Fauna, Flora, Christmas Prep, Snowmen and Mission Tour

 A lot was going on this week.  I was excited to see this bird this week--I looked it up and it's a Crested Pigeon!  The Australia fauna and flora continue to amaze me!  So much beauty!

We bought a small Christmas tree at Ikea and after Thanksgiving we set it up! Notice how green it is outside!   I keep a wreath on the door too and just change the motif with the season.  This is the Christmas version then we'll go straight to a summer wreath!

                 

                               

Our son, Tyler, and his family are in Utah visiting and then went down to New Mexico with Laura for Thanksgiving.  They dashed down to Ramah to visit Grammy Bond and had a great time.  They are back in Utah with Kris and her family and woke up to snow this morning!  This is how fun my family is:

Tyler's girls are loving the snow since they live in Hawaii!  Naya can now say "snow"! I love this bunch of crazies!

Today started our Mission Tour.  Elder Jaggi, second counselor in the Pacific Area Presidency, is here with his wife to tour the mission for 3 days.  We heard both of them speak when we were at the MTC so we were excited to see them again.  I've been feeling everyone else's anxiety about the tour but have had no anxiety of my own.  Our mission is so large, all of Queensland, that there is a lot of flying involved which means a lot of coordinating.  Elder Jaggi also is holding an All Mission Zoom each day so we are all going to be busy.  Elder Jeff and Pam Gibson are coming down from Emerald to stay with us for the mission tour.  They are closer to Brisbane than Caines, the other center of the tour, so they will attend here.  All the senior couples are lodging the northern couples for the tour so we will all have company.  Before church today, the mission held a Mission Leadership Council at our ward building, Chermside, and then they all attended church with us.  This included our mission leaders, the Jaggis, all the Zone Leaders, STLs (Sister Training Leaders), the APs and the Office Elders.  It was great to be in church together.

Well, we went to the airport last night to pick up missionaries, Tim went to the airport today to drop missionaries off, we go to the airport tomorrow at 1:45 to pick up the Gibsons who are staying with us, and then again at 5:00 to pick up missionaries coming back down and then we go to the airport again on Wednesday to drop off the Gibsons who will be flying home!  Phew!  I'm tired just thinking about it. ;D

Love you and think of you all often.  May God bless all of you in your varied endeavors.