Mission Report No 7

A tropical flower - unknown to me. Can any of
my Cairns friends tell me what it is?

 

Monday 2 May 2022

We didn't realise that today was Labour Day holiday here in Queensland. We were able to have a  fantastic Missionary Correlation Meting this morning with Cairns 1st Branch Mission Leader, Bro James Gardner (who is also 1st Counsellor in the Elders Quorum Presidency) and his wife Yvonne, who is the 2nd Counsellor in the Relief Society Presidency and responsible for missionary work in the Relief Society. I don't think I have mentioned before what a wonderfully dedicated Church family they are. They have 5 of their own kids plus 5 extra that are either fostered or adopted. James and Yvonne both served as missionaries in Japan in their young days and I'm pretty sure both later attended Brigham Young University - Hawaii, and graduated from there. He has been both a Branch President and District President in Cairns and Yvonne has served in many key callings. Having good missionary correlation meetings is a key to success for us in serving both the Church members and those of our new friends who are potential Church members.

Tuesday 3rd May 2022

Bro Gardner (same one mentioned above) works as an English teacher for migrants at the local TAFE  College. He asked if he could bring his class on an excursion to the Family History Centre so that it could help them learn family terminology, like brother, sister, mother, father, husband, wife etc. So we did a presentation to them using a family tree, and some videos, to help get the terminology repeating enough for them to learn it. The age range was from a 20 year old Thai man to a 60 year old Congo woman to a 74 year old Chinese man. It was an interesting mix of people and it was good fun!

Tonight we had a meeting with President Fa'Aoso, who is the District President. He just wanted to get to know us a bit more so that he can think about where we might be able to best help in the District.

Wednesday 4th May 2022

Visited the Bagiris to invite their younger daughter Georgina if she would like to attend the Temple Preparation course that we have been asked to teach. She responded positively with her typical enthusiasm!

During the day I went for a walk with my friend Gareth. 

Thursday 5th May 2022

Felt a bit off today with a one-day head cold. It was weird! Did a RAT and responded negatively thanks very much!

Zoom meeting with Tammuz Fa'Aoso, the son of our District President, who is preparing to go on a mission. We invited him to attend the Temple Prep class and he, like Georgina the day before, responded with an enthusiastic "yes".

Friday 6th May 2022

I tried to have a very light wind kite foil session (first time) today at Yorkey's.  The wind was too light and I really need to improve my light wind flying skills!

Friday night I taught Tai Chi at the Activity Night at the Chapel. The young Elders and Thomas Gosney played basketball to start with and then came in to the Recreation Hall for Tai Chi. First time I had run a Tai Chi class. I have no qualification to teach of course, and apart from learning Tai Chi in a class 30 years ago, I have really only done Tai Chi via video in recent years.

Saturday 7th May 2022

This was a hard day for me. It was easily windy enough to go kiting, but I didn't quite have enough time. So, I made the ultimate sacrifice and did a lot of baking so we had some bread and some "Resurrection Rolls" (Hot Cross without the cross) to take to the Lawrences and the Etheridges.

Sunday 8th May 2022

Church meeting at both branches. Invited Saphron and Kahleel Mitchell to attend the Temple Preparation class which we will start teaching in a couple of days. The Mitchell family are another one of those backbone type of families in the Church here. Eight kids in total and the two girls we invited to the course are the two middle kids and are both getting ready to serve missions.