February 2 – 8, 2026

This week was FULL of teaching opportunities – teaching a couple zones and teaching friends with our young missionaries. We don’t normally find/teach new friends all day, every day like the junior missionaries do and let me tell you – that is a LOT of work! They create a lesson plan for each lesson – tailored to the needs of each person, then teach and answer questions for about an hour for each appointment. It’s a wonderful opportunity to share testimony of Jesus Christ, His gospel, and the many blessings we have received. It’s also exhausting! I have so much admiration for our AMAZING junior missionaries who get up every day at 6:30 AM, exercise, study scriptures, plan lessons with their companion, then spend the day teaching and sharing testimony! They are incredible disciples of Jesus Christ! We feel so honored and blessed to work with them, learn from them, support them, and befriend them! I hope we can stay in touch with these cherished young friends!

Here’s how the week went:

Monday – Today we finished our preparations to teach our next Preventative Mental Health (PMH) class and bought more treats to set out for every missionary who attends (bribery you say? No! An incentive to participate – or at least pay attention! Ha ha!). We realized that preparing for each lesson takes at least two full days – to review the curriculum, watch the training videos, take notes, type up notes then practice together to make sure we both understand each slide and divide up who is saying what. Next month we need to allow ourselves the full time to get comfortable and ready to “pass off” the lesson before we teach the zones! After our prep, we made dinner for our district – with our new elder – Elder McLeran from Calgary, Canada, and our two new sisters – Sister Thompson from Kaysville, Utah and Sister Leslie, a golden, from a small town in England. Two of our previous elders are still in our district – Elder Duare from Zimbabwe and Elder Latu from Melbourne. After dinner we had our district council – where each companionship shares who they are teaching and asks the group for suggestions in helping their friends according to their specific needs. After that, (yes, it was already 8:00 pm!) we hopped on a zoom meeting to present the PMH lesson to the lead Mental Health Coordinator for the Australia missions. We have to pass the lessons off before we can teach the young missionaries. That took another hour plus! We were pretty tired and wanted to unwind…but we had to get up early to travel to the zone we’d be teaching in the morning!

I can’t get enough of the beautiful bldgs around town. Love the old with the new!

This is for Adam – aka Uncle Coco!

My new “island” dress to match my Aussie sisters in the ward. I just need a flower for my hair!

Tuesday – We left about a couple hours before our lesson to arrive at the chapel and set up for our lesson. Set up takes awhile – you know me – matching tablecloths with matching centerpieces, sign in table with tablecloth, centerpiece with signs and materials to create colorful and unique name cards, with treats and materials at each missionaries seat. We had about 20 missionaries in our class today who were an awesome group! After our lesson, we cleaned up (much faster than set up!) and hurried back to our flat where maintenance men were waiting for us. I rushed off to the church building to meet the sisters in our district and Eric stayed at the flat while a new dishwasher and oven were delivered and installed. Woo Hoo! After the installation, Eric joined us at the church for a couple more lessons. For our final lesson we drove to meet a friend in a beautiful little park…which was surrounded by busy roads (a little hard to hear each other speak when the cars sailed by). Our lesson went a bit long so we barely made it back to the church for the end of the Book of Mormon Class. It was great to see our friends attending this class!

Driving to teach the Helaman zone!

New Oven

Old dishwasher

New dishwasher

Wednesday – This morning we were able to teach the PMH class to our very own Abinadi Zone! 🥳Since we found out it was one of our awesome Summer Hill sister’s birthday, we stopped at Cole’s (our local grocer) to get muffins for the whole zone and a candle to sing happy birthday to her. Our zone is always so positive and helpful when we teach them! After cleaning up from the class, we went back home, had lunch then left for Carlingford to work at the temple. Thankfully GPS took us home that evening in a totally new way so we were able to miss all the freeway and road closures due to crazy construction which takes place every evening. Most times we end up getting lost on our way home from the temple on Wednesday evenings! We had NO idea where GPS took us tonight but we did make it home safely without getting lost! Good on ya, GPS!

Happy Birthday, Sis. Eteru! We love you!

Our Awesome Abinadi Zone

Golden Sister Leslie’s bday is coming soon!

Thursday – This morning we went to purchase supplies for the Young Women’s activity tonight. I had asked some of the missionaries from the US if they had found a store in Sydney that is similar to Hobby Lobby (Kmart and Aussie Target do NOT have many craft supplies!). They directed me to the “Spotlight” store. Eric and I headed to the closest one (by Bondi Beach!) this morning to purchase knitting supplies for each girl and the sister missionaries who were teaching us how to knit (FYI – the girls wanted to learn to knit – not me!). P.S. I am grateful for (and miss) Hobby Lobby stores! 😂

We were invited to help teach with the Summer Hill ward Sisters, the Hyde Park Group Sisters and the Hyde Park group elders today, which we were very excited about!. On our way to meet the Summer Hill ward sisters at their appointment, we ran into a major traffic jam (a light rail had broken down in the middle of the street and 4 big city buses blocked us in. We did NOT make it to that lesson. After 30 minutes, and the decision to make an illegal turn (fingers crossed NO ticket!), we were able to get out of the traffic mess and head back to the chapel for a lesson with the Hyde Park sisters then Elders.

For our YW activity tonight, Sister Thompson tried to teach the group how to knit (I think it might take more than one lesson…!).After YW, we found that all the sister missionaries were at the church waiting for Sister Thompson and Sister Leslie to finish helping me so they could go to dinner together. Since it was so late, we thought we could caravan to their favorite spot – El Juana’s. Unfortunately, the sisters from Summer Hill couldn’t find a parking spot (there is NO parking downtown!) so they left back to their flats. We finally found a spot, walked a bit (2 rounds of the track, according to Sister Leslie), then partook of the greatest junior missionary food of all time – boned chicken (you have to pull the meat off), a pita-ish tortilla, garlic sauce (mayo with a slight garlic flavor), beet root (not fresh or pickled) and small dill pickles. You put that all in your pita/tortilla and “Um, Um, good!” Well, let’s just say Eric and I won’t be going back to El Juana’s, even if we find front row parking!

Sister Thompson teaching the YW how to knit

Friday – I taught most of the day with the sister missionaries at the church building today. They had scheduled 6 lessons, back to back! Eric went grocery shopping for us – Costco and the grocery store – and started preparing for our “sisters dinner.” We decided to schedule a night each week to feed all the sister missionaries together – both Summer Hill and Hyde Park sisters, a total of 7 sisters. We made “Chipotle” type bowls with shredded chicken, brown garlic and cilantro (coriander) lime rice (YUM!), black beans, Eric’s homemade salsa, guacamole, cheese, sour cream, tomatoes and corn – with the option of tortilla chips and/or a warmed up tortilla. Eric made the whole meal and it was DELICIOUS! We had a citrus pound cake with fresh whipped cream and berries (I whipped the cream – ha ha!).

Sister’s Dinner – and Eric! 🙂

When your husband loves you soooo much he wants to match you by cutting his pinky with the same knife and on the same hand. #TrueLove

Saturday – We had grand plans for our P-Day – but I had been so tired this week I just wanted to SLEEP! Hence, no beach or museum today – but I did feel well rested! Instead, we finally got out of the flat late afternoon and went to Paddy’s Market and the Hay Market – where there are a ton of indoor booths selling mostly tourist souvenirs but at a great price! Half of the market is for fresh produce and seafood. Eric and I bought matching outfits for our first Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration we are having next week at the church! Now that we have these “outfits” we’ll need to find other events to wear them to….? We might need to add a Chinese NY party to our list of yearly parties after the mission!

Our plan was to go to the new fish market for dinner but we ended up trying a place in China town (in the mall -not a good idea!). There are soooo many authentic restaurants in China Town we could have tried so we probably need to get a recommendation for a good one next time. Our group leader/friend Lyle Elisara told us about an authentic homemade dumpling and bao bun place. Apparently everything is made fresh for you so you have to wait an hour for the food (better not go if you’re already hungry!). We said we’d meet them there next time and try it! Sounds yummy!

Free class to teach the littles the Lion Dance

Getting ready for Chinese New Year – free events in China Town

Cool truck inside Hay Market

The dragon and his crew were traveling around China Town doing the Lion dance.

Another cool truck!

China Town mall gearing up for the Lunar New Year – Year of the Horse

Cutie in China Town

Having a great afternoon!

This is where we selected to eat?!?!

Yum????

Sunday – Before church we tried to make a Texas sheet cake for a sister in our ward who has been sick for a couple weeks (she indicated that she really liked our “brownies” we took to a baptism so we thought we’d surprise her with a special treat). Unfortunately we forgot to add the buttermilk in the recipe so the cakes were not fit to give out – or frost! They actually looked like flat chocolate cookie bars, which I’m sure we’ll snack on this week (maybe we can dip them in milk and they’ll be tastier?!?!). AND, we’ll have to try again to make that sweet sister her treat!

Once at church, Eric met with the group leader and got called to the Elder’s Quorum leadership (which is the men’s organization). He had already planned to teach the lesson in EQ today so that worked out nicely! 😉After church we had our bi-monthly “linger longer,” where the group stayed for snacks and time to visit/catch up with each other. A shout out to our son-in-law, Nathan’s, mom, Debra, for her yummy and easy sugar/cinnamon banana treats! They were a hit! 🥳 Eric made one of his famous crock pot dishes, Costco “meatballs with BBQ sauce” dish! You can see we’re becoming great chefs over here in Sydney!

After “linger longer” we had our first Missionary Correlation Meeting (MCM) since we’ve been out! This is where the missionaries and the leaders of the various organizations meet up after church for a quick “update/next step” correlation. We had this one on zoom with the new ward mission leader in the Summer Hill ward. We’re excited to get this going each Sunday so we can make sure the missionaries and organization leaders are all on the same page – knowing who is getting baptized, being taught, needs ministering to, etc.

Later – we had our district missionaries over for dinner and a “surprise” bday party for our golden – Sister Leslie. We kinda celebrated her birthday on Friday night with the sisters but the elders asked if we could have a surprise party with them. We bought some decorations and the elders (Elder McLeran) made a homemade chocolate cake in the microwave for her (see picture). Eric made his “famous” Costco spinach and mozzarella ravioli with Costco Pesto sauce, Costco Salad and Costco pre-buttered and seasoned garlic bread. Thank goodness for Costco! 😆It was a fun evening getting to know the “new” missionaries in our district.

I know this week doesn’t sound very exciting – but it really was! We loved all the teaching we were able to do and the things we learned from the junior missionaries! They truly are the BOMB! It was also a PACKED week! It’s good that the majority of the missionaries are in their early twenties and not late 50’s and older! We might have the experience but the young ones have the ENERGY! Ha ha!

Our awesome YW come early to church to welcome the church goers at the door!

Birthday dinner for Sister Leslie with our district

The microwave cake the Elders made/bought for our birthday celebration.

Happy Birthday, Sister Leslie! Only out on the mission for 1.5 weeks!

Things I learned this week:

It’s OK to schedule in the actual time we need for preparation – for the classes, activities, and lessons we teach. I’ve never allotted enough time on my calendar to truly accomplish what is scheduled. Because time gets away from us and there is always something to do next, we realized that we need to be realistic about the time we allot ourselves on our schedule. Not only will we be able to complete our tasks, but we won’t be rushing around (which feels more stressful than productive!). Take the time you NEED!

I am a planner and a problem solver. I’m not always patient when I see a solution to a “problem” and it doesn’t happen with all the players as I think it should. I had to be reminded this week that this is not MY work – this is the Lord’s work and HE WILL accomplish all that needs to happen in His time and in His way. No need for me to get frustrated or impatient. I am an instrument in God’s hand, doing His work, for His children. His way is ALWAYS best and His work WILL ROLL FORTH! I’m going to continue to need this reminder…because when I hear/feel it – it rings as “truth” and gives me the comfort I need to just do my part and let the Lord do His as He sees fit!

Taking time to “be still” is important – not just when you have “extra” time, but actually making time to sit, ponder, pray, think – clear our minds from all the “to do’s” and take a minute (or more!) to reboot, regulate, relax and rejuvenate! I’ve spent much of my adult life “rushing around” and I now see the beauty and feel the peace it brings my body, mind, and soul as I time to slow down, be in the moment and “be still”…every single day (well, that’s my new goal anyway!)!