April 20 – 26
First off, have we already shared that malls are alive and well here in Sydney? Not only are they spread all around the city, but if you can picture your favorite mall in the 80’s – bustling with people on a Saturday – that’s what the malls look like here – EVERYDAY! The malls have their anchor stores – depending on the mall – the big stores could be extremely bougie international ones – like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci, Tiffany’s, Prada, etc. The Australian higher end anchor store is David Jones (I would compare it to a Bloomingdales or Saks) and a Myers, which I would compare to a Nordstroms. Sadly – we haven’t found any middle level shopping – like Macys or Dillards type stores! The other “anchor” stores at the malls are Kmart and Target, which is NOT like Target in the USA. It’s owned by the same company as Kmart but has higher quality merchandise – more like a Kohls or JcPenenny’s – selling leather shoes, purses, professional suits, etc. For various reasons we ended up going to a mall FOUR times this week! It felt a bit much AND it was usually just in and out – not walking around the whole mall. Driver beware – most malls offer 2 to 3 hour free parking but after that it gets pricey! One day we had to pay $40 when we exited the parking garage! There is NO parking downtown so the malls know they have you! Most of the malls here are Westerfield Malls and they are HUGE! You could spend a full day there – as long as you can afford the parking – ha ha!
Besides going to the mall, here’s what our week looked like:
Monday
This morning we had our monthly Preventative Mental Health Training (PMHT) with the other senior couples throughout Australia who teach the same class as we do. This is our time to ask questions about the lessons, get ideas from others, etc. As usual, we were able to talk to our kids and grandkids then had district council in the evening.
Tuesday
This morning I had a hair color/cut appointment that was overdue – I had to call multiple times to push back the appt. due to other things taking priority. I was determined to get to the mall for my hair appt.! Just as we were getting ready to leave, we received a message from some friends we met at the MTC who are serving in New Zealand. They let us know that they were flying in that day and asked if we could please pick them up from the airport. Well, I totally had a skunk line going on so I told Eric just to drop me off at the mall, I’d get my hair color/cut and he could go back and pick them up from the airport. He walked around the mall with me for about 30 minutes and thankfully, he walked with me to the hair salon where we were told they did NOT have my appointment on their books and could not see me that day. BOO! So, Eric drove me back to the apartment so I could prepare for our lessons that night and attend a lesson with the sister missionaries. Eric was able to pick up the couple from the airport and drive them to their hotel. Let’s just say – this was A LOT of driving today since everything was in different directions! That night we taught our Book of Mormon Study class.
Wednesday
This morning we taught Lesson 1 of the PMHT to the Helaman zone. I had rescheduled my hair appointment so we went from the training to the Parramatta mall again for my color/cut. Crazily enough only my hair dresser was working that day so she ended up squeezing in a couple hair cuts while she did my hair. I was in the chair for over 3 hours and we barely made it to the temple in time for the training we receive each week before we work. Also, another person gave me the “blow out” and I have never had my hair SO STRAIGHT! Unfortunately, he also blew dry my bangs TOTALLY straight and they were poking in my eyes. WAY TOO FLAT for me – I AM an 80’s girl. Because we were already running late I had to go work at the temple with this super straight, bangs in my eyes, look. I felt like an embarrassed dog who has a costume on and doesn’t want anyone to look at him! Luckily, I just stayed away from mirrors and got through the night! Ha ha!
Lunch at the Mall – Grill’d
Thursday
This morning we taught Lesson 1 to the Abinadi zone. After the training we had been asked to take a “golden” elder from the Philippines to find a suit, as he hadn’t brought one on the mission. The elder and his companion had only looked at Myers (see description above) and were able to find one that looked more like a tux, not a professional suit, for a hefty price tag. I remembered that Eric had shown me a suit at Target so we took the elders BACK to the Parramatta mall and tried out the Target before we headed to Myers. Fortunately, we found him a nice black suit (the color he wanted) AND a new dress shirt for HALF the price of the suit at Myers AND the missionary said he liked the Target suit much better! We also took the elders out for lunch at my favorite Mexican place – Guzman Y Gomez (also at the mall). We had a fun few hours getting to know those elders better as they were both new to our district. That evening I had the young women and our two leaders – Valerie and Brydie – come over for planning and a craft. The planning went fabulously – as we were able to plan our activities for the next month AND everyone took an assignment. We ran out of time for the craft so we just played a few rounds of Australian Heads Up. There are some fruits I have NEVER heard of!
A new sister in our zone!
Suit section at Target
Friday
Today I drove the sister missionaries to visit an 18 year old girl, from China, in the hospital. She had just started attending a university in Sydney this school year and developed some kind of autoimmune disease. I’m not sure what she has exactly, except that she has lost most feeling/use of her legs and is currently wheelchair bound. Her dad had flown out here from China to be with her the first month of her hospitalization but had to go back to China. While he was here, he attended our church on Sundays. Before he left he told us about his daughter and asked that we visit her and teach her about God and Jesus Christ. Thankfully, the three sister missionaries now in our district all speak Chinese and have been able to visit her a couple times. I was fortunate to be able to attend with them that day and got to meet sweet Ray-ee (phonetic spelling, not sure how to spell her name). She was so sweet – with a gorgeous smile. She seemed very positive for being an 18 year old, stuck in a hospital, no family or friends in town, not being able to walk anymore and unsure about what the future holds for her health, education, etc. It made me think about President Nelson’s beautiful quote – “The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.” She might just have put on a “happy face” while we were visiting her, I don’t know, but I was so grateful that we could share about our Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ, who is not only the ultimate healer – body and spirit, but also the only one who can TRULY feel our pains and suffering AND know exactly how to comfort, guide and bring us peace! I look forward to visiting her again next week!
After the hospital visit, Eric and I made our way to the Bondi Junction Mall to return a couple things and purchase some supplies so I could hem a couple dresses. There’s NO Hobby Lobby, Joann’s etc here so the “craft/sewing” store is Spotlight. When we finally got home that day we were pretty wiped out. We knew the next day there would be a Relief Society party at our flat but we were planning to get ready for it the next morning. THANKFULLY, the sister in charge of the get together let us know that the stores would ALL be closed the next day – Saturday – due to ANZAC day. There are laws here for stores to be closed on Public Holidays. So, at 10:15 – Eric hurriedly walked to the grocery store to buy food for the Relief Society party AND to feed the missionaries on Sunday! Although most stores close at 5:30 to 6:00 every day – thankfully our closest grocery store stays open til 11:30 PM.
The malls are so big we have to take a picture so we know WHERE we entered the mall!
View from lunch at the mall
Saturday
Because Eric had shopped the night before, we were able to SLEEP IN on Saturday before we began preparing for the RS party at our flat. The first sisters arrived at 2:00 (the party was supposed to start at 2:30) to help set up. Eventually we had about 15 ladies here! I thought the event would last a couple hours max but the whole crew stayed until 6:30 PM!! Eric walked around the area for a couple hours but eventually came home. Even though it was a LONG gathering, we all had a great time learning more about each other and bonding together as Sisters in Christ!
Sunday
Typical Sabbath – prepared for church, attended, then had a Group Council meeting after. We came home and made some Mexican food for the missionaries – Eric made his homemade salsa and a big bowl of guacamole – YUM! We made burrito bowls with lamingtons, cream and berries for dessert. After dinner we had an ASM devotional (which we have on zoom two Sundays a month at 8:30 PM). Great day and week!
In case you haven’t seen our apartment, here it is:
Something I’ve learned this week –
Don’t get behind on my blog writing! It takes forever to catch up! Ha ha!
The Helland's Down Under 