JenkinsAustralianMission: February 2017- November 2018: SLIDING DOWN THE SLIPPERY SLOPE...

Hard to believe it has been 6 weeks since I last wrote.

It is now past mid August and winter is passing. Some days have been rainy but not enough. New South Wales is officially in a drought. The farmers and ranchers are in trouble as there is not enough food or water for their animals and with no rain there are no crops. Many animals are skin and bone. Some ranchers have given up and committed suicide - so sad! Farmers in Tasmania have tried to come to the rescue sending tons of hay bales to the beleaguered farmers, but it may not be enough. There are ongoing fund raisers to help as well.

Wow! Just Wow!

This came during a time of great stress for me and I loved it!

But we are isolated from all that tragic stress as we have enjoyed lovely weather almost every day where we drive and we see something blooming all of the time.

A sunny day at Circular Quay.

Aboriginal Buskers at Circular Quay

Sydney Opera House at Circular Quay

Since we were delayed from November until February to begin our mission we have been in the situation where our visas will expire November 11 before the end of our mission on January 20. Because we are too old, both over 70 now which might be a problem with getting a new visa, and summer vacations in December and January bring self-reliance meetings to halt it has been decided that we will be released a couple of months early. So we will be leaving Australia on November 9th to fly home.

It is coming so fast and I feel almost like we are in free fall. Somedays I feel like I just need to drink in everything - the sunsets, the clouds, the trees and flowers and the wonderful people. It will be hard to leave it and them all. I just cannot believe it has been almost 2 years since we came and now we are preparing to leave and likely will never be able to return. We have purchased some souvenirs and are beginning to figure out our luggage weights.

We feel like we are living in two worlds.

One in which we continue on with our many self-reliance duties including helping roll out the new Eat Healthy Be Active course which aims to help in preventing and controlling diabetes. Apparently the Polynesian people have the highest incidence of Type ll diabetes in the world. This course is directed to them but all of us who deal with diabetes and who want general good health can be helped. And there is a brand new English language course called EnglishConnect. There are 2 levels to be administered through self-reliance and a 3rd to be offered through PathwayConnect. It is very inclusive and includes the computer for pronunciation modeling. That is brand new and very exciting. It will be helpful as we work with the missionaries from other countries as we are still teaching every week. But we will have a coordinating meeting next week to try and get all the English classes for the missionaries on the same schedule. We want to leave things as organized as possible in case there are no new self-reliance missionaries coming to replace us. And we continue to give English proficiency tests to the missionaries. We also are doing 'departing missionary' seminars at every transfer to give the leaving missionaries some tools for entering their next stage of life.

And in our 'other ' life we are making plans for our future. Sadly our house did not sell by the end of July as we thought it would. The home inspection showed water damage in the walls from a flood issue in our basement a few months ago and the buyer backed out. But we do have another buyer now who is waiting to close by end of August. I do not know if the repairs will be done in time. So we may lose that buyer as well. We are losing thousands of dollars through this process but there is nothing more we can do but what is being done. Our realtor has been fantastic and we are very grateful. But we have turned this over to Heavenly Father because only He can help us through this.

In the meantime our new home in Pleasant Grove is under construction. The only thing there is that we have to choose a wall color which is much harder than one would think.

And we continue to make our plans for our research trip beginning in April. We have many places reserved and waiting for our arrival. But there is still much work to be done before we leave. I plan to begin a new blog which will tell about our ongoing adventures as there never really is a dull moment in our lives.

Last month our 10th great grandchild was born. It is quite amazing to be a great grandparent and we are grateful. I think that makes us officially old.

Our grandson who was serving a mission in Tahiti returned home this week. It is hard to believe it has been 2 years since he left. And next week his brother will be leaving to serve in the Argentina Cordoba mission so there will still be 3 Elder Jenkins, at least for a little while.

We love our missionaries both in our family and here in Australia. We miss those who return home and are glad when we can see a glimpse of their lives on Facebook. We wish them well in all their efforts and hope that they will do all that is necessary to keep the Spirit with them so they can be happy in their lives.

I end my writing today as I look over our balcony on a beautiful sunny sky with just a few clouds. It is Sunday. We had the opportunity to attend Parramatta Ward today and heard some wonderful talks of pure doctrine that inspired us and strengthened our testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.