Mission Report No 33

This happened on Saturday - see below

Monday 14th November 2022

We spent part of today with two of the best "ministering sisters" in Cairns. Tara, who came to Innisfail with us yesterday and took us to visit 2 families who don't come to Church at the moment, and Yoriko, who we have been visiting with to quite a few families and individuals over the past several weeks.

Tara invited us over for lunch, as we were dropping off a loaf of bread and some watermelon that some members in Innisfail had given her, but she had accidentally left in our car when we dropped her home. She's such a generous person, with her time and material means, constantly giving to others.

Yoriko is the same. Today we dropped in, with Yoriko, to see old Sister Stafford in the Aged Care home that she and her husband are in. Yoriko had a DVD player to give to Sister Stafford, who asked us several weeks back if there was a way she could listen to the Book of Mormon. She is blind, and so is unable to read her scriptures now. As we were unable to find any Book of Mormon CD's I downloaded all the MP3 files on to a memory stick, and Yoriko's DVD player had a USB input that we could plug my memory stick in to. So, it was a win/win for everybody.

Tuesday 15th November 2022

I visited my friend John this morning on my way home from my walk (bumped into Nimai as he was heading off to work at Babinda too). After John and I had scripture reading and prayer together, I felt inspired to ask him about his Optus account. I had this sneaking suspicion that he may have been paying for more than he needed. He doesn't have a computer or smart TV that he needs broadband for, yet he has been paying $75.00 per month for an NBN service, as well as $40.00 per month for his mobile phone (which includes data) and an extra $25.00 a month for a data SIM for his iPad, so $140.00 a month in total. I was pretty sure we could cancel the NBN service and John would not notice any difference in his telecommunications. I had a frustrating time on the phone to Optus to try to sort it out but didn't resolve anything.

After helping John advertise one of his boats on Facebook last week, he has been literally flooded with enquiries about it. He received a call while I was with him from a guy from Port Douglas who wanted to come down this morning to check out the boat. So, I went home and told John I would come back to get on the phone again to Optus this afternoon to see if we could save some money.

Getting back home, Margot suggested we try go to visit Marcella again and for the first time in ages, we were able to catch up with her. I sat down with Manny and played ball with him and with his tipper trucks, before Marcella went upstairs and prepared his lunch. When his lunch was ready, we went upstairs and had a good chat with Marcella, about her family history and her own history of coming to Australia to learn to speak English and then being fortunate enough to meet Nimai. (And I might add, Nimai being fortunate enough to meet her!)

Later in the afternoon, John and I paid a visit to the Optus shop in Central, to get a new SIM card for his iPad. Problem solved, and John is now saving $75.00 per month.

Wednesday 16 November 2022

I had never envisioned that cutting a dog's nails (claws?) might be something I might do as service for someone, but that is exactly what I did today. I noticed last week when visiting David in Atherton, that his dog Ruby's claws were too long. David bought a pair of clippers this week, so after having our usual Kebab/Felafel lunch, and then a bit of a chat about David's service in Vietnam, we started the exercise of cutting Ruby's claws.

David warned me that it could be a difficult job, describing how a veterinary assistant tried to cope with it last time they needed cutting. Ruby is a big dog, possibly a Bull-Arab, so she is strong but also very affectionate. We gave her lots of pats and cuddles, and lots of praise, and eventually had her laying on her back letting me cut her claws. We were not ever going to be able to force her to be still, she is way too strong for that, but we were able to "love her still" and get the job done. I think there is a lesson in that!

Thursday 17 November 2022

Great news for John this morning - he sold his boat for his $5,000.00 asking price, after knocking back several offers of $3-4k.

I had a hearing test this morning at Amplifon. I know my hearing has been deteriorating for several years, and it is getting frustrating for me and everybody else that I have to ask to repeat what they say.   Anyway, it was a very comprehensive test which showed that I have hearing loss above 2Khz. After the test she programmed some of their best hearing aids and put them in my ears. Well, the difference was just amazing. So was the price! - So now I need to work out if I want to be about 8 or 9 thousand dollars poorer, but able to hear what's going on around me. 

This afternoon Margot took Sister Skewes to her physio appointment while I visited Br Erueti, who has recently been diagnosed with stomach cancer and been told that he may have a couple of years to live. 

Br Erueti and I have some mutual associations, with him being from the Bay of Islands area, north of Auckland. We want to plan a devotional, perhaps on the theme of facing death, while have the perspective of the plan of salvation and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He wants to make the most of his remaining time on earth to reach as many people as he can.

All his family are grieving already and are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that he is going to die. But we are all going to die, we don't know when or how, but we just know it will come. Br Erueti has an advantage on us all - he knows when he will (probably) die and he knows it will (probably) be fairly soon. He has recently had a stomach bypass operation which will allow him to eat normally and should offer him an extra two or so years of life.

Friday 18 November 2022

This morning we got to the Davie's place about 7.20am to help them out with their garden. I was wishing we had arrived earlier to be honest. Working outside in north Queensland in the heat of the day is tough, and this was at 7.30 in the morning. No wonder we don't have daylight saving here - it would just be too tough for so many people.

We went shopping at Silly Sollies today, firstly to get some bargain food (it's a bit like Not Quite Right in Victoria), but secondly to try to talk to a staff member who served us there last week and seemed curious as to who we are. We saw two guys who looked like the one we spoke with, so we were a bit puzzled about who to talk too. One of them served us at the checkout. "Were you the guy we spoke with last week? Do you remember us?" "Umm....no, but that might have been my twin brother - he works here too!"

Saturday 19 November 2022

I ran my first Tai Chi class here in Cairns today. "Hang on, when did Murray become a Tai Chi instructor?" I hear you ask! Ummm... today. Appointed by myself. So yes, I am not a Tai Chi instructor, but I have been doing Tai Chi regularly for years, and I figure that to teach someone something, you only need to know a little bit more than they do. Anyway, we had three people come to our class, ranging in age from probably 30 to 80, and they seemed to enjoy it, so this will now be a regular thing, every Saturday at 8.00am.

At 10.30am this morning we had our first baptisms in 1st Branch for quite a while. Two of the boys, Ammon and Isaiah, from the Thompson/Metekingi family, were baptized and confirmed as members of the Church today. There are 10 boys in this family and most of them are coming back to Church with their Mum and little brothers, so they are making quite an impact at Church. Sister Davie's suggested our young Elders Misa and Black go to visit them and they have been attending Church now for several weeks.

Recuperation was the order of the day for pretty much the rest of the day, except we were having all the young Elders (6 of them) over for dinner tonight as it was Elder Taufalele's birthday, so we had to do a bit of preparation for that.

Clockwise - Pemberton, Chadburn, Ricks, Taufalele,
Misa, Black, Ceff, Ceff :)

Sunday 21 November 2022

We were at Church at both Cairns branches today.

2nd Branch had a nice start to their meeting with a musical item from the Branch President, Jared Arvidson, with Matthew Smith and Carpenter Tou singing acapella three-part harmony (and I'm trying to remember the hymn) and they did very well and set the tone for the rest of the meeting. 

Bro Aquilar Luki (Senior) was the first speaker and I think it was the first Sacrament meeting talk that I had heard from him. He spoke about the visit here to Cairns by President Gordon B Hinckley. I've heard it said by some here that President Hinckley said that there would be a Temple built in Cairns "one day". Bro Luki had found notes from Donald W Cummings, who was the District President at the time. Bro Cummings noted that President Hinckley actually said that there would be a Temple in Far North Queensland, if the members were true and faithful and built up the Church in the area. "If" is the operative word there!

In the 1st Branch meeting, Sr Saphron Mitchell spoke, it being her last Sunday here in Cairns before she heads off to the Missionary Training Centre in Provo, before eventually landing in Vanuatu. She is such an impressive young lady - I am sure she will be a fantastic missionary!