Pictures from Australia

Double Rainbow From Our Flat

An Autralian Tree

View From the Plan going to Adelaide

Funny Kid with Australian Underwear on his Head

Transfer Week and I Drove the Car

g'day family,

This transfer ended with a sweet experience. We have an investigator that hasn’t come to church because he grew up in a Christian background but that turned him off of it.  So he always came up with an excuse not to come, but last night we had a fireside, it was basically all music.  This investigator ended up coming to it because it wasn’t a normal service.  After the fireside we found out that him, his wife and his month old baby had walked about 5 km to the chapel for it.  We decided that we would walk back with them a little ways.  We had a good conversation because he said that all his concerns that he had in his childhood about church were non existent in ours.  He told us that he also wants a quad.  It was sweet.  As we were walking back it started to rain a bit but we didn’t even notice because we were so happy that he wants to come to church now.

I drove this morning.  It is quite a bit different. I kept pushing the windshield wiper toggle instead of the blinker. I don’t think it will be too hard to get used to though. The worst part is just being on the opposite side of the car.

I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week.

love Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK

gasoline that you put in a car = petrol
car wreck= car smash
a service station to get petrol= servo

Having a Family Forever Brings Me Great Strength

g'day family,

It has been another great week as always.  For p day we played some billiards at a member’s home and they bought us KFC and Domino's. KFC is a pretty big deal here.  Billiards was fun, this guy converted his shed into a sweet chilling place, with everything that a grandpa would need.  

To answer a few of your questions, I can’t think of a lot of things that I really need.  They don’t have Reese’s or Peanut butter M&M’s.  People have told me that there is an American shop where I can get things like that but it is super expensive.  I don’t know if it would be more expensive than shipping it.  The only other thing that I can think of is that I have worn down a pair of the work gloves.  It would be nice to have a few more.  It doesn’t matter to me if you send letters in the mail.  I guess it is up to you because it is just as easy and cheaper to email.

My pants still fit good.  I feel like I am gaining weight just because everywhere we go people ask if we want something to eat and we say no but they give us food anyway. We could probably eat healthier.  I have been taking the vitamins you sent me with.

We got a sweet new investigator that is actually a member of the RLDS.  She is a very nice lady.  It is going to be interesting to teach her because she already has the beliefs in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, but she just doesn’t know the complete truth.  We haven’t had a lot of time to talk with her but I am excited to bring her all the happiness that the knowledge of our gospel can bring, because one thing that she mentioned was that they don’t believe in celestial marriage, but I cant imagine not having that, I wouldn’t be completely happy without it. The knowledge I have of being with my family forever brings me great strength.

We had a missionary fireside yesterday and President Poulton spoke at it. I love president. He is a very knowledgeable about the gospel.

We had trade off on Saturday and I was with another elder that also can’t drive a car because he is new. We were left to ride our bikes all day.  As it turns out the weather was perfect all week, except for Saturday it rained all day.  Then on Sunday it was sunny again.  I think that I was probably supposed to learn some kind of lesson out of it but I don’t know what it is yet. Luckily I wore my waterproof coat. Usually if it is rainy then we just get in the car but we didn’t have that luxury.

Sorry for the short letter but i love you all and have an awesome week.

love Elder Hyde

I Wouldn't Trade This Experience

G'day family,

Sounds like yous have all had a good week.   Mine was equally as good.  Today we are planning on playing billiards at a member’s house.  Then we will probably play some rugby or ping pong or basketball.  We actually play quite a bit of basketball, we have a few investigators that like basketball so we are trying to set up a time where they can all play basketball and get to know each other and some of the members, and just get comfortable, then maybe teach a lesson or something.  We sometimes play on pday and also sometimes we wake up a few min early and go to the church with a few other elders and play basketball for our morning sport.

For p day on Monday we went to the church and played ping pong because they have a table but we had to buy our own paddles but luckily we found some cheap ones at a shop called cheap as chips.  We keep the paddles at our flat so sometime for our morning workout we play a little bit of ping pong by turning my desk into a table with a few books as a net.

This week we were able to do a lot of service. One of the services that we did was mowing a lawn.  It doesn’t sound very out of the ordinary but it was cool because we used an electric lawnmower!  It actually worked very well I liked it because it was light.

It was interesting to have Jehovah’s Witness knock on our door this week.  When I first saw them I thought that I was going to get my first real taste of bible bashing but luckily we were able to just have a nice conversation with them. Their jaws dropped at first when they saw our name badge.  Then when we were nice to them they loosened up a little bit. That is one of the most simple ways to share the gospel is by just being nice to people and being an example of Jesus Christ in all that we do.  We hope through that example they will be curious about what makes us do what we do.

I know that this is the true church, and that knowledge that I have of the truth is what keeps me going.  The opportunity I have to share it with other people full time is awesome and I wouldn’t trade this experience.
Have a great week and I love yous.

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:
Since Chantel will be having her baby soon I will tell a couple baby things
pram = stroller
nappies = diapers
dummy = binky

We Are Blesssed When We Do What We Are Suppose To Do

Hello family,

This week has been good.  My companion and I kind of got a little complacent and happy with where we were at and weren’t really improving.  So we came up with a way to motivate ourselves to have better lessons and be better in all that we do.  The way that we decided to motivate ourselves was by buying a silly looking hat that one of us would have to wear if we don’t try our hardest in all that we do. so after we do stuff we evaluate who was the sookylala and they have to wear the hat in the car.

Something funny about the ward that I am in is that we pretty much sing the same closing song every week and it is one that I had never heard until coming out here. it is hymn #163 Lord Dismiss Us with Thy Blessing.

A lot of people here make a reference about Dr Jekyll. so I was curious if Derek got that at all on his mission at all?

One of our investigators got married in the church this week, it was very simple but it was awesome. I was the organ technician again for it. It was funny at the reception thing after. Jason the guy the got married gave a little speech thing that was funny. He said " thanks everyone for coming, thanks to the elders for getting us here, thanks to the bishop for rocking up (showing up), and thanks for the presents, that’s all."  It was hilarious how he said thanks to the bishop because he was the one that married them. It’s probably not as funny me just describing it.

Sounds like our pool would be the place to be with that Sea Doo in it. I am starting to get used to the conversion of celsius and stuff but it was hard at first.

It is funny that a lot of things that we think about Australia really don’t happen, like kangaroos don’t hop down the street all the time (unless you are in the outback) and they don’t say "put another shrimp on the barbie" they don’t even call them shrimp they call them prawn.  So to answer your question I haven’t seen anyone at the park with a boomerang, but I suppose it could happen.

I didn’t even realize father’s day had happened because it hasn’t happened here. But happy fathers day, sorry it is late.

One thing that I wanted to point out that I have learned while being out here was that when we do what is right and try our best the Lord will provide the rest.  We are supposed to do role plays everyday and they aren’t always the most fun thing to do but they do help us throughout the day. I know that it isn’t coincidence but it is divine help that just about everyday when we do these role plays we have just about the same situation in the day. Such as one day the role play was a little bit about polygamy and stuff and a few people brought up that concern during that day.  So in doing these role plays it helps us figure out how we can improve our ability to talk about certain subjects. 

My time is just about up but have a good week and I love you guys.

love Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK:

sook- wimp or babyish

We have an investigator that when his kid is complaining or crying he calls him a sookylala. That is where we got the name for our hat.

Baptism, New Food and Playing the Organ

Hello Family,

I am excited for you to try the Tim Tams.  Here they are actually made by Arnott’s so hopefully they are just as good. 

 Sorry if I don’t get a very long email written it is because my computer is being weird.  It keeps logging me off, but I still have a time limit.  I am writing today and not yesterday because it was a public holiday yesterday.  It was the queen’s birthday. 

I have has a good week.  We had a baptism, she is a 14 year old girl named Lyndall, and we found her by visiting her mom because she was a less active member.  We ended up teaching her and she got baptized.  Her Uncle from Brisbane actually came down and baptized her so that was a good experience.  I played the organ!!  Surprising I learned how to play the organ, it is actually just a recording that you push the button to play it.

On Tuesday we ate at a member’s house out in a little country town named Nurioopta, it is in the Baaroosa Valley which is known for it’s wine.  But anyway, I guess it actually snows there every few years when it gets cold enough at night.  But it is just like slush sleet stuff though.  The drive was kind of scary though because it got really foggy and you could only see a few meters ahead of you.  At this dinner I tried a few new things, one was quince which is a fruit that I guess is a cross between apple and pear.  It tastes kind of citrusy.  The other things I had was some veal.  It was very good. 

A couple people have asked if I have ever had Hatch’s chocolates.  I don’t know exactly what it is but I guess there is a TV show about it, and it is little people that make cool things out of chocolate.  I guess that are in Salt Lake City.  Have you ever heard of it or had any or seen the TV show?

I learned an interesting fact about the tabernacle organ, if it is true.  Somebody told me that it was actually made by an Australian in Adelaide and then they actually had it shipped over there.  I don’t know if it is true.

Well that is all of the time that I have left today.  I Love you guys and hope that you have a great week.

Love,

The Studly Elder Hyde

Mice Everywhere

Hello family,

There was a lot that happened this week. My companion and I were both kind of scared because it was transfer week and we both wanted to stay. The work here is going great and we have some sweet investigators that are making changes in their lives in order follow Christ and are finding true happiness from it.  We got our wish and we stayed.

For p day we went to a park and fed ducks and played rugby.  We fed the ducks with some bread that we had mice getting into. We have learned to not just leave bread out on the counter especially during this time of year when it gets cold and the mice try to find a place to stay. at first our bread started disappearing but it looked like human bites, and it seemed like there was some gone every time our district leader came over, so we thought he was trying to trick us by eating bites out of it and making it look like something else was eating it. Until one day I actually saw the mouse in the act.  We had to apologize to our district leader. the lesson I learned from the experience is don’t look beyond the mark, if it looks like a mouse was eating then it probably is.  The other lesson was how to make a home made mouse trap which I have a video of so I will try to send it sometime.  Speaking of mice, we were mowing an investigators lawn that was probably 3 feet high, when we were just about finished we must have disturbed a mouse house or something because there were heaps of them running all over, but there was one that didn’t quite escape the spinning blade of death.  My companion cried because he killed it. just kidding but almost.

I ate some kangaroo and it was good, we just bought it from the shop and cooked it ourselves, when it first started cooking it smelled like it was going to taste really wild, but it actually tasted really good.

We were able to go to the temple this week and it was awesome.  Something interesting that I heard this week was that minimum wage here is around 17 dollars and if you make anything less than that you should look for a new job, I thought that is a lot of money to start out in a job.   The cost of living is quite a bit more over here.

My time is just about over but I love you guys. I hope that you guys have a great week.

Love, Elder Hyde

AUSSIE TERM OF THE WEEK

some of the parts of the car are called different things
trunk = boot
hood = bonnet