Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from Down Under!

We have had a very busy week! It was transfer week this week and therefore we had missionaries in and out of the office all week. Lots of pizza, salads and cookies during orientation and training. We are still learning what we are responsible for and how to do it. Brent has been learning all about the car fleet, taking the new missionary drivers out for little test drives and getting his white shirts dirty faster, and I am entering new convert baptisms, writing welcome letters and a score of other things that they ask of me.

The weather here is very unpredictable every day. We have learned to look at the temperature throughout the day before we get ready in the morning to see if we should dress warmer or cooler. I have had a couple of days where I was too cold because it started out beautiful and cooled off. The rainstorm we got a couple of days ago was a major storm that flooded the chapel and foyer of the church where the mission office is located, and later we ended up driving thru some deep water on our way home that night.

We had a chance to get out over the weekend, and went for a Friday night date night with our new friends the Hydes and President and Sister Vidmar and had a nice dinner at a Thai restaurant. It was fun to wear jeans and sandals and feel relaxed. We stopped at a little Gelato shop for an after-dinner treat and it brought back memories of going to Italy with the Curtis's and getting Gelato where ever we could. On Saturday evening for New Years Eve, we went to a really good hamburger place and had dinner with the Hydes and came back here and played a few card games and taught them how to play "Up and Down the River." We also invited the AP's over (who live in the other side of our flat) for "American-made" shakes. (Ausie's make them too runny!) We had a great New Year's in Australia!