FYI

I have been struggling to figure out what to put on our Blog page. I feel like most of my blogs are the same. So wanted to do something a little different. It won't be that different just from a different idea.

The Lords house is a house of order. As missionaries we have found that it is very important to have a life of order. We have a very distinct way of having this work. It is called a missionary planner. Each planner will last for six weeks. Every six weeks is called a transfer period. The transfer is very important. For the Elders and Sisters they are in an area for a transfer period or two or three depending on what the Mission President is inspired to do. The Planner is very useful. We keep all of our appointments and also phone numbers and addresses. It also has a To Do page. I have really enjoyed having my planner. I am in the middle of my 12th planner. One more to go.

The six week period follows a plan. The first week is the week we teach the Family Home Evening lesson because the Elders are getting ready for Tuesday when they will be told if they will transfer to a different area. . This transfer wweek one of our wonderful Elders will be going home. Elder Smith will go home to Colorado. He was in our first district and has been our district leader a number of times. We will be getting two new Chinese Speaking Elders. One is from Mainland China.

Nothing different happens in the second week. If the Elders are new to the area they are getting acquainted with their teaching pool.

The third week we have zone conference. We have two zones that meet together. Our language zone and the Heidelberg English speaking zone. We have great training from President and Sister Lee and from the Assistants to the President who happen to be two of our language zone
Elders. We always have a wonderful lunch prepared by one of the wards. Also the cars are checked and we have a training on being good drivers.

Fourth week we go to the Temple as a Zone. This is always a great day for us. It is such a great pleasure to sit in a session of the Temple with 14 great Elders. In most cases Elder Urmston and I have the privilege of being the witness couple because there are not many couples at the first session. We always have to take a picture. Many times we go to lunch with a couple of them after.

Fifth week we will sometimes have a zone activity. We went miniature golfing once and had a chile cookoff. We have been going near the river for the last few and having a bar-b-que. That seems to be the most popular. Then the Elders go and play football and we head for home. This week we all went up to the top of the second tallest building in Melbourne. It is the Rialto Building. It has a 360 degree view of the city on the 55 floor. It takes 40 seconds from the ground to the 55 floor. The day wasn't the best. It was a bit hazy. You can see the Melbourne Cricket Grounds and the Rod Laver Arena. The tall building is the tallest in Melbourne. It also has an observation area, but is expensive to go up. We were able to get two for the price of one on the one we did. The other picture is some clever people who painted on the top of their building.

Six Week is Zone meeting. The Zone leaders conduct this meeting. We have training by them. I started early on getting up and making Cinnamon Rolls. That has been a big success. Had to add milk also. We also have Interviews with the President during the last week. I am sure that is the time that he makes some decisions on who is going where and who will be the Zone leaders and district leaders.

So you can see that we are a very orderly group of people.This also includes a family home evening each week. If the elders are teaching they are there. The only other way is if they have an investigator. They work really hard at that. Wednesday night is Institute. On Fridays and Saturdays there are Baptisms. This week it was a really great young women named Shirry. Elder Smith finishes strong. During the rest of the time we are all teaching and studying and praying and hoping and striving to do our best at what we have been called to do. The elders do a lot of finding and we do a lot of fellow shipping of those in need.