Love Pictures

Climbing a giant termite mound. They are huge and get a lot bigger than that

We go exploring a bit on pdays and we found just an old car that we climbed in

Just a cute abo girl named Serafina

At our christmas party. One is Pres Dawes and the other Janusz

Christmas 2011

Hello family,

It was great to be able to see you all on Skype. you are all looking good and fit.  It would have been nicer to have a bit longer but it is all good.  I hope you enjoyed it. Definitely a good Christmas present.  After I talked to you we had a little party with our branch presidency. We ate some food and had a couple presents to open.  Then we basically went around picking up food from people that day because a lot of people told us to come on Christmas and they would feed us. Our fridge is full now. yes! ha.

We found out just last night that we got another transfer here in Tennant creek, very exciting.  This area gets shut down and open up a lot so it is good to still have some time to be here.

I think Derek may have experienced torrential rain in Peru also.  We had some this week. We were riding our bikes down the main road when all of the sudden it started to bucket down rain. We got under some shelter before we were completely soaked but the rain lasted a long time and we were already pretty wet so we decided we would go back to the flat in the rain. I know we aren’t supposed to swim as missionary's but we might as well have. We were soaked. We are in the rainy season so it rains quite a bit which makes it humid and hotter.

The library that we usually email at is closed till after the New Year so we are just using our presidents computer, so this is just a quick letter.

Well I love you. I’m glad you had a good Christmas.

Happy New Year!

love elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:

Have a yarn = sit down and talk with them, we ask them if they want to have a yarn with us about Christ.

Christmas Party, Training and a Camel

g'day family,

My week started out in Alice. We had our p day there. The elders that we stay with there are basically all islanders and they love rugby, so we play that every p day. They are trying to teach me how to get good at it but I think it is a lost cause. ha.  It is fun anyway though.  We stopped p day early to have our Christmas party.  We had it at the senior couple house.  They are from America and are way funny, the Nordfelts.  For the party we opened our packages, yours was the best. I wasn’t going to open them but I got pressured into it. ha.  We watched a Christmas movie, had a prime rib roast.  It was a good night.

We did another training while we were in Alice and as part of the training they were teaching us how to cook, because they don’t think we are eating very good or healthily. Sister Poulton showed us that we can cook pretty much anything in the microwave, like potato, egg, anything. We don’t cook a lot because we don’t really have that much time too. So that is why they were showing us quick ways to cook things.

On our way back from Alice, we saw a guy walking his camel in the middle of the desert.  He had it all packed up with luggage. That’s not something that you see everyday.

Well I am out of time. I love you and look forward to talking to you for Christmas.

love Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:

fluke = lucky if you make a lucky shot in basketball than they call it a fluke.

Did I say it is HOT? Christmas service

Hey family,

Glad to hear that you had a good trip to Hawaii. It looks like I did get the packages, I took a peek at the senior couples house and I think they were there. Thanks

This may sound like a broken record but it is hot here. There is nothing like getting out of a cold shower and drying off, then 5 seconds later having to dry off again because of the sweat.

The people are a little bit hard to understand but not too bad.  They speak kind of like a pigeon English. It is pretty quick but for the most part you can understand. They also mix a few words of their language with English, so you have to learn them. For example they would say "look at that goonaba" which is dog. They just mix so you have to learn some of their words.

The Aborigine people are quite a bit different, they are hilarious. They like to relax in the shade and just enjoy life and the outdoors. They dress semi normal, very plain clothes, nothing fancy.

We do listen to music, just EFY and Mormon Tabernacle. The five hour car rides would be hard to make without being able to listen to something.

We have firesides each week where we invite people and we try and focus on getting the kids there and involved. So what we did for this last one was taught about faith and then had the kids stand up backwards on a chair and had them tip over. So they had to trust that whoever was behind them would catch them. It was pretty funny.  Then we have games for the kids after the lesson.

We did a service in Tennant on Saturday, and they had us cook a barbie.  We cooked over 1000 sausages, it was crazy. We cooked the barbie for a children’s Christmas party at the park and they had Santa there.  Santa came in on a sleigh with kangaroo pulling him instead of reindeer.

We sang for a local choir as well, that was interesting.

Well time is up.

Have a great week. Love you heaps.

love Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:

mob = group of 2 or more people. We get called a mob a lot.  You could call a family a mob, its just a group.

More About Our Area, Visiting and Camping in Elliot

G'day family,

One of the biggest differences in our area is the amount of people.  In the city it is kind of just like put the pedal to the metal.  You are just rushing everywhere teaching and stuff, while up here we have to take a ready aim fire approach.  We have to prepare for the work, like do a lot of activities to get the aboriginals interested and its not quite as fast paced. The food is mostly the same. the aboriginals like to catch goanna which is a big lizard, and bush turkey. I haven't had the chance to eat either of them yet but sometime.

My bike works good. We actually leave the bikes that they gave us in the city, and just use some that they have up here. I hope it gets me back in shape. I guess we will see.

It is bleeding hot here, but it has been alright so far, the sweat keeps me cool. ha. I didn’t bring the camel back up but that’s alright, I have been able to handle it.  There are some people that give us drinks.  We keep a lot of water in the fridge.  They actually had e coli in the water up here, so they put out a warning to boil the water while they clean it up, but we never boiled and we didn’t get it, so we were protected. We actually didn’t hear about it until about a week after they sent the warning out and we figured it was too late to start boiling because if we were going to get it we would have got it already. This is the hottest place I have ever been though

I have had a great week. For p day we went to this old open cut mine called Nobles Nob. There is a little lake at the bottom of it now and so we decided that we would hit a golf ball into the mine. The goal was to get it all the way across the mine but we weren’t good enough. We are just in a little town so we have to make our own fun on p day.

This weekend we did our Elliot trip. Elliot is about 250 kilometers away from Tennant. We have a lot of members up there. So we go up there and visit them and put on a sacrament meeting for them.  It is a town of only about 600 people.  So we went up on Saturday morning and visited the members that day.  There are a lot of cheeky dogs up there. Then as it was getting dark we decided we better go set up camp.  We went along the highway until we found a little place where we could set up our tent. Once we found it, we set up the tent, our cots and made some dinner.  Guess what was for dinner? Ramen noodles. yeah! Then we told ghost stories, just kidding.  It rained heaps on the drive up so we were scared that we were going to have to sleep in the car for the night but it dried up so we were able to set up the tent.  The tent is tiny so our cots like stretch it out.  It is funny to see.

The best part of the trip was sacrament meeting though. We ended up not having very many people there, and we just held it in under a tree, but the spirit was as strong there as I have ever felt, especially when we turned the time over to them to share their testimonies. You could feel their humility and love for the gospel. it was awesome.

Well time is up but love yalls. Have a great week.

love Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:

yo yo = aboriginal way of saying yep.

More about Tennant Creek

Hello family,

My week has been great, hot but great. We spent the first part of the week in Alice for training by President, that went well. In the training he teaches us how to become better missionaries in general, and then spends time telling us how to specifically become better in our area. The missionary work in this area is very different from in the city.

Since we were in Alice the past 2 weekends, I haven’t been able to do much work in Tennant but that is alright, it is small enough that I can learn it quick.  It is about a 5 hour drive from Alice to Tennant so we get out and take a break for a little while at some rest places they have. some of them are funny, like I included a picture at the Wycliffe Well which is where they have had UFO sightings and stuff, and also devils marbles. There are just some cool places and a picture of church. I conducted at church this week, kind of interesting.

This area is actually a biking area, we just have a car to get from here to Alice and also Elliot.  So when we are in town we use our bikes. something that is pretty fun is that when you are on your bike, is there are just heaps of random cheeky dogs walking in the streets and in peoples yards and stuff.  As you ride past them they chase you. It is especially fun when you get a half dozen or more trying to chase you down.  You just got to kick them.

We are the only two missionaries in our own, just us and the aboriginals. ha.

It is hot here. When we were in Alice it was raining though. It is hotter up here then in the city.  We rent a little building for church.

I could describe Tennant Creek in one word, small, but I will give you a few more details. Very secluded, red dirt everywhere, so don’t expect me to come home with white shirts. ha. There is only one stop light and it isn’t at an intersection, it is for pedestrians.  There is only one grocery shop called Tennant food barn.  The only milk they have there is boxed and frozen bread.  We make our own meals but there are a couple of people that feed us. There are only like 20 streets in the whole town.  We email from the library,  I don’t know what else to say about it. It was a mining town.

I love you.

love elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:

airgun = "how you going" with their accent it sounds like airgun. and if you meet someone and say airgun the right way they will answer you. because they think you said how you going. i have tried it a few times and it works.

Merry Christmas from Elder Hyde

All About Transfer Week

g'day family, from Alice Springs,

It has been a crazy but great week. For p day on Monday we had a zone activity where we played putt putt golf and then went to St. Kilda the adult adventure park.  It was pretty fun.  While we were there, I got a call from the assistant which was a surprise, they told me that I was packing 23. Which means you can only pack 23 kilograms which is 50 pounds. When you get that call you know that you are headed up to the northern territory. I was pretty stoked but at that time you still don’t know where you will be serving.  

So that night we spent a lot of time saying goodbye to some of the people that I became close to. There was one in particular that I became good friends with, she is like 70 years old and we called her grandma and stuff.  When we first met her, she had no interest in religion. We started to just joke around with her and her husband and they started to become really friendly but they still weren’t interested in our teachings at all.  So before I left I decided that I would write a simple testimony in a Book of Mormon to give to her.  After we dropped it off to her house, later that evening we got a call and she said that she enjoyed the testimony and said she would read the book. I was pretty excited when I heard that.  My simple testimony may have changed her heart a little bit which may lead to some future opportunities.  That was a good experience.

 
Then I was up late that night packing my stuff. Tuesday I had to meet with Pres. Poulton for a little interview to tell me about the area where I was going.  He told me that this area is reserved for only the very obedient because it is in the middle of nowhere, about 500 kilometers north of Alice Springs. a little town with the population of about 3000 called Tennant Creek.  So then I got on a flight and flew to Alice. I  did a bit of work in Alice that day.

Wednesday we did the five hour drive to Tennant Creek with my new companion Elder Tomadakis from Spanish Fork. Look up Tennant Creek on the map, there is only one stop light in the whole town.

We spent the rest of the time there in Tennant till Sunday after church we came back to Alice because President Poulton is coming tomorrow to give us training. Church is pretty cool but different, there were only about 8 people there, all but one was aboriginal. As missionaries we basically run church, I had to give a talk. We only do the sacrament meeting and sometimes Sunday School. I am on a limited amount of time right now but I have a little bit of time to answer quick questions if you want to ask any real quick. I will describe things a bit better next week about some of the stuff that we do up there.

We have a Toyota Corolla and in Tennant we have a big house. In Elliot, when we go, we will camp.

love yall.

love Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:

ice block = popsicle

Blessings, Usual Day in Elizabeth Downs and Spiritual Experience.

g'day family,
We have transfer week this week and I am pretty nervous because I have been in this area a while now and I have come to love the area and the people in it, so we will see.
I gave a couple of blessings this week which was pretty cool because I hadn’t given any for a while.

I don’t think I have really told you about what a usually day is out here so I thought that I would describe a typical day in the Elizabeth Downs area. We start out at 6'30 in the morning and do exercise then shower and eat brekky then have our personal and companionship studies till 10'00. That is what we call a perfect morning. At 10 we leave the flat and usually that is the best time to get out on the street and just talk to everybody.  Sometimes we teach people in the morning but it is usually just trying to find people to teach during that time, sometimes we also do some service in the morning.  Then we come back at 12 and have some lunch. In the afternoon we usually have a couple set appointments to teach people and if not then we get out and talk to everyone again, or do some service and that is till about 5. We eat dinner either at the flat or usually with a member or an investigator.  Then at night is the perfect time to teach. We get back to the flat at 9 and plan for the next day. Then sleep at 10:30.  We eat sleep and live to find teach and baptize.

A pretty good spiritual experience this week was my companion and I decided that we needed to have more specific prayers. We decided on one of our investigators that we would pray for. He hadn’t really been progressing and doing anything that we asked him to do so that he would know for himself that what we are telling him is true. So we were praying a lot for him. When we went and visited him the next time he was doing a lot of research into the Book of Mormon and he was loving it. By small and simple things, great things come to pass. By simply making our prayers more specific a great change came to his desires.
Sorry I don’t have much more time because we are having a zone p day, but I love yall.
love elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:
cheeky = funny clever or mischievous, some people say that we are cheeky boys.

World's Largest Rocking Horse, Hot Weather and Investigators

g'day family,
Wonderful week for p day we went to the world biggest rocking horse.  It is funny. It is just this big rocking horse out in the middle of nowhere.  From the city it takes like 45 min to get there. It is in the Guinness book of world records, which is pretty cool.  Unfortunately it doesn’t actually rock though.  So that is what those pictures are of.

It is starting to get really hot here.  Like 90 degrees by 10 in the morning, then it just gets hotter through the day. Its good though because there are more people outside that we can talk to then.  Another bonus is we can take off our jackets. I  went on trade off with a hilarious Tongan elder this week, and he fell asleep at one of the lessons we were teaching, ha, because it was so hot in there, and the investigator was hard to understand because he was from Vietnam.  Not many people use air conditioners or coolers. Also while we were on trade off we walked around a lot and I didn’t have much to drink, so for lunch I bought some watermelon and ate 3 pounds of it.  After that I had to use the toilet a lot.

We got a new investigator from Nicaragua, so I asked him a little bit about the history and he kind of knew about the story that grandpa Hyde wrote his book about, with the president hiding some gold and stuff and that it was a pretty dangerous place to be at that time.
Did you have daylight savings yesterday, or I guess it is today for you?

That is sweet that Tyson Craven got his call.  Tell him congrats for me. I hope he is pumped, there is nothing better than serving the lord.
Love ya, have a good one.
love Elder Hyde

Will a Root Canal Give You More Aussie Accent?

g'day family,
Sounds like you have had a good week. New Mexico sounds like fun. That is crazy that they are taking down the whole Ogden temple. Do they expect it to take longer now then? Have they built any new in-n-out burgers close by yet? I sadly haven’t found as good of a burger over here yet. I think they make them a bit differently.

We had stake conference yesterday also.

There was a funny experience this week where we were visiting a less active, she has an autistic daughter that does some funny stuff. I have been there a couple of times so I knew what to expect and she always acts like her hands are different animals and they climb up and jump on your ties and stuff when you go. So this time I was prepared, I put my backpack on the front of me. Luckily I did because she came out with glue stick all over her hand. This time her hand was a huntsman spider, ha, so the spider had to climb all over my bag, pretty funny.

I had another good experience this week, it was called root canal. I think that it was a Halloween themed root canal, because as they were doing it they put this plastic thing in my mouth and stretched it out and as they did that Elder Sie said “dressing him for Halloween?” and then laughed.  They  also put a temporary orange filling in it.  It was actually a pretty good experience my tooth feels heaps better.  It was on the tooth that was done for my mission physical. They said since he drilled to the nerve to put the filling in, he had put some medicine in it but that medicine wore off and then the nerve got infected.  They showed the nerve to me after they pulled it out, and it was big and white.  It is supposed to be red. It was pretty cool.  We joked maybe with some Australian hardware in my mouth it might make me have a more Aussie accent.

I have had a great week. Your prayers must have been working, we found a couple new families to teach that seem to have a lot of potential.
Have a fantastic week. Love you all heaps.
love Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:
Not a very creative one, but a very Aussie one.
Mate = friend, can be said to anyone at anytime, or everyone every time. They say it a lot. Ha

Gorge Wildlife Park, Halloween and District Meeting

Hey family,
This week has been a good one as usual. I am writing late again today because we went to the Gorge Wildlife Park. We found some creatures to teach there. The kangaroo. There is a picture of Elder Sie and I teaching them. We were actually able to hold koala as well which was cool.  Their fur is so soft to touch but the claws are not. They like to be secure so they hold you with their claws, it doesn’t hurt too bad, just like if Connor were to wrestle you and he scratched you that is what it would feel like.

They do celebrate Halloween here but from what I understand it is not as big as in America. Only a few people go trick or treating and a lot of people that give out stuff don’t give out lollies, they give out apples or some other fruit.
We did a service project with the Mormon Helping Hands program. We sorted clothing for and op shop, an op shop is like a DI here in Australia.

After our district meeting we were able to have an interview with President Poulton. He is awesome. During the interview we are able to ask any deep doctrine question. In 2 Nephi 28:30 it tells us that we need to learn line upon line precept upon precept, and I definitely learned the truthfulness of that because he boggled my mind with deep doctrine. My mind couldn’t quite grasp that stuff yet but as I build my knowledge everyday, someday I will understand.  We have people ask about dinosaurs, and how that fits in with God, a lot so I asked Pres. Poulton about them and he blew my mind away.
I love you all heaps, have a great week. I should be on normal time next week.

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:
I don’t know if I have already done this one
fair dinkem = an expression like "wow" or "oh really" I have heard it used in a lot of different ways so I don’t know the exact translation but that’s what I understand about it. ha.

Service at the Temple, Growing Potatoes and Pouring Concrete

g'day mates,
Sorry that I am writing late today.  We got a call from the office the other day asking if we would do service for the temple this morning so we couldn’t resist. It was a big sacrifice for us to give up some of our pday but it was a blessing as well.  Not many missionaries get the chance to do the service so it was a good experience.  It was weird that they called us too because we are one of the furthest missionaries away from the temple in the city zones.  I just think they needed some of the strongest most studly missionaries. ha.  I think that I may also write late next week also because we might go to the Gorge which is another wildlife park where you can actually hold a koala, so that should be cool. So I may or may not write late again next week, it depends.

Back when I was with Elder Pack we bought a big sack of potatoes.  We didn’t use them all and they started to grow the seedlings out of them. We have just a little like half meter patch of dirt at our flat so I decided I would chuck one in that dirt not expecting it to grow or even if it did not be around to see it. But sure enough it has grown and it is bigger than some of the other plants in it.  People told me it wouldn’t work but dad had taught me the skills and it worked.

We did service for a less active and guess what it was, pouring concrete.  It brought back some fun memories.  The only problem was we had to do it the old fashioned way with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.
Have a great week. love ya.
love Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:
crossed = angry
if someone is cross with you they are mad at you

Crazy weather, Elder Sie's Birthday, Conference

Hey family,
That is crazy that it is snowing already in the mountains. the weather has been really weird here as well to me. I don’t know if it is normal here, but we will have a day that is above 90 degrees and then the next it is a bit cold and rainy.  It is weird.
 
With this being a short week since p day wasn’t very long ago, I don’t have a whole lot to say that was extraordinary. Other than it was my companion’s birthday. I  made him a little cake out of an English muffin and some nutella spread and a match. I will attach a photo.  There was also a family that had us over for dinner and they baked him a cake, theirs was a little nicer.

Conference was awesome. They basically just put conference onto a DVD and play it on a projector in the chapel, so you have to go to the chapel to watch it.  They play it at the same times as in Utah but the priesthood session they play on Sunday morning.  There were some great talks though.  We are out all day talking about how we have prophets on the earth today, and it was cool to see them speak and boost my testimony of them so that I can better testify to others.

We are emailing from an investigators house right now and they bought some fish and the ingredients for Elder Sie to make a Tahitian specialty.  It is raw fish though so even if it tastes good I probably still wont like it. ha
Well I hope you all have a great week, don’t get too cold. love ya.
love Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:
"bobs your uncle" = I don’t know the exact translation but it is used after you describe instructions to someone. I think it basically means "easy as that"

Holiday and Zone Conference, Burning Ties and Investigators

Hello family,
It’s been a great week. We had a public holiday on Monday so we worked that day and then Tuesday was transfer so that is why I am emailing today.  I am happy to say that I am still in Elizabeth Downs with Elder Sie.  I can't believe that I will be here for another 6 weeks. It is a good place to be though.  The people are very humble.

Thanks for sending me with the bug spray that you sent me with because it came in handy this week.  Not exactly for the bugs, but to burn our ties. Elder Sie and I both burned ties for our six month. We did a companionship tie burning. ha.

We have become really good friends with an Indian couple that are members.  They call us their kids and fed us like 4 times last week. They cook really good food too so I am not complaining. But the scale when I step on it complains. They make really good curry. I had never tried it until then though.  Elder Sie likes going there because they make fish for him so I have been trying the fish as well. It has been alright.  They made a Polynesian specialty of fish, they make it with raw fish and coconut milk and lemon and tomatoes. I tried it and it tasted good but I still couldn’t get over that it was raw. it was all in the mind.

We had a zone conference this week, and we went to the temple for that.  It was sweet because we had about 50 missionaries in the temple at the same time and also president and sister Poulton.

Elder Sie was telling me about a crazy guy in Tahiti that drinks cow pies.  His mind is all messed up because he uses the cow pies as a sort of drug.  So now I know why dad is so crazy because he used to eat the cow pies as well.

You asked a question a couple weeks ago that I never answered about how we find people to teach.  That is the trick here.  We are constantly trying to come up with new and better ways to find because tracting and stuff just aren’t effective enough.  The best way is to work with the members to get referrals from them. But that doesn’t always happen either.  The most effective way that I have found so far is to visit the less actives.  There are heaps of less actives in the ward.  So we visit them, a lot of them have partners or children that aren’t members and that has been the best.  

Like I said before though, we are always trying new ways to find people to teach so I had a great idea this week. we were on our way out to Williamstown and the whispering wall is on the way out there.  We had never tried to contact at the whispering wall before, and there are always people there so we stopped and tried it. It was funny to talk from one side and ask people if they have ever heard about Jesus Christ.  It was funny but not very effective just because most of the people were tourists from out of town, not in our area.

We have General Conference this weekend, they get it copied down onto a DVD and then play it at the churches here.  So it will only be one week late. and yes we also get the Ensigns each month.
Well, I love you all and hope that you have a wonderful week.

When you are down to nothing, God is up to something.
love Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:
Bludger = kind of like a bum. someone who doesn’t do anything they just bludge off others.

Pictures From Williamstown

Islander Weatherman, Flat Tire, Police Chase

g'day family,
I have had a great week. I think next Monday is a public holiday here and also transfer is next week so I don’t know when we will be emailing. but don’t worry if you dont get an email on Monday because we might just email later in the week.

One day this week we were driving in the car and Elder Sie rolled down one of the windows, the sun was out and there were no clouds, but he smelled the air for a second and said it smells like it is going to rain tonight. I was like no way, there aren’t any clouds, how can you tell, and he said it just smells like it. and sure enough that night it rained. I don’t know how he did it, must be the islander weather man.

I got the package with the M&Ms, thanks, they were delicious. They were gone like the next day because a lot of people haven’t tried the peanut butter ones over here so they ate them all, and of course I ate a lot too.

It was funny this week, we have an investigator that can play the accordion. i think she might have some mental disabilities but she could play it alright. she just turned on some music and started playing with it and singing, she got quite into it.

We were teaching a less active just on her front porch, and we kept hearing police sirens get closer and further. it was going on for about 20 minutes and then all of a sudden we could here it really close. So Elder Sie got out his camera and there was a police chase going on. The car came down the road we were on. a bit later there was actually a helicopter flying around that was helping track him. That was pretty cool to see.

As we were coming out of church yesterday we looked at our car and it had a flat tire. So we had to change the tire in church clothes. Oh well it provides for some good memories. I don’t know why it was flat, I think maybe, it is because of Elder Sie crazy driving. ha.

I am glad to hear that people are taking care of you, getting a hot tub and such.
Have a great week, iIlove yous.
love elder hyde

It is Alden’s 6 month mark today.  He said,

Time fly's when your having fun.
I told Elder Sie that and he didn’t understand the expression that time fly's. he's funny

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:
add (as) to emphasize something.
so if something is really sweet you say "that is sweet as" or "it is hot as" or "kangaroo are cool as"
when i first heard it though i thought they were swearing but its not.

The Sun is Intense Here

g'day family,

I hope your week has been good. Mine has been great as usual.

I cant remember if I told you about a bird that a member has that talks. It was funny because elder Sie was recording him one time and put the camera right in his face by the cage and all of the sudden the bird attacked the camera and said "what are you doing, oi, what are you doing?" like he was mad at him.  Then Elder Sie just answered "I don’t know"

Sorry these computers are being super slow today so it is taking forever to type.

The sun is so intense here.  We were in the car one day when it was only like 30 degrees Celsius which is about 90 Fahrenheit.  We had the air conditioner on full blast but it was still hot with the sun coming through the windows.  You could barely even feel the air conditioner.  It will probably be hard to survive the summer because from what I understand it gets super hot. It is a requirement for kids to wear hats for recess at school.  So when you drive past primary schools it is funny to see all the kids wearing matching hats.

Well I am getting frustrated with typing on this slow computer, so I am going to stop.  But I want you to know that I love you and have a sweet as week.

Love Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:

mucking around = messing around

Got Pictures, Laid Sod and Getting Fit

Hey family,

I got the photos and stuff that you sent. Corbin looks like a healthy guy. Connor is looking like he can take me in wrestling now, and Chloee looks like she has gotten tall, has she?

i woke up on Thursday with a kinked neck.  That wasn’t fun, it hasn’t completely healed but it is a lot better, a member gave me a heat pad to use. Elder Sie made fun of me, he would walk around with a stiff neck and stuff. He is a fun companion because he likes joking and having fun.

We helped lay some sod on Saturday.  The grass is way different here, it is like that crab grass stuff that dad doesn’t like in our yard. Some peoples rubbish is another mans treasure. ha

We didn’t eat out as much this week thank goodness. Since elderSie has gained 25 kilos on his mission he has started to want to get fit again. So we are going to buy protein and start working out, and also not eat out as much.

Well, have a sweet as week, I love ya

love Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:

knots & crosses = tic tac toe

It's a Small World

G'day grandma,

Things are going great here, and I am glad to hear that things are going great there. I will take your advice and remember the adventures that I am going through.

It sounds like you are still yourself, making up words like "kibitz", ha, is that word legal in scrabble?  What does it mean?
I am teaching a lady that reminds me a lot about you. She is very nice to us and likes to have a good time.  She takes good care of us and offers us anything that we need.  I reckon those are good qualities to have.
Have a fantastic week, I love you.
Love, Elder Hyde

Hi Family,

You asked about my clothes, most everything is fitting good.  The only thing that is getting a bit small is the grey suit.  But it is starting to get warm so I won’t have to wear a suit as much, so she’ll be alright.

This week has been good.  One of my new Zone Leaders is Elder Sackett from Layton.  He knows Austin Hyde and graduated the same year as him.  He asked how he was going.

We cooked an Australian Barbecue for a service project this week.  It was pretty fun. Nobody ever says “Throw a shrimp on the Barbie”.  We just made sausages and onions and then you put it on a slice of bread, the food is pretty simple.

I got on someone’s scale a couple of months ago and it said that I gained seven kilos which is like 14 pounds.  That is why it is weird that my clothes still fit good, because it hasn’t affected the size of my stomach very much.  So Elder Pack and I started to work hard to lose weight but I fear that I will gain more because Elder Sie likes his fast food.  I don’t think I have ever eaten so fast food in one week.  He said that he likes it because they don’t have these kind of fast foods in Tahiti so he likes them and wants to try them all.

From my companion I have learned a bit of Tahitian and French, but he tells me more about the culture than the language.

As far as me teaching him English, I am not very good at English in the first place so if he wants to learn good English he would probably have to learn elsewhere, But for the level that I am he is learning good English.

One of Elder Pack’s friends is serving in Armenia.  He was telling me the he was hoping to train Ben Seegmiller, that would be cool.

ua here au ia oe!
tapati maitai' roa!
That is I love you! and have a good week! in tahitian
dont ask me how to say it though

Have a good week.

Love, Elder Hyde

Aussie Term of the Week:
They don’t have garbage, here it is rubbish. They don’t have trash cans or garbage cans.  They are rubbish bins.

New Companion in Elizabeth Downs

G'day family,

It has been a very good but busy week. For pday we went to St. Kilda Adventure Park again with the whole zone that was fun.  We played capture the flag, and it was the Americans in our zone against the rest of the world.

Yesterday I was able to give the guy that we baptized last week the Aaronic priesthood. That was a good experience.

Now for the information that I know you are dying to hear.... I am still in the Elizabeth

Downs area... but my companion has changed.  My new companion came into the mission the same transfer as me. His name is elder Sie. it is pronounced like sea. He is from the wonderful island of Tahiti.  He is still learning English as we go because amazingly he was only in the MTC for 2 weeks even though he didn’t know English before. He speaks very good for not being out very long. It is funny because he gets some words mixed up like whale and while, and his conjugation is funny.  He speaks both French and Tahitian.  He tells me of some stories of what he does back home, and pretty much every day he would go gun fishing in the ocean and he would see a lot of sharks and eels would attack and stuff.  It sounds like the life. I am excited to do the Lord’s work with him.

Have a sweet as week. I love you all.

Love, Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:

The weather is starting to get warm so the Aussies aren't going to need there trek pants and jumpers anymore.

trek pants = sweat pants
jumper = jacket or sweater

New Investigator, New Member

Hello family,

The weather here is starting to warm up which i am excited for because i am a little tired of the rain.

On Monday we went to St Kilda adventure park. It is sweet there, it is like a playground for adults. They have huge slides, a long zip line, big swings, and these quad swing things. I will send some videos home of it. We went last Monday as a district and today we are going as a zone.

We got a new investigator a few weeks ago and for the longest time we thought his name was Bjunus, we called him that for a few weeks and he didn’t seem to mind, he is from the Congo too so there is a bit of a language barrier. But anyway, one day we were at a member’s house and they were telling us about how much mail they get for the previous tenant and that they were tired of it. When we looked at the name it was Djunus. We connected all the dots and at that moment we realized that we had been calling him slightly the wrong name but he never told us. I just thought that was kind of a funny story of how we found out his real name.

They don’t build basements over here, so people always ask about them and wonder if we really have them because they see them on American movies and stuff.

This was the last week of the transfer and we had an exciting way to end it, with a baptism. Elder Pack performed the baptism and they asked me to do the confirmation. It is always awesome to see people realize the blessings that they have been missing out on in life and then make the necessary changes to get these blessings.  He had to go through a lot of changes to get to the point of baptism such as smoking and drinking coffee, but as he quit those things I could tell a difference in him. It actually took him a long time to get over coffee but we went over one day and I could tell there was something different about him for the better and then he told us he was off of coffee and I then knew why he looked different.

It is transfer week so farewell for this week and I will talk to you next week from wherever I am. Have a good week. Love ya.

love the studly Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:

Since you guys are starting the draft for the NFL fantasy football

If you say football here they think you are talking about their Aussie rules footy so,

NFL = gridiron

catch the ball = mark the ball

Wildlife Refuge, Got Milk? Baptism to Come

Hello family,

It has been a great week. I guess I will start out by describing the experience at the wildlife reserve.  We had a sweet investigator take us , it is actually the RLDS lady. At the reserve that had all sorts of the Australian animals such as emu, Tasmanian devil, kangaroo, wallaby, wombat, koala, and some dingoes. Most of them were used to having humans around and you could walk up to them and feed them. The kangaroos were sweet, they have some sharp claws and they would eat right out of your hand.  I actually got to see a baby roo jump into its mums pouch and I took a video of it so I will probably be sending another disc soon. The emu would eat from your hand also but it hurt because he would bite your hand and the food.  Wallabies are cool, they are just like little kangaroo.  I was also able to touch a koala, they are so soft it kind of reminded me of touching an afro, but even softer, and the claws don’t look so nice either.  The Tasmanian devil was funny he just ran around in circles.

This story isn’t necessarily spiritual but it is interesting. Because we went to the reserve last week we weren’t able to do shopping on pday, which means we would have had to figure out a meal time to go shopping during the week. The good part is that we already had enough food at the flat, we were only missing a few items such as milk.  Before we were able to go shopping we had a tea date with a member, and he must have been inspired because just before we left he asked us if we had milk at our flat, we thought that was a weird question because it’s not very often that somebody asks us that. He said that he bought an extra one and offered it to us so we had milk and we didn’t have to give up meal time to go and get milk which was awesome. There are some amazing people here that will do anything for their missionaries.

We have a baptism this week of a man that has been investigating for about 8 months, he quit smoking earlier but the only thing that was holding him back was coffee. He finally decided that he wanted to be baptized and enjoy those blessings more than the enjoyment he got from coffee. He is awesome.

I had my first tacos this week. They don’t have much Mexican food here. I forgot how good they were though.

Well, have a great week, I love you guys.

Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:

We had kind of an embarrassing moment this week we were talking about suits for some reason and about our slacks, and the guy was laughing at us because slacks here are pants that girls wear. So they are suit pants not slacks here.

Short Letter

Hey family,

Sorry I don’t have much time to write today because we have an investigator that is going to take us to a wildlife park to see Australian animals. So even though i don’t have much time to write this week I will have a lot to write about next week.

I had a funny dream this week. My mind has gotten so used to driving on the other side of the road, that every time I have a memory of driving back home it is on the wrong side. So in one of my dreams i was driving and as I was driving I realized I was in America and all of the sudden I switched sides, it was just kind of funny how our minds play tricks on us.

Have you guys fixed our fridge yet because we have an investigator that is having the same problem with their fridge so if you guys fixed ours maybe I could tell them how to fix it?

Hopefully those pictures and videos make up for this short letter. sorry I have no more time but I love you guys and promise that I will write a lot more next week. Have a good week.

Love Elder Hyde

Jambo

Hello family,

One thing that is sweet about this area is that there are so many different cultures here.  We get the opportunity to teach a lot of different people, and they teach us a bit about their culture.  They teach us a few words in their language, jambo is hello in Swahili in case you were wondering why that was the subject.

We talked to a really funny lady this week that had all the funny misconceptions about latter day saints. The one that I thought was the funniest was that she thought once you join our church "you start to speak like an American." ha.  She must have met a lot of American missionaries in the past.  I think the biggest problem that we have here with finding people is that they don’t really know what the church is like and they don’t want to try and find out.  But, whenever we are able to get people to church they love it and said that it’s not what they expected. So we just need to figure out how to inform people about who we really are.

I had some really good prawn here which is shrimp. i think the main reason I liked it is because it wasn’t the texture of rubber bands.  They must have a secret way of growing prawn here?

I got a wedding announcement from Brad Lloyd this week, if you see him tell him congrats and that I would have come if I knew about it but the announcement was late.

I am going to try to burn a disk with pictures and videos to send home hopefully soon.

Hugs and kisses. Have a great week

Love Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:

brekky = breakfast
tea = dinner