Little Cove

Our absolute favourite beach anywhere is Little Cove at Noosa. It is almost always calm, usually has fish swimming around your feet, occasionally has turtles, is seldom full and is safe and secure.

We swam there each day of the Easter break (except Sunday, of course). This time there were even waves for the little kids to boogie board on.

Easter Visitors

Lots of easter visitors this year.

Caroline & Stephen - though no kids.

And Georgie.

Travelling

Travelling to and from the coast took a obscene amount of time this year - 2.5 hours up and 4(!) hours back. The kids like to listen to the commentary on radio station (B105) and the music on another (MMM) - so the flip between stations. As we were driving up listening to the commentary station a song came on and was left on for a half a minute or so till Jesse changed stations saying 'you can feel your IQ dropping'. Altogether too pop for her.

Easter Chocolates

Lee & Joan came up to Sunshine for corn beef on Saturday night - but since someone turned the crock pot off at the wall we had fish and chips instead. Max was begging for ice cream from Massimos and I said no because there would be heaps of chocolate on Sunday morning. Alec - who is just cheeky - asked what made this year different to any other year - when there's not lots of chocolate - just some. Nothing - everybody got a rabbit and some little eggs - and a book of course.

Thomas News

Dear Alec,
Just so you know, after trying to ride a cow, you cannot condemn me of doing anything immature and stupid ever again!

Dear Family,
As funny as the whole cow situation has been, I felt like I was entitled to say that. I love the pictures that came with the blog. Particularly Alec walking up to honey with absolutely no subtlety at all, and Honey looking back like she knows exactly whats going on. Wow, what a weekend for firesides!

It must have been great to hear Elder Bednar give answers to questions that people where asking in Australia.

Well, big curve ball in our week came on Saturday when I got VERY sick. The single worst stomach pain I had ever felt. I wanted to vomit, and came close, but nothing. I was hoping I had diarrhea, but my stomach was too sore to go the the toilet. Thankfully President and Sister Watterson came around for flat inspection (which turned out okay). And Sister Watterson was able to tell me that this was just something going around. She at that point gave me news that Elder Rasmussen had a concussion- He ran into another elder during sports. The story sounded kinda like what happened when I ran into Alec and knocked my teeth back- but much more extreme results.

We've been working hard here this week. Our last week was abysmal and we were determined not to have a week like that again. Monday turned out marvellous. Our lesson, contact and new investigator goals were all met. We had a curve ball thrown at us yesterday when Elder Cavender got sick and I had to stay with him while our companions had to handle two sets of meetings. Which worked out pretty well, except most of ours didn't show up. We really need to speak to people in their homes.

Unfortunately, that's really all for now. Now I need to write to President and account to him for our week. I love you all very much. I love this work and know that our Heavenly Father really does love all of his children.

Your Son/brother/Grandson/Nephew/Cousin (I understand that Joan sends this letter around quite a bit)

Riding Honey

Alec announced on Wednesday night that on Thursday afternoon he would be riding Honey and Peet was going to video it - the little kids immediately started nominating how to spend the prize money from Australia's Funniest Home Videos.

Robert and Samuel heard too and were on the doorstep at 4 o'clock to make sure they didn't miss out.

Turns out - Honey can understand English! Usually she sticks her big head in where ever we are and makes a nuisance of herself but as soon as she saw Alec heading towards her with a twinkle in his eye she took off.

We had to get the scraps bucket to lure her - and even then she was cautious.

Alec finally caught her by the horns, dragged her across the paddock, and jumped on.

He only lasted a couple of seconds and Honey was very touchy after that. But Alec still had the scraps bucket - Honey was literally drooling at the thought of it and was just desperate to get to it. Finally she decided to risk it and Alec grabbed her by the horns again. This time he threw Honey and she staggered up in a cloud of dust, ran into the fence where the little boys were sitting - scared them half to death - and took off down the paddock. We were out of scraps by this stage so Alec reckons he'll try again another time - this time I think we'll make a bale to run her into.

Thomas News

ALEC LOOKS LIKE HE HAS SHINGLES!!! I saw the photos and it looks as though that'll heal if he washes in the Jordan river 7 times, he should be better (see Kings 2, chapter 5). Jesse looks like she has a nasty bruise too, but I'm just looking at one bruise there. Maybe Jesse is more agile than Alec.

This week said goodbye to Dimitri. Most of the lessons were just big arguments over the nature of god (trinity or the Godhead). It just isn't his time yet. But it is hard when they decide to drop you on account of refusing to believe. On the other hand, I'm not ashamed of the way we handled him. We testified hard, we taught from the scriptures, and the spirit was in those lessons.

We have been finding some other people to fill the void, though. Tonight we'll be speaking to a man named Dimitri, who we contacted totally by chance, and I think good things will come out of that. We attended a baptism of one man, Vaisili, this week. He's been meeting with missionaries and coming to English for a long time. Elder Cavander baptised him. His mother is a member in Riga, so I'm sure it will be lovely for her to know he is baptised.

The weather on Monday hit the warmest it's ever been (10 degrees Celsius). It was so sunny and nice. I kinda miss it now that its back to 4 degrees here. But spring is definitely here, the American elders have said that they have seen flying bugs around Daugavpils- which apparently means spring.

Well, that's really all the big news for this week, unfortunately. Lee and Joan's garden looks amazing! I can see why you need counselling.

The office also looks great- quite the step-up from the renovated shed. I expect to hear about another couple of stories being added onto that thing. I love Max's apple question- it's such a stumper. And his missionary comment is amazing. Well, that's all from me. I hope you all are well. More is on the horizon. I can feel it.