PetersonAustraliaMission

  Week 5-Groundhog's Day This is across the street from our flat (that's Aussie for apartment).  Many types of birds live here or stop by.  We've seen the ever popular crows, Australian magpies, kookaburas, lorakeets, cockatoos, and many others we haven't identified yet.  They begin singing very early in the morning, before 5 am because it begins to lighten up before then.    Mt. Coot-tha is the highest point in the city of Brisbane.  If you look closely you can see the Brisbane River that winds through this beautiful city.  There are around 2.6 million people here!  Those from Sydney and Melbourne think Brisbane is country.  PEople from Brisbane think Sydney and MElbourne are way too big as far as cities,  and rude to boot.  We will get a chance to see what Sydney is like since there will be a Welfare and Self-Reliance MEeting there in May.  We are excited to see a bit of Sydney and are sure it will be too short of a visit.  As WSR Missionaries, part of our assignment

  Exciting week This week was Senior MIssionary Conference here in Brisbane.  Missionary couples hosted other missionary couples for the few days of the conference.  We hosted the Smiths who are from Townsville, one of the districts north of us ( 3 days drive) along the eastern coast.  The Smiths treated us to dinner at the Lighthouse restauarant.  We are looking at a crustacean called a "bug".  We had to sample it.  Kind of looked like a horseshoe crab.  We were all unfamiliar with this seafood beauty.  It tasted better than it looked. Here is my friend, Janet, also a WSR missionary, eating the fabulous food prepared for us by another Senior Missionary couple for all the senior missionaries in the mission!  Honestly, we could not have had a more delicious meal anywhere else in the whole of Brisbane!!  Beautiful home, live piano music, wonderful company, a truly great way to kick off the conference. Our Mission President on the far right, Pres. Vongsawad, with Elder Bond (nex

  Week 3 Brisbane We're settled in now and are starting to explore this beautiful part of Australia in which we are serving.  This is from the last week or two, but it was a shot of the city from our mass transit catamaran at night.  The bridges light up and have a wardrobe of colors they can dawn.  Plus, if the buildings want to become part of the night time light show, they can pay a fee and do so.  The rumor is that the bridges and buildings try to coordinate.  Not sure if that is true  or not--it was beautiful this night for sure! After sunset at Pine River.  In the very top of the river you can see a bridge..That is the M1--a major motorway (freeway) into the city.  The tide is out right now. So many flowers here and they all bloom freely.  It's the end of summer and they are all flowering profusely.  There are frangipani, too, which are plumeria in the southwest USA.  They smell heavenly.  The flowers pictured above are not frangipani, but some other popular bush.  Bougai

 We concluded week 2 of our mission with an outing to South Bank, via the mass transit "CityCat", which is a catamaran, and a fast one!  Dale said 2 diesel engines and it was passing up yachts on the Brisbane River.  The captains were amazing.  Had those dockings down to an art.   THat's the city of Brisbane in the background, Dale in the foreground.  Our return trip on the Citycat was after sunset and the whole city was lit up, including the 6 bridges that cross the Brisbane River.  We even saw a guy dressed up as spider man on a mini-hydrofoil/shortboard thing.  HOpe he doesn't fall off--bull sharks in the river upwards of 400 of those carnivores! Before I get further, I don't think I posted this pic of us helping at an ESL class in Sunnybank.  It's like a little Asia area, but Australia is so diverse in general.  WE are loving it!  Many Pacific Islanders, which makes for lots of warm and loving influences.   Sister Greenhalgh and I in the botanical gardens