Mission Report No 9

 Well, it was a bit of a mixed bag this week!

Late Monday afternoon I got a phone call from President Ence asking me to conduct a Far North Zone Council Meeting on Zoom. This is normally something that the young missionaries do, and we attend as guests. We are sort of outside their organizational structure, but there have been some moves lately and they don't have a Zone Leader up here, so President Ence asked me to fill in to conduct the meeting. I quite enjoyed it and it was good to get everybody together, even it is was via Zoom, which is how it is usually done anyway. We are spread from Rockhampton and Bowen in the south to Townsville and then Cairns in the North and Mt Isa out in the west of the state.

We were able to view a streamed event from the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne on Tuesday morning - Miriam's graduation ceremony. Miriam did a 4 year degree in Occupational Therapy and she finished her studies last year and has been working since the start of this year. It was a proud moment, seeing her take part with all the other students in the graduation ceremony, which was really well organised. 

Tuesday evening we taught our Temple Preparation class again, which we enjoy very much. Due to illness with the girls, attendance was down a bit this week. But if there's only one person in the class, and they are getting something out of it, it is still worthwhile doing.

Little Emmanuel trying on my hat  

Thursday morning walk with Iamin, and family. Iamin, Marcella and little Emmanuel regularly go for an early walk from their home near us, down to the Botanic Gardens and around one of the tracks there. It was very enjoyable walking with them and getting to know them more, as well as the beautiful Cairns Botanical Gardens that we are so blessed to live near. To end the walk we dropped in to the bakery on the way back and Marcella bought us each something nice for brekky back at there place. I also go to check out Iamin's kites and make sure they looked airworthy and OK for him to learn on. He got a nice pair of old North Rebels that were a bargain price from a European doctor who was heading back home and wanted to unload them.

Our really big day was on the Friday 20th May this week. We drove to Port Douglas and back twice. The reason for this was so that we could get our friend June down to Cairns Hospital by 9.00am for a medical procedure. We left Cairns by 6.30 a.m., got to Port Douglas by 7.30 a.m. and then down to Cairns Hospital by 9.00 a.m. and then back up to Port Douglas by about 3.00 p.m.

June was a very entertaining passenger. She's a very sociable lady, loves having a chat, and is really good company for a long drive. She told us a lot about her life and the many things that she has done. One of the more interesting things was she with Ben Cropp for about 8 years. If you don't know who Ben Cropp is, Google him. He's got about 71k followers on YouTube. He was a documentary film maker back in the 80's. Some of his guests included Raquel Welch and Clint Eastwood, who taught them all his method of smoking fish. Must have been a pretty interesting time for her!

Sunday 23 May 2022

Possibly one of my busiest Sundays ever, which was fun. I received an email on Thursday from Br Ward Gwillim, the counselor to the Branch President, who organizes the sacrament meeting speakers. The assigned speaker had let him know that he would not be able to attend, so Br. Gwillim emailed me asking if I could do the honors. After my last talk in Branch 1, when I only had a couple of days to prepare, I was not all that keen to put together a talk on short notice, but Margot convinced me that I could do it, and I did.

After Sacrament meeting, we taught our Temple Preparation class again, with Miriam and Taylor coming in as guests to add in their point of view as well, which was really nice.

The day before, I received a message from Br Gardner, who teaches the lesson in the Elder's Quorum meeting, saying that he was unwell and wouldn't be able to teach the lesson. He asked if I would be able to do it. I didn't have anything planned for that time period, so I  said I would. I've always like teaching Elder's Quorum or in the old days, High Priest Group meetings, as usually everyone is keen to participate and it's really a matter of asking the right question and stimulating their thinking to get them talking a bit. The lesson went well.