STILL KEEPING BUSY ...VIVID HAPPENED...LIFE IS GOOD!

one of the many ferries decorated for VIVID

What a busy week!!!  There never was any time to slow down and just breath! Maybe going to VIVID the day after returning from a busy weekend driving up to Port Macquarie is what did us in.

But I realized that we have been "running faster than we can walk"  and that we need to find a better pace or we will wear ourselves out. But then I guess wearing ourselves out doing the Lord's work is a 
good way go.

That being said it was a good week and much was accomplished. We gave Michigan and OPIC tests on 3 different days training the new missionary couple in the process. At one of our locations we had a terrible time getting the internet to function properly. It took an hour to get it going and we only succeeded by using an ethernet cable instead of wifi. We won't give the OPIC test at that location again! 

The rain was intense this week. On Wednesday evening we drove through a torrential downpour on our way to a meeting in Summerhill. The road was running with water and often the visibility was poor because of the rain. But the meeting was fantastic and the rain had quit by the time we left for home. Thankfully!

It was a rainy, rainy day! Everyone, including us, has an
umbrella, or in Australian a 'brelly'. A lot of water
 was dumped in just one day.

We have discovered the downside of living on the 4th floor. When the rain is so intense that the lowest [-2 level] parking floor becomes flooded the elevators are shut off. Not much fun walking up 4 flights of stairs carrying our groceries!!!. Just walking up is exercise enough. But then maybe if we did walk up every day we would be in better shape. Something to think about. It took 2 days for the situation to be remedied. We are all very grateful for the elevator to be working again!

waiting for the water show to begin.

Before the rain, on Monday evening, we went to see VIVID with our Senior Missionary group. We began with a train ride into town where the downtown missionaries served us all a lovely supper. 

I had not known about VIVID. It is an amazing light display throughout downtown Sydney which lasts about 3 weeks of every year. The ferries are lit up, the buildings are lit up, the Opera house has an  amazing display of moving lights that changes to different scenes, as does the art museum. 




There is a fantastic water show featuring an amazing array of lights and figures projected onto water as it is sprayed into the air. The Botanical garden is full of interesting lighted displays. There are many other displays which we did not even see, like the zoo, but there was not enough time or energy to see it all in one night.







For 3 hours we walked, sat for 15 minutes to watch the water show, rode on the ferry, and strolled through the gardens marveling at the sights. It was dark, of course, so not all of the pictures turned out but I still managed to capture some good images.  I took so many  pictures.

If you have watched Sabrina you will understand when I say: "More is not always better. Sometimes it is just more."






But here are MORE, and MORE, pictures. I thought it was all fantastic! Such talent to put it all together.


By next year I hope to learn how to take videos with my camera which I mistakenly thought I was doing during the light show.

The rest of the VIVID pictures are at the end of the blog. I know there are too many but...

We also saw the Southern Cross constellation which was highlighted by a streak of light across the sky.

Elder Jenkins had a hard time with an ache in his hip so walking that long was not much fun for him. He often struggles with his hip if we do a lot of walking. We were both exhausted at the end of the day! But we hope to see it again next year.



Last week we brought Texas sheet cake  and bundt cake to English class. The missionaries seemed to like them although one of the missionaries wanted only an apple. This week I am only bringing apples. 

It is also transfer week so we will lose some of the missionaries in our English class as they will be sent to different areas. But we will also have new ones coming in. It is always sad for me when our missionaries are transferred  because we have come to love them all so much and we will miss them. But we also know that they are on the Lord's errand, and we are grateful that they have strong testimonies and are willing to work so hard to share the Gospel with others. There are some who are going home this week and it has been nice to hear from them to say 'good-by'.

The Gosford Stake office is nestled between a Subway, a real
 estate office and a tattoo parlor in a small strip mall around
the corner from the Gosford Stake building which is too small
to hold them.

We attended some outstanding meetings this week. It is always exciting for us when we see people grab hold of this self-reliance initiative and put it into practice. I am always grateful to go to the Stake Self-Reliance Committee meetings to hear the care and concern the members of the committee have for the church members under their stewardship.

This fellow must have a nest just above us. We are greeted many
mornings by a cheery "CHEEP, cheep, cheep, CHEEP".

Sunday morning moon setting. Can you see it?

We live in a place where beauty is unfolded to us every day. The beauties of nature always feed my soul.

Foggy view from our balcony this morning.

FOG wrapped us in a blanket this morning... We were totally socked in until about 9:30 and then the sun magically made the clouds disappear and the day became beautiful and sunny. It was about 19 degrees [or in the high 60's].

This morning already there have been calls from missionaries needing help with their admissions applications to BYUH. Some of them need to schedule a Michigan test and some just need help knowing how to fill out their applications. It is their P-day so they have time to work on them. We need to look at our calendar to see when we can schedule those who live far away. This week is already pretty booked so maybe next week.

Today is Monday and also Queen's day. Since it is an official holiday, government and church offices are closed; and we are taking an 'off' day [ha, ha] to get our flat cleaned and put our lives back in order. Well we did a lot of straightening but also went to IKEA to find some shelving for our flat. It is just nicer if we can be organized and have a place for everything. Now we just need time to put the shelves together.

We enjoyed a nice early birthday call for Elder Jenkins from one of our daughters and her family. Can you believe he will be 72 tomorrow?  Technology is GREAT!!! I love that we can see and hear our families - usually from their future so many thousands of miles across the world.

We are so glad we are here! We are learning and growing and being stretched and loving all the great people with whom we come in contact. We meet lovely people on the trains, in the stores, at church and in our self-reliance meetings. There is so much goodness in people and it is such a delight to witness their lives as they strive to do well and to be good. We are so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ which teaches us how to live and become like the Savio[u]r. 

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The following pictures, as numerous as they are, show only a small portion of the amazing sights to be seen at VIVID in Sydney 2017.

I loved the way the light showed off the amazing brick work on
this old building we walked by on our way to the train to go home.
It was a great experience all in all.