IT’S WARM IN HERE!

April 29, 2011 Friday

The weather has turned chilly and at night it gets downright cold. Our house has no central heating. Just before we were transferred to Broome last year, we were really getting worried about how we would not freeze to death here during the winter. It got down to freezing several times last winter here in Perth. So today, we took the ironing board and drying racks out of the spare bedroom, covered the swamp cooler vent with paper, hauled our two favorite chairs and our table in here and turned on the little space heater we have. It’s so warm, we are amazed. We have another little space heater for the bathroom, so we won’t have the shower water freeze on us. We are two happy campers; we feel like we will survive the winter.
I’m not sure if I mentioned this old guy or not when we first met him, so I’ll tell you about “Brother” Ryder. We found him tracting a couple of weeks ago. As soon as we introduced ourselves we were invited in. He’s an 89 year old fellow from India. His wife had been in the hospital for quite a while and he asked us to pray that she would get better and be able to come back home. So we did. We’ve been surprised at how many Christians from India that we have run into lately. He expressed his great faith that God would answer his prayers. So we dropped by yesterday to see how things were going. It takes him a long time to get to the door, but he was happy to see us. He told us how the doctors had been ready to give up on Marjorie, his wife, but thanks to everyone’s prayers they are now going to let her come home as soon as they find a good “carer” (home care nurse) for her. Bless his heart, he expressed his frustration when his daughter and grandchildren came to see him on Easter when he was gone with his other daughter to visit Marjorie at the hospital. He talked about how his grandchildren are being raised “the Australian way” and not “the Indian way.” He feels they are missing out on a lot of the lessons of respect, integrity, and work. But then he spent a long time telling us of all the blessings the Lord has given him over the years and how he and Marjorie have been taken care of by Him. He gives most of his pension to charity and believes that’s why the Lord has let him live so long because the people won’t get helped if he dies. Talk about the pure in heart. This man is at the top of the list.
We taught Moana and her girls last night about the first half of the plan of salvation. Ebony, the 15 year old, had a friend staying over who sat in on the lesson. You should have seen how big Courtney’s eyes became as we reviewed the story of how Joseph Smith was able to obtain the golden plates and translate them. I’m sure Ebony had a lot of explaining to do after we left about angels and somebody seeing God and Jesus Christ. There seems to be a good spirit there when we teach. We just wish so badly that Moana’s dumb partner would be willing to marry her so she feels like she’s not “less than” all the other members at church.
We didn’t have anything lined up for this afternoon so we went to the temple. It was so nice to be there again. It seems like forever since we’ve been able to go. Working in Perth is a real blessing when it comes to being able to go to the temple.