This was transfer week and about half of our missionaries are off to other areas.  So we like to have brunch with everyone and man can they eat.  We were flipping pancakes for an hour (about 80) and scrambled 3 dozen eggs.  We get so attached to these young missionaries, especially those that have been here for 6 months.  They are all such interesting, fun and hardworking missionaries from so many places in the world.  This week we will get some from Mongolia and Checz Republic.

I am the R.S. enrichment leader (or whatever it's called) in the ward.  We had an activity "Beautiful Me" which turned out so fun.  We began with a soup bar followed by my intro about inner beauty. then we had classes on skin care and makeup tips, hair care and braiding and then made sugar scrub to take home.  We had about 30 in attendance, several who we are trying to bring back into activity. So it was quite a successful evening.

(a picture is worth a 1000  words, right???)

We had a senior missionary activity in the city on Saturday.  We met for lunch and then went to the old Capitol Theatre to see FIDDLER ON THE ROOF.  It was a fantastic production and a really fun day with 7 other couples.

We said goodbye to so many fun missionaries this week.  But on to new and great friendships.

We spent a fantastic week with Brittany recently.  She left all the kids, responsibilities, stress, work, worries, etc behind and we enjoyed having her all to ourselves!!  She hit the ground running as we have found that the best way to readjust to AST (Australian standard time) is to stay awake for the first 20 hrs.  So off we went to Watson Bay for their famous Fish & Chips followed by a cliff hike.

We spend a day at Circular Quay at the Harbour Bridge climb and pylons with the views to die for.  Brittany snuggled right up to the Aborigine and got a few pointers about playing the digeredoo.

We managed to visit 2 or 3 favorite beaches and enjoy the "fine" sand, warm water and beautiful sunshine.  Some of us look better at the beach than others (you be the judge).

The only rainy afternoon of the week we enjoyed the wax museum at Darling Harbour.  There are some pretty amazing "people" in there to pose with.

Several evenings we had dinner with some of our favorite YSAs who we are trying to keep active.  We thought Brittany would enjoy meeting them and they might be motivated to remain faithful by her example.  We had a fun time at FHE with the group also.

A trip to Australia is never complete without a trip to the wildlife parks to "pet" the koalas and kangaroos.  Since we don't have a car it means a 45 min train ride, followed by a short bus ride each way.  But it is worth it.

We did have to get back to "reality" after the fun filled week and play catch up for a few days.  We had 4 baptisms on Saturday - 3 Chinese and 1 Korean.  We hope they are more than "half baked" which is the term fondly used to mean converted.

And then we prepared the Break the Fast meal on Sunday for the ward.  I will be happy when the other couple gets here to assist with the cooking. But it is fun and we love the diversity of responsibilities we have here.  Life is good.