Finishing out December!

This was at the Ward Christmas party.  One of the gals got a cute bow as a gift and used Elder Harper as the model.............Not sure he was so happy about me taking his picture or posting it in the blog :)

Emma gave all of the Elders Christmas ties alike.  Do you think they like them?  What a hoot!

Elder Harper surprised me with a VERY cool Christmas gift.  We had seen this Lladro figurine of the missionaries over in Carlingford and had been looking at it since getting to Australia.  Thought we'd pick it up upon the completion of our mission to bring home as our souvenir.  Instead, he surprised me with it for Christmas.  Love it!

Elder Harper was helping Sister Kim print some pictures for the fun Christmas gift that our District was giving President and Sister Simmons for Christmas.  Sister Kim is in her authentic Korean dress.  This is on Christmas day.

The Sister Missionaries from our District, Sister Du and Sister Kim were at our home for Christmas, along with the President's assistants, Elder Worthen and Elder Hunstman for a great turkey dinner.  Had a wonderful day with them.  Wasn't the same, though, as being home with our family :)

The book for President and Sister Simmons was finally completed on Christmas night, thanks to these 3 young women.  The book was a replica of the Golden Plates and "The Harbour Beaches" is our Zone area.  It turned out beautiful.  A lot of cutting, pasting, and time was put in for a wonderful result in the end!

Elder Harper is always such a good sport in the games we play at FHE.  The lipstick game definitely was a fun game and of course, Elder Harper kept making mistakes and got a lipstick dot every time he "screwed up."  Needless to say, he was the guy with the most dots!  What a fun evening!  (Oh, and I got to paint the dots!)

On New Years Eve several of the students came to our home to make Chinese food for us.  Here we are making dumplings.  Quite the little skill to make them!  Filled with a meat mixture....dampened with water around the edge and folded uniquely to make different patterns in the dumplings.  They are put in boiling water to cook.  Quite the challenge to learn to eat Chinese food, but I can do it because they are willing to eat American food!

The Elders are waiting patiently for the food to be put on the table.........do they really look patient?

Well, the final result was a table full of wonderful Chinese food.  Great food........great company.  Turned out to be a wonderful day!

Spent some quiet time with Emma, Georgina, Reggie and Elaine after the party.  Reggie will be going back to China this week to start her career after graduating from the Uni here in Sydney.  We will really miss her!

In the courtyard at the church.  This was taken the Sunday before Reggie left for China.

Pictures taken at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney on January 2nd.  Official New Year's day in Sydney.  Just a little crowded at the Zoo that day, but we had great fun.  You can see the fantastic view in the background of Sydney and the Opera House.

Sister Eivers is one of the older members of our Ward here.  We've been over to visit her a couple of times.  Such a sweet lady.....and quite the character.  Insisted on feeding us dinner when we were there this time.  She hadn't been to church for about 2 months.  We hadn't met her until December.  She fell off of a ladder in her back yard.  No one found her for a couple of hours.  She was unconscious.  Really, really was injured and is finally back on her feet and doing better.

Our Zone meeting is held about every 6 weeks.  Everyone is in this picture, except the Byrams who were taking friends back to the airport the day of this picture.  Great district and lots of baptisms and success happening in our area.  Great missionaries to work with!

We had a Zone P-day that was held at our apartment.  We had lots of fun playing games and eating wonderful food that Sister Simmons prepared and brought over.  All in all, the funnest P-day we've had since arriving in Sydney!

Newest member to our ward.  Georgina was just baptised on January 17th.    She has been investigating the church for a couple of months.  She told us the very first time we took her home from an FHE, that it was the most wonderful time she had had since arriving in Sydney 2 years ago.  She is enjoying her new church family here in Sydney!

Life here in Sydney is very hectic and busy.  Sundays are always a very busy day for us.  We have been working on ward records this week and completing sheets with all of the Chinese students with pictures.  We will be distributing them to not only the Bishopric and auxiliaries, but probably to the ward members, as well.


We had ward members over here for dinner tonight.  We have the Fleet Missionaries and Assistant Missionaries here tomorrow night, after going to Windsor in the morning to see the sand sculptures.  We've been told that they're really unique and beautiful.


Sunday will be a very busy day.  We will be leaving for church at 9:00.  Will get home about 2:00.  Ward missionary meeting here at 3:00.  Then have 20 of the Chinese coming at 5:00 for a movie and eating.  WOW!  I think I'm tired just thinking about it!  Thank heavens we have a P-day on Monday.  The only thing is they're coming over here again at 1:00 to have dinner together that day.  No wonder Elder Harper and I are gaining wait.  Just got to quit having so many parties!!!


Gonna check off and go to bed.  Big weekend!  Hugs to everybody.  May 2012 be a special year for each one of you.  We sure love you and miss you! 


Elder & Sister Harper

Tis the Season

Wow!  It's been a whirlwind month and a half since I wrote on the blog.  Where does the time go?  Things have been going well......and staying busy!  A lot of the students are going back to China for the Chinese New Year.  They have a break from school until the end of February, so it's slower than usual here. 

We spent a P-day over in Sydney with some of the students.  Went to the small zoo by the Opera House. The 4 Elders in our district and 2 of the members were with us for the day.  Great time.......great food!  This is Elder Ding and Elder Yow, along with Emma, a new member of two months.

I'm not sure how Elder Harper had the "guts" to do this.  I can't even look at a snake, let alone let it  move around my neck!  Yuk!

This picture was taken at our Thanksgiving dinner.  Not sure why just the women got their picture taken....the men must have been in the kitchen doing dishes!  It was an especial fun dinner, because we had it on my birthday, November 21st.  I got to cook the turkey, and I must admit it was probably the best turkey I've ever cooked.  Sister Simmons said that she had never tasted better turkey in her entire life!

We thought we had the Elders and 2 investigators coming for dinner.  This was the night after my birthday.  They surprised us with a fun birthday cake and 16 people there.  It was like manna from heaven because I had planned on only 8 people.  The food stretched and we had a wonder time together.





 Elder Harper gave me tickets to the Merry Widow ballet at the Opera House for my birthday.  On the way over there, this tin man was sitting on a stool.  Of course they're sitting there like a statue....and they don't move.  BUT when Elder Harper put a coin in his box, he jumped up to have his picture taken with him.   Fun picture.  It was a wonderful night.  The ballet was spectacular!

Australia starts their Christmas lights the first part of November.  As we were going back to catch the train after the ballet, this beautiful tree was across the street.  Strange here with Christmas......the malls are all decorated, and of course everyone shops a lot!  But you hardly see any Christmas trees anywhere except in the malls.  Very few homes have trees.  I think we probably saw about 3 houses with lights on them the entire Christmas season!

This picture was taken at Danny and Sophie's baptism.  They had lived together.  Separated so they could get baptized.  And then got married.  This picture includes the 2 Sr. Couples, and the 4 Elders, along with the 2 Sisters in the middle, who were responsible for this couple getting baptized.

We were able to take the 2 Sisters with us to the Blue Mountains for a P-day.  This picture is taken by the "Three Sisters" behind us.  It was quite cool this Monday.  The Sisters had prayed that it wouldn't rain.  AND IT DIDN'T!

We got our picnic food out to eat right by where we had taken the train down the steep hill to walk through the rain forest.  When we got back from that long walk and took the tram across the hill and saw the gorgeous waterfall that falls forever into a beautiful pond below, then we ate.  It started getting cooler with the wind blowing so we decided to head to the hill.  Low and behold........it started raining!  We definitely wore the Sisters out....they slept all the way back, which was about 1 1/2 hours.

Because it was so cool, Sister Du on the back went in the gift shop and bought herself a hat.  What fun Sisters and what an opportunity to work with them.  They have such beautiful spirits and we get to have them in about every week in our home with their investigators.  So sad that Sister Kim got transferred the day after Christmas.

Elder Harper and I got to serve at the Art Exhibit on the temple grounds twice during the Christmas holiday.  There were 34 pictures in the exhibit.  They had 8,000 come to the exhibit last year.  I haven't heard the official count this year.


They had a beautiful display outside with live size nativity pieces.  And the lights were a "mini" temple square.  Very beautiful.  Drew a lot of people to the area.

This was Elder Byram's 70th birthday party.  It was a great party!

Sister Kim is such a talented artist.  She is from Korea.  She made this special card for Elder Byram's 70th birthday.  It stood up with the missionaries as sheep.  They were made with cotton balls.  Notice Elder Yow in Sister Byram's arms.  He just got out of the hospital from having his ruptured appendix out.  That's why there's a bandaid on his stomach!  And Elder Harper and I are off to the right.  Darling card!  She is so talented!

Elder Hume chose to spend his last day with us at our flat.  It was such a special treat for us.  He is in the center (the tall one).  He and Elder Chan (2nd from the right) went to the city (Sydney) with us and we saw where the Sr. couples teach English in the city.  We also saw the Family History center there.  We then came back to our home and had dinner at 1:00.  He had picked some of the special members that he had baptized.  We took him back over to the Mission Home and was in one of the worst rainstorms we have ever seen in our lives.  It took us 1 1/2 hours to get over there and back.  WOW!  Hope that never happens again.  It was scary!!!


I'm going to stop with this information, because we must rush off to FHE with the students.  Will post again real soon so you can see some of the other things we did in December.  


Sure miss all of you and think about you lots!  Hope you have a wonderful New Year.  We love you all!  Hugs,  The Harpers