This last week has been very busy. We had a Zone Conference on Wednesday and after lunch all the missionaries sang "Called to Serve" to the sisters who had prepared our lunch. Sister Lifferth (my mission presidents wife) told us later that 2 of the ladies were not members. I wonder what kind of experience that was for them. The Spirit was really strong :)
I also asked President Lifferth when I would be able to start driving. He said that now was a good time and I asked if I needed to have his approval in writing. He grabbed a clean serviette (napkin) and wrote out my approval on that :)
So I've been able to start driving a little this week. It's not that different but it is a little weird having a lot of space to my left instead of my right and the gear shift is on the left. Also, the turn signal is on the right-so I end up turning on the windshield wipers a lot :)
On Zone Conference days they also inspect our cars so we have to clean and vaccumm them really well-our car got balloons and TimTams because it was the cleanest-yay!!

People do not celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia but we have an American family in our ward who are not very active but they are super nice and have incredible testimonies. They invited us for Thanksgiving and it was so fun! They have lived in Ohio as well (the other side of Cleveland from where we lived) and they always have a good story to share.

We have also been focusing on finding more people to teach. We met a lady named Jess who had recently lost her son. We taught on her doorstep about the Plan of Salvation, that God loves us as his children and provides a way for us to be together as families again. We connected the message of the Plan of Salvation to the Restoration of the Gospel and when we were reading from the introduction to the Book of Mormon the Spirit was so strong. I knew she could feel it, you could see it in her eyes.

I know that as we improve our ability to teach by the Spirit and recognize that it is only by the Spirit that we can teach, we will truely be able to find those who are ready to hear the Gospel.

-Sister Edmunds

This past week has been crazy busy. Missionary work is always the best when you are really, really busy :) This week we met a really sweet girl from the Sudan. She is an incredibly humble person and has a deep love of Jesus Christ. You can see it in her whole face. She has an incredible desire to follow Christ in everything she does and was really excited when we gave her the Book of Mormon. We are really excited to see her again soon!
We also had transfers at the beginning of this week but me and my companion are here in Geelong for at least another 5 weeks :) I really love this area and the people here. As a missionary you meet so many people from all over and it's fun to see people that you have met before running around town.
We actually had a really interesting experience with that (seeing people around town). We were in Geelong city centre a few weeks ago visiting a sister in the hospital. On our way we met a man who is a first time father of a little baby girl. We talked with him briefly and found out that his little girl was a bit premature and had to stay in hospital. He didn't really seem to want to talk with us so we left it at that. The 2 weeks we were without our car we walked and took buses. We got on a bus at the end of the day and there he was! Same guy we met outside the hospital! It was actually very awkward because he still didn't want to talk to us, but I said "hi" and asked him how his little girl was doing. He responded briefly then ignored us......awkward..... But thankfully the Lord gives us more than one opportunity if we need it :) A few days ago we were following up with a potential investigator but they weren't home so we decided to tract the street. As we were near the end of our tracting we saw him, same guy, walking down the street. His name is Trevor, his little girl is fine and he does ninjitsu-basically he's a ninja :) He was super friendly and a lot more open, and said "there must be some reason I keep running into you."
This sounds like a crazy random incident but these things happen to us everyday on a mission. I know that it is true, that there are more miracles today, in our time, than there ever were before in the world. And that miracles only cease, when our belief ceases. These little things, they really are miracles. It is through small and simple things that great things are brought to pass.
I know as we continue to work hard, we will continue to see these miracles and bring the message of the restored gospel to these people so that they can make the saving covenants with their Father in Heaven that will bring them back to him.

-Sister Edmunds

These pictures were taken at Geelong Bay.

Christine currently lives in Geelong.

Pier at Geelong Bay

Jellyfish














Storm

They call these cars Utes in Australia. I believe we used to call them el camino's....

Kangaroos!

Elder Sa

And Lastly...Picture at Geelong Bay

This week I tried to get out a lot of pictures :)

This week has gone really well and we are super tired! we finally got our car back on Wednesday which was fortunate becuase we also had a mission fireside with Elder Pearson in Melbourne. Basically-we didn't have to take the train to Melbourne and caught a ride with Elder Guymon and Elder Sa.

The fireside with Elder Pearson was incredible. It was really what I needed at this time and I'm glad that I got to hear it at the begning of my mission and not at the end.

Wedenesday evening we met with a less active sister. The spirit was so strong and she said she would start coming back to church on sundays. We are going to meet with her again this week.

We have also worked harder on having members with us when we go to teach-one of the brothers in our ward-Brother Fields, was super excited to come and in a way, I feel like it was more for him than our investigator. It really does help strengthen the members when we have them help with missionary work and allows investigators to feel more comfortable at church becuase they already know someone.

On Saturday we had a ward picnic and our old investigators from Dandenong were coming to Geelong for the weekend and wanted to see us :) They came out to the picnic way out in the bush and had fun getting to know the members. Our ward made sure they were well fed and kept giving them food. Jas is always trying to watch what he eats but Neet tried everything-they are such a sweet family and I'm glad that we got to see them. They are stil being taught in Dandenong by Elder Putnam and Elder Bartle and the little boy Sam is really good about saying his prayers every night!

On another note-we saw kangaroos this week!!! yay!!! And hopefully my mom will be able to get the pics up so you can all see them. They were pretty cool.

-Sister Edmunds

A garden in Geelong.... just someones yard. Christine says they have the most beautiful gardens at the homes in Geelong. :)

Christine's current companion, Sister White.

















Christine's MTC companion.

Just arrived.... at the temple in Melbourne

MTC group going to Melbourne

Elders in the MTC

Christine's MTC district