HAPPY ANZAC DAY!

April 25, 2011 Monday

Have I mentioned prams? That’s the English and Aussie word for baby strollers. Most are just like ours in the states, but the thing that makes them stand out here is that lots of families just load the baby into the pram and bring it into the chapel for church. They park it at the end of the bench they are sitting on. If a kid needs to go out, sometimes the mom puts him in the pram and wheels him out. It really surprised me when we first came.
This afternoon while tracting we met Hasnat, a man from Pakistan who is Muslim. He was willing to talk about the differences between Mormonism and Islam. He invited us in and we spent an hour telling him about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. We threw in comparisons to Islam every now and again. At one point we asked if it was true that if a Musmlim changes religion that he can be killed, and he said it was true. We asked him, “Where is the righteousness in that?” He sat and thought for a minute and then said, “That is a very important question.” At the end, he said we had raised some very important questions he needs to find out about and that he would read the Book of Mormon. We will check back on him in 3 weeks and see what he thinks. He has a wife and two kids and has been in Australia 2 years working on a PhD in Economics.
Tonight we attended another of the Mortley holiday parties. This one is for ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corp) Day. It’s like our Veteran’s Day, but it seems like more people pay attention to it here than in the states. These folks are very proud of the contributions they made to overcoming evil to maintain the freedoms that the majority of the people want to have. Dinner was at Paul Mortley’s. He cooked an incredible roast and then had roasted potatoes and all the trimmings. We took a veggie plate. There was also a family there, the Cushmans, who used to live in the ward and are visiting from Darwin. They have 15 year old triplet boys and 13 ½ year old twin boys. And the mother is still sane! I even got to cuddle 3 week old Emma Mortley who had a tiny, tiny nose and mouth just like our little Erin had when she was born.