SEPTEMBER 25 - 30, 2010

September 25, 2010 Saturday

PUPPIES!

Today we went to Derby for the home/visiting teaching run. The only person we had a good visit with was Lucy Marshall, our elderly aboriginal sister. When we got there, she was just coming out of her house with a little baby-bottle type thing and a 2 cup measuring cup full of milk. Her dog had seven pups about a month ago and today she’d disappeared leaving a bunch of yelping hungry little pups by the time we got there. Lucy tried feeding them with the bottle and that didn’t work, so she dumped some milk in a plastic container and the puppies went to town. They sure were cute.
Another member we tried to visit wasn’t home, and the 3rd only talked to us on the porch for about 5 minutes. We also dropped off a Lamb of God video to a woman who’d requested it over the internet. She was at work, so we left it with her family and our business card in case she wants to know more. Derby’s a 2 hour drive from here. We also got some good pictures of some of the boab trees that grow up there. You can’t call them beautiful, but they certainly do have character.
It was really hot up there. When we got home, the thermometer in our carport showed 100 degrees. And we are only at the beginning of spring! We came home to a message on our answering machine from Dale Rollason asking that we drop by because she had something for me. She’s been doing so well with the scriptures and all, we were scared to death she’d decided she didn’t want anymore to do with the church and wanted to give the scriptures back. What a happy surprise! When we went over the whole family except the dad came out and they gave me an early birthday present. It’s so cute—pens, a pencil case, and some markers. We use them a lot in YW so I think they are “re-stocking” my supply. Their family flew to Perth tonight. They won tickets and flights to the Perth Royal Show. It’s like a state fair. They’ll be gone 2 weeks (it’s a 2 week school holiday).
Also, yesterday we dropped Carolyn Shires, a 12 year old member, at the airport. She and Tammy Rollason flew down to Perth yesterday for the West Australia Youth Conference. I can’t wait to hear how they liked it. They are both from such broken families. It will be so good for them to be there with 300 other Mormon kids and stay in an active LDS home for 3 nights.



September 29, 2010 Wednesday

UP AND DOWN

Yesterday afternoon, Orson tracted into a young lady, Chelsea, who said she had been praying about finding the truth. She agreed to have us come back this morning to teach her. She is so sharp; she’s 20 years old and attending “uni” and is on break this week. She’s part aboriginal and just as cute as she can be. So we gave her the first lesson and she agreed to be baptized when she comes to know the church is true. Her mom is Catholic and she’s been telling her mom for a long time that that church doesn’t teach what is in the scriptures. She understands the apostasy and the need for the restoration of Christ’s church. We are so grateful that the Lord led us to her.
So we were up! Then we went to see Jenna this afternoon. And she started out by saying she couldn’t keep studying with us because she just couldn’t immediately join the church because she still feels her baptism has validity. So we assured her that we didn’t want her to join until she is confident that is the right thing for her to do. We read Alma 32 with her about how she’s planting the see of faith and that it has to be nurtured with diligence and patience. She warmed up after that, and we began to teach the plan of salvation. Immediately, she objected to a pre-earth life. “So if I lived in heaven with God, why did I have to come here and experience all this?” A little later she asked if God created Satan. She had more questions than anyone we have encountered. She mentioned some friends she’s having breakfast with tomorrow. We are worried that she has some anti-Mormon friends who are filling her full of untruths about us. I hope we can hang onto her. She’s a good lady and the Gospel would do her so much good.


September 27, 2010 Monday

VICTORY LIFE BROOME

Jenna came to church yesterday and really seemed to enjoy it. She already was acquainted with Simon since she had gone to the rehab place where he works when she had had a problem with beer. She also is acquainted with the Rollasons from way back and is aware of Colleen and Gavins’ problems with marijuana and alcohol. She said she always wondered about how the kids would turn out and was very pleased to find out they are coming to church. She really seemed to enjoy our tiny little branch and what she learned. She even brought her Bible and Book of Mormon with her!
Tony came over this morning. Orson began talking to him in big generalities kind of circling around about his need to get married. I really felt like we needed to get rid of the “elephant in the room.” As Tony began talking about Claudia and her feelings about things, he commented that she had once asked him, “Why don’t you just have Pastor Brewster marry us?” He’d told her that Pastor Brewster wasn’t from his church. That opened up the topic of marriage and we were able to talk to him about it and that it is extremely important that he get married. We read to him from the Family Proclamation. He knows he has to tread slowly with Claudia. She knows he’s studying with us, so hopefully she will come around some day. She’s from Germany and was raised without faith in anything.
We went tracting this afternoon. Orson ran into a guy who is the “Chairman” of the governing board of Victory Life Broome, the church up the
street that has a huge attendance. We’ve heard several people who attend it comment that they aren’t impressed with various aspects of it, but they still continue to go there. Anyway, Orson had a great conversation with him. After hearing about the apostasy, he commented he kind of wondered where the pastors really get their authority. There were some other very telling things said that lets you know that even this guy is less than impressed with his own church.


September 29, 2010 Wednesday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!

It’s been a good day. We took today as a D-day since we were going to take tomorrow but then we ended up with 2 lessons tomorrow. The phone rang at 5:30 in the morning. I slept through it, but Orson heard it but didn’t make it out to the phone in time. It was Nancy. (She confessed later she didn’t realize she was calling at that horrible hour. She’s forgiven.) About 9 am, the phone rang and it was Mike’s family singing “Happy Birthday” to me. It was fun to talk to them. They were all on their speaker phone. I tried to call Nancy back, but she wasn’t home. We went to the internet cafe to post some pictures and blogs on our blog. I discovered I’d forgotten to copy the blogs on to the thumb drive, so only pictures went up today.
Then we went Christmas shopping. It was the first time I’ve ever shopped for Christmas on my birthday. We had fun. We are about half through. We got our mail. I had a card from President and Sister Cahoon with Australian lighthouses on it and the scriptures about being a light to the world and holding up the light of Christ for everyone. It’s really neat. And Melanie had sent me a 2nd birthday card with some great pictures of quadrunning, a picnic, and their trip to Zion.
For lunch we went to a little Egyptian Kebab and Falafel place and got two kebabs and brought them home to eat in our air conditioned house (it was 105 in the shade of the carport when we got home.) They were really good. Nancy had called again and said I could call her at ANY time. So I did. It was 11:30 pm at her place, but she said she hadn’t been asleep.
We went to the library to spend some more time on the internet. It’s free there, but you can’t upload or download anything on their computers. I did a little research on the Jehovah’s Witnesses. It’s interesting to read about. Some of their stuff is similar to ours, but they are still hanging on to their 144,000 people who will go to heaven and be appointed rulers over the rest of us after Christ comes again.
We did the weekly grocery shopping and came home. YW is tonight. Since the Rollasons are out of town, we are going to do a first lesson with Carolyn, Jessi, and Kerryanne. Jessi has been asking a bunch of questions that will be answered by the lesson and the other two need the review.