Mission Report No 31

Elders Ricks and Pemberton looking
serious and relaxed!

Monday 31st November

Visited our good friend David in Atherton today. Gave him a little hand around the house (Leila is away at the moment) and had a good chat with him too.

Tuesday 1st November 2022

Well, we had a full day, whole mission Zoom, conference today, with a couple of special guests from SLC. I can't say who they were, so this is really just a note to my future self, to remind me that we had a very special day. Let's just say it was a Q and A format (which very few people would ever get to benefit from) with a couple of very senior Church leaders.

Wednesday 2nd November 2022

Our friend Yoriko is a great example of how a member of the Church can use missionaries to help further the Lord's work. Again today, we went with her to visit two elderly sisters in aged care facilities. The first sister was Daphne Elliot. By the level of excitement she displayed when she realized that we were from the Church, it may have been sometime since she had seen anyone. Sister Elliot is almost totally deaf, so it was rather hard to have a conversation with her. When we arrived, she was sitting in the lounge area with a lot of other old folk, watching television. She soon took us to her room, to have a little privacy, where we tried to chat but the best we could do was to get her to tell us who was in her family photos. I decided it might be nice to sing some hymns with her as perhaps she might be able to hear the volume of the 3 of us singing loudly (and out of tune!) and it might be a nice spiritual build up to giving her a blessing, which she asked for as soon as she realized who we were.

Friday 4th November 2022

Flat inspections with the young Cairns Elders this morning, followed by some op-shopping. I've been looking for a new pair of summer weight trousers and have been going to menswear shops and op- shops around town, trying to find something that I like - light in color, light in weight, not too narrow in the legs (ventilation is important in Cairns) and not too expensive. The only trousers that really suited me were in Sportscraft and Country Road, and I was not too keen to spend $130.00 on a pair.

So, the one final op shop in Cairns that we had not been to was the Animal Welfare Op Shop. Went in there and put my hands straight on a 32" waist, virtually brand-new pair of Sportscraft trousers for $3.00! Yes! We actually had to pay $5.00 though as they had a minimum requirement for EFTPOS sales. I would have happily paid $20.00. Blessings from heaven, literally!

Saturday 5 November 2022

Baked some bread and did a contra deal for some fresh coconuts with Paul out at Yorkey's Knob today. I discovered that too much wind is harder to handle for kite-foiling than just enough wind!

Sunday 6 November 2022

We attended both Cairns branches again today.

One highlight for Margot was that she recognized Karen Ziegelbauer Booth, visiting from the U.S., whom she was roommates with 40 odd years ago at Brigham Young University - Hawaii. They had a bit of a chat to catch up on old times.

After Church we went to visit Ayako with Yoriko. Ayako is still reading the Book of Mormon and today Yoriko taught her to pray. Most of the conversation is in Japanese, and while Margot does understand it, most of her contributions are in English. I'm just there for my good looks, I think. Well, I do make the occasional contribution. 

We had a relatively short visit with Ayako, maybe half an hour, and we said our good-byes and started walking towards the elevator, when walking towards us is Sister Palmer, wife of Shane Palmer, from Cairns 2nd Branch. She is a nurse at the hospital (as is Yoriko) and she asked us who we were visiting. Turns out that she has nursed Ayako on some shifts, but she didn't know that we have been visiting her. So, we all went back to Ayako and explained that Sister Palmer is a friend of ours from Church. Ayako was surprised and delighted to know of the connection.