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