March 25, 2012
I have finally been transferred. Before my mission I thought it would be horrible to spend 6 months in one area and now that I have done it I see that the hardest part is leaving. Geelong was my home and I loved it and the people there.
I am now in a place called Wonthaggi (aboriginal for 'wind and rain'). Where is Wonthaggi......exactly. Google it.
Our area is huge and pretty out bush but it is also very beautiful from what I have seen so far. Despite how large it is Sister Peter and I have been walking everywhere. They doubled us in and so we have been finding for the last week.
It's strange. My new companion and I couldn't look any different but personality wise she is more like me than any companion I have yet had. It works really well. She is from Vanauatu and this is her last 6 weeks. She is awesome.
When we go running in the morning we see kangaroos in the fields across the street. yup. They are the deer of Australia. I will have to send pictures of Kookaburras and Galaws and all the parrots they have in Australia at some point. They are everywhere and you get used to them. Some very lovely birds.
The people in Wonthaggi are nice. Very Australian, so most of them have little religious background at all.
It's lovely. I miss Geelong but could not be in a better place or with a better companion right now. We like to get out and get it done.
We have been able to do some impromptu service while we have been out tracting this week as well. Including helping a man named Dennis fill in a ditch in his driveway.....in our pros.
All good, and we are good getting around out here because one of the Elders going to Tazzie let me borrow his GPS while he's there. Thankfully, because there is no map for our area and it is massive.
Love you all heaps and will write when I can. I intend to put some lovely pictures on here of Wonthaggi and Geelong, and as my mother and father used to say, "Good intentions are like crying children......they should be carried out".

-Sister Edmunds

February 19, 2012

Sorry I have been slack about the blog, and I can't quite remember where I left off so I will just give an update of recent events.

We had another transfer on February 5th. Transfer meeting was Tuesday the 7th. We live a fair bit away from the Maroondah Stake Centre so we left our area (in Geelong) quite early. To make what could be a very long story very short, Sister White got transferred to Lynbrook and I am training a new missionary (Sister Harkness) in Geelong. She is an awesome missionary and works very hard. She also has heaps of good ideas for this area to help the ward. Geelong is the largest ward in Australia so it is quite a project to get everything together.

We also had a Zone Conference this last Wednesday (15/2/12) with the Deer Park and Wyndham Stakes (I'm in the Wyndham Stake) and Elder Watson of the 70, and his wife came and did the training. It was on the Doctrine of the Father. Very, very good :) He said that we truly need to understand our divine potential as heirs to the Kingdom of God and that will help us become more fully converted. Missionaries should not go home and become inactive members of the church if they truly understand the doctrines that they are teaching on a daily basis. He's right. How can we teach people about their potential as children of God and yet not realize it ourselves a few months later.

We had lunch at the Deer Park ward as well. Just as a side note..... the Deer Park ward has a Tongan ward as well and it was the Tongan ward that provided our lunches. Wow. I will post a picture later. They had a whole pig, and a basket of fruit the size of a small bathtub. And heaps of food in addition to that. They fed us more than we got at Christmas :)

It was crazy as. Sister Harkness and I sat next to Elder and Sister Watson and got to talk to them for a bit. They are lovely people.

That's about it for now, Sister Harkness and I found 9 more people to teach this week and we will start working with them as soon as possible :)

-Sister Edmunds