the 4 lines that tie us to the Saviour? Faith, hope, charity and love? Prayer, obedience, covenants, and service?

We also met a lovely young Mum from PNG who has 3 sons. She converted to the Church back in her early 20's and then married a fellow who was an active member of another faith and started a family. Sadly, they are no longer together, and the three boys are growing up without much spirituality or religion in their lives. She is keen to get together with us again.

A few other members were not home, so we left notes on their doors with our phone number asking them to call us back if they felt so inclined.

Sunday 24th April 2022

It's raining again this morning, so I did a Tai Chi session before getting ready to go to Church this morning. I need to do Tai Chi more regularly - it's great for my back!

We attended both Cairns branches of the Church again today. Good meetings in each branch. None of our new friends were able to come to Church today. Paul is flying to Brisbane tonight to drive a truck to Melbourne by Tuesday. We have found a place to store his car with one of the members here, and he is very grateful for that. 

My friend Nick, who I've been able to help with employment, is heading to Dubbo to do some work for Australian Aerial Photography, who I did some freelance work for over the last 2 years. I will miss Nick - he's been my hiking companion for the past few weeks, on walks that were two hard for Margot to go on.

Dinner tonight with the Eteru family - another mixed Polynesian family. Br Eteru is the District Young Men President and he has a brother who is the Stake YM President back in Wyndham Stake. There are connections everywhere here in Cairns. Had a great time with them!