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