I'm not sure my hips would fit in this old fashioned "hip bath."
Baptismal Font--no wonder they baptize babies! And it's only big enough for their feet.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
A TRIP TO THE NARROGIN MUSEUM
Orson standing by a "thatching machine." It bundled straw together so it could be loaded and shipped somewhere. Just looked like a big old sewing machine to us.
I'm not sure my hips would fit in this old fashioned "hip bath."
Baptismal Font--no wonder they baptize babies! And it's only big enough for their feet.
I'm not sure my hips would fit in this old fashioned "hip bath."
Baptismal Font--no wonder they baptize babies! And it's only big enough for their feet.
BRETT AND AMY
September 3, 2011 Saturday
Brett and Amy are the good news. We met with them yesterday and gave him the first lesson. He’s a nice guy who just seems to accept everything we tell him. He’s excited to learn about the restoration; and when we told him that he would be able to give blessings to his family and that their son would be passing the sacrament in 6 years, he grinned from ear to ear.
Today we gave them the plan of salvation and it was a beautiful experience. Our biggest challenge will be getting him to attend church. He works at the Boddington mines as a diesel mechanic. He works 2 weeks on and 1 week off. Weeks begin on Tuesday so he’ll only be able to attend church once every 3 weeks. In order to be baptized, a person must attend church at least twice. Of course we don’t want to baptized him just for the sake of getting a baptism, but he and Amy seem so ready that it’s hard to just have to wait. Tomorrow is Father’s Day and his family always does a breakfast together so there goes getting them to church tomorrow. We found out that Brett used to work for President Moulds, the branch president. There are all kinds of connections in a small town.
We haven’t been able to see Tracy since Tuesday. It’s unusual for her to not be at home. I hope everything is okay with her.
Brett and Amy are the good news. We met with them yesterday and gave him the first lesson. He’s a nice guy who just seems to accept everything we tell him. He’s excited to learn about the restoration; and when we told him that he would be able to give blessings to his family and that their son would be passing the sacrament in 6 years, he grinned from ear to ear.
Today we gave them the plan of salvation and it was a beautiful experience. Our biggest challenge will be getting him to attend church. He works at the Boddington mines as a diesel mechanic. He works 2 weeks on and 1 week off. Weeks begin on Tuesday so he’ll only be able to attend church once every 3 weeks. In order to be baptized, a person must attend church at least twice. Of course we don’t want to baptized him just for the sake of getting a baptism, but he and Amy seem so ready that it’s hard to just have to wait. Tomorrow is Father’s Day and his family always does a breakfast together so there goes getting them to church tomorrow. We found out that Brett used to work for President Moulds, the branch president. There are all kinds of connections in a small town.
We haven’t been able to see Tracy since Tuesday. It’s unusual for her to not be at home. I hope everything is okay with her.
KATANNING
Inside the old flour mill in Katanning. The old guy standing by the machinery wouldn't stay there. I had to bring him home.
Allergy fields. No, I really mean canola fields. Who knew canola oil could come from such pretty stuff?
September 1, 2011 Thursday
Today we drove to Katanning. It’s the city a little over an hour’s drive south of here. The Crooks family lives there and brings their 5 young kids every Sunday to church. There were also 5 other names on the branch list there that we decided to visit. We stopped at the Visitors’ Centre, which was located in an old flour mill. It was cool to see but they didn’t have a good map. So we went to the library and paid $.55 for a copy of a good map that had a legend for all the streets.
Katanning is a huge wool processing centre and they also process lots of sheep for meat. We passed a place with a sign on it, “Abbatoir.” It was a huge building and there were lots of cars there. We wondered what it was. Later Sister Crooks told us the abbatoir is where they process the meat. Maybe if we’d taken French in school we’d have know that? Katanning advertises itself as a multi-cultural town. They do have a small mosque and we saw 3 Muslim women at Woolworths. Katanning’s population is about the same as Narrogin, but it’s a little more spread out.
First we visited Melinda Hogland. She turned out to be an American who came over here in 1974 to teach school. She grew up in California and went to college in Utah. When she graduated there were too many teachers and not enough jobs. Australia was the other way around and it brought a huge planeload of teachers over. Melinda ended up in Katanning, got married, raised two kids and is still teaching school there. She was nice enough to talk to but let us know that the “church is all part of history for me now.” She didn’t want home or visiting teachers although she says it seems like someone contacts her every six month or so.
Next we went after James and Brian Jardine. They were on the list as living together and both were adults. We went to their house on Park St. The people there said they’d moved to Daping Street to a yellow house with big sheds behind it. So we drove down Daping and didn’t see anything matching that description. We did find a yellow house on the corner of Daping and another street with a small shed behind it. The man who lived there said he wasn’t Jim, but he told us Jim did odd jobs at the old Federal Hotel in town. So we went to the hotel. A guy working in the kitchen gave us Jim’s phone number. (Good thing this was a small town.) Jim was really surprised to hear from us and said we could come over for a visit. He had a job to do but he could put it off for a while. He did live in a yellow house on Daping Street but it needed paint badly and the big sheds were way behind their place. He invited us in and introduced us to his wife, Diane, who goes by Di. He’s about 60 and she’s 40. He was surprised that we had him on any list and didn’t know there was a branch in Narrogin. They’ve lived there 10 years and ours was the first contact. What nice people! He and his first wife raised their kids in the church but then divorced. Di’s family was members but apostatized when she was about 14. When they married, their reception was at the Thornlie chapel. They had sisters teach them the missionary lessons, but Di wasn’t baptized. Orson thinks she can be rebaptized since it was her parents that had her name removed and not Di who requested it. We are going to check into it for her. We ended up visiting for about an hour and a half. They were excited to get a couple of old Ensigns that we had in the car. They made the whole trip down there worth it.
It just amazes us. It seems like all over West Australia that if someone doesn’t come to church, nobody even bothers to look for them. We’ve run into this in every ward and branch we’ve worked in. We then tried to visit the two Polynesian sisters who come to Sacrament Meeting about twice a month, but neither was home. So we stopped by to visit the Crooks for a minute and then headed home. We got back here about 5. It was a good day and the weather was beautiful.
On the way down there we passed field after field of bright yellow canola plants. They are in full bloom right now. We pulled up a little lane between 2 fields to take some photos. The air smelled just beautiful. The sad part is that I’m allergic to them and was stuffed up and sneezing and blowing the whole time. Once we got into town away from the fields I was okay. We bought a couple of vege pasties, a big bottle of orange Fanta, and a couple of dessert squares for lunch. It was a very filling lunch. It was the first pastie I liked. The others we’ve had just didn’t do it. These were really good.
Allergy fields. No, I really mean canola fields. Who knew canola oil could come from such pretty stuff?
September 1, 2011 Thursday
Today we drove to Katanning. It’s the city a little over an hour’s drive south of here. The Crooks family lives there and brings their 5 young kids every Sunday to church. There were also 5 other names on the branch list there that we decided to visit. We stopped at the Visitors’ Centre, which was located in an old flour mill. It was cool to see but they didn’t have a good map. So we went to the library and paid $.55 for a copy of a good map that had a legend for all the streets.
Katanning is a huge wool processing centre and they also process lots of sheep for meat. We passed a place with a sign on it, “Abbatoir.” It was a huge building and there were lots of cars there. We wondered what it was. Later Sister Crooks told us the abbatoir is where they process the meat. Maybe if we’d taken French in school we’d have know that? Katanning advertises itself as a multi-cultural town. They do have a small mosque and we saw 3 Muslim women at Woolworths. Katanning’s population is about the same as Narrogin, but it’s a little more spread out.
First we visited Melinda Hogland. She turned out to be an American who came over here in 1974 to teach school. She grew up in California and went to college in Utah. When she graduated there were too many teachers and not enough jobs. Australia was the other way around and it brought a huge planeload of teachers over. Melinda ended up in Katanning, got married, raised two kids and is still teaching school there. She was nice enough to talk to but let us know that the “church is all part of history for me now.” She didn’t want home or visiting teachers although she says it seems like someone contacts her every six month or so.
Next we went after James and Brian Jardine. They were on the list as living together and both were adults. We went to their house on Park St. The people there said they’d moved to Daping Street to a yellow house with big sheds behind it. So we drove down Daping and didn’t see anything matching that description. We did find a yellow house on the corner of Daping and another street with a small shed behind it. The man who lived there said he wasn’t Jim, but he told us Jim did odd jobs at the old Federal Hotel in town. So we went to the hotel. A guy working in the kitchen gave us Jim’s phone number. (Good thing this was a small town.) Jim was really surprised to hear from us and said we could come over for a visit. He had a job to do but he could put it off for a while. He did live in a yellow house on Daping Street but it needed paint badly and the big sheds were way behind their place. He invited us in and introduced us to his wife, Diane, who goes by Di. He’s about 60 and she’s 40. He was surprised that we had him on any list and didn’t know there was a branch in Narrogin. They’ve lived there 10 years and ours was the first contact. What nice people! He and his first wife raised their kids in the church but then divorced. Di’s family was members but apostatized when she was about 14. When they married, their reception was at the Thornlie chapel. They had sisters teach them the missionary lessons, but Di wasn’t baptized. Orson thinks she can be rebaptized since it was her parents that had her name removed and not Di who requested it. We are going to check into it for her. We ended up visiting for about an hour and a half. They were excited to get a couple of old Ensigns that we had in the car. They made the whole trip down there worth it.
It just amazes us. It seems like all over West Australia that if someone doesn’t come to church, nobody even bothers to look for them. We’ve run into this in every ward and branch we’ve worked in. We then tried to visit the two Polynesian sisters who come to Sacrament Meeting about twice a month, but neither was home. So we stopped by to visit the Crooks for a minute and then headed home. We got back here about 5. It was a good day and the weather was beautiful.
On the way down there we passed field after field of bright yellow canola plants. They are in full bloom right now. We pulled up a little lane between 2 fields to take some photos. The air smelled just beautiful. The sad part is that I’m allergic to them and was stuffed up and sneezing and blowing the whole time. Once we got into town away from the fields I was okay. We bought a couple of vege pasties, a big bottle of orange Fanta, and a couple of dessert squares for lunch. It was a very filling lunch. It was the first pastie I liked. The others we’ve had just didn’t do it. These were really good.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Explanation
We just have a few minutes here. I'll post a few photos and forget the other things. We are teaching Amy and her husband in an hour :o)
“… AND MY HUSBAND WANTS TO GET BAPTIZED WITH YOU GUYS TOO.”
August 25, 2011 Thursday
“… AND MY HUSBAND WANTS TO GET BAPTIZED WITH YOU GUYS TOO.”
WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! The above was the message on the voice mail tonight. This has been a really slow week. Fibromyalgia hit late Monday and we’ve been stuck at home ever since. We had a teaching appointment with Amy this afternoon and set the date of September 25th for her baptism in order to work around Brett’s work schedule of two weeks gone and then one week home. We felt kind of bad it was so far out, but what could we do? She also told us she hadn’t told Brett yet that she was ready to be baptized but said she would.
Tonight we were playing Michigan Rummy when the phone rang. We missed answering it and then were beeped to let us know that we had a message. It was Amy. She’d told him about being baptized and he said he’d like to be baptized too. He said he’d been christened as a baby, but that’s all he’s ever done in a church. We are so excited. Orson said he had been praying all day that a way would open up that we could help them become a complete family in the church. Amy had told us already that he didn’t oppose anything she did religiously. It sounds to us that he wants to join her and make their family a united family in the gospel. What a blessing! We are so grateful and humbled by this.
“… AND MY HUSBAND WANTS TO GET BAPTIZED WITH YOU GUYS TOO.”
WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! The above was the message on the voice mail tonight. This has been a really slow week. Fibromyalgia hit late Monday and we’ve been stuck at home ever since. We had a teaching appointment with Amy this afternoon and set the date of September 25th for her baptism in order to work around Brett’s work schedule of two weeks gone and then one week home. We felt kind of bad it was so far out, but what could we do? She also told us she hadn’t told Brett yet that she was ready to be baptized but said she would.
Tonight we were playing Michigan Rummy when the phone rang. We missed answering it and then were beeped to let us know that we had a message. It was Amy. She’d told him about being baptized and he said he’d like to be baptized too. He said he’d been christened as a baby, but that’s all he’s ever done in a church. We are so excited. Orson said he had been praying all day that a way would open up that we could help them become a complete family in the church. Amy had told us already that he didn’t oppose anything she did religiously. It sounds to us that he wants to join her and make their family a united family in the gospel. What a blessing! We are so grateful and humbled by this.
SISTER HEAD
People living in Wickepin. How's this for a town project?
August 13, 2011 Saturday
SISTER HEAD
Late this afternoon we decided to visit some inactives. The first one had a note on the door, “Please don’t knock, I’m sleeping.” We decided they really were inactive. Next we went to find Lillian Head. Her house looked quite run down and nobody answered when we knocked. So we went back out to the car to write her a note. Orson took the note and headed back to the door when he saw her down the driveway at the back of the house. She had us come in the front door and wall down a narrow hallway all the way to the room at the back. She had a small room with a table and chairs in the middle and around the sides a dresser (broken drawers), a piano, a sofa, a wood stove, a china closet and two or three other things that I can’t remember. There was barely walking room around the table. She had us sit there.
Lillian joined the church back in the 60’s or early 70’s; she can’t remember. She is 85 and, bless her heart, has all the wrinkles to show it. She grew up in the area we worked in last and moved down to Narrogin 20 years ago after she retired to be near her son. But her son has a daughter at a Catholic School somewhere out of town, so now he rents a flat there to be close to here. We got the impression Ken doesn’t visit his mother often. But she was cheerful and didn’t seem to mind how she was living. She has a car, cats, a dog, and some chickens. She says the foxes keep the number of chickens (chooks, as they call them here) low. She was watching television when we got there but turned it off so we could visit. She says she hasn’t been to church since she moved to Narrogin, but she knows where it is. She didn’t mention home or visiting teachers so we figure she doesn’t get them.
We hope we can work with her to get her to come to church. We got talking about dogs and she mentioned that she’d had both Australian sheep dogs and kelpies which are also used with sheep. The question came up if the herding abilities they have are instinctive or trained so she told us about a kelpie (hope that is spelled correctly) pup she had. With no encouragement from anyone, this pup would round up all the chickens in the yard and get them back into their pen. Then he would lie there in case any tried to escape. That dog was definitely born with the instinct.
August 13, 2011 Saturday
SISTER HEAD
Late this afternoon we decided to visit some inactives. The first one had a note on the door, “Please don’t knock, I’m sleeping.” We decided they really were inactive. Next we went to find Lillian Head. Her house looked quite run down and nobody answered when we knocked. So we went back out to the car to write her a note. Orson took the note and headed back to the door when he saw her down the driveway at the back of the house. She had us come in the front door and wall down a narrow hallway all the way to the room at the back. She had a small room with a table and chairs in the middle and around the sides a dresser (broken drawers), a piano, a sofa, a wood stove, a china closet and two or three other things that I can’t remember. There was barely walking room around the table. She had us sit there.
Lillian joined the church back in the 60’s or early 70’s; she can’t remember. She is 85 and, bless her heart, has all the wrinkles to show it. She grew up in the area we worked in last and moved down to Narrogin 20 years ago after she retired to be near her son. But her son has a daughter at a Catholic School somewhere out of town, so now he rents a flat there to be close to here. We got the impression Ken doesn’t visit his mother often. But she was cheerful and didn’t seem to mind how she was living. She has a car, cats, a dog, and some chickens. She says the foxes keep the number of chickens (chooks, as they call them here) low. She was watching television when we got there but turned it off so we could visit. She says she hasn’t been to church since she moved to Narrogin, but she knows where it is. She didn’t mention home or visiting teachers so we figure she doesn’t get them.
We hope we can work with her to get her to come to church. We got talking about dogs and she mentioned that she’d had both Australian sheep dogs and kelpies which are also used with sheep. The question came up if the herding abilities they have are instinctive or trained so she told us about a kelpie (hope that is spelled correctly) pup she had. With no encouragement from anyone, this pup would round up all the chickens in the yard and get them back into their pen. Then he would lie there in case any tried to escape. That dog was definitely born with the instinct.
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