January was an extra wonderful month because Alyce and Eric, Arlandria, Capri, Hartlyn and Culver came to visit with us. They arrived on the 10th and left on the 22nd. We had such a lovely time together. They arrived at 10.15pm so it was a late night for them. On their first full day here, we went to Cuddly Farm and the children loved holding the guinea pigs, had a pony ride etc. After Cuddly Farm we went to the Chocolate Factory, Pompei Pizza and played a game together. We went to Fremantle the next day and then to a baptism of a lovely lady named Tina. We visited a missionary, Elder Orbeck from Tahiti who is not well and suffering homesickness and had only been out a week. He ended up going to the hospital to have blood tests and a CT scan but they could found nothing wrong with him. Homesickness is a difficult struggle for some missionaries.
Elder and Sister Olson arrived on the 14th, our great new office couple. They are from the US. During the 12 days with Alyce and Eric and children we also went to Adventure world, Scarborough beach and the movies. It was so hard saying goodbye. Alyce is 35 weeks pregnant and doing well.
We had followup training with the most recently missionaries and their companions: Sister Hoy, Sister Campbell, Sister Hanson, Elder Smith, Elder Jones, Elder Loto, and Elder Pongsakon who is continuing his training with Elder Brown.
We had Zone Conferences at the end of the month, beginning 29th. We focused on planning, finding and teaching. Paul spoke about being a consecrated missionary, the Assistants focused on planning, the Zone Leaders on Finding and I spoke on teaching. It was also lovely to have Leesa and Lawrence Walsh for dinner, the wonderful new members who were baptized recently. We had gone to their home to help teach when Sister Johnson and Sister Walker taught them. We are so grateful to part of this great work.
