Planning a trip to Australia?

Australia is a wonderful place to visit. Here's a map to show all the wonderful locations in that wonderful land called Australia

Updates and New Pics

i want a t-shirt...


just a cool photo eh?


tai chi on the beach! beaut! we can't work out sunday mornings, so we walk on the beach


elder williamson the zl on exchanges


this is lori.. he is really funny bloke -(like that? i'm trying to sound aussie)

Things have been going really well. I went on exchanges this past weekend with Elder Williamson. I heard that he was quite a difficult Elder with which to work. I expected the worst and I actually had a good time with him. He is the Zone Leader. I am really trying to be as humble as I can, so I just told him that night, 'tell me the things I need to work on and don't sugar coat them' ... I hate when people do that... just tell them strait up ya know?! Anyways he told me some good things I can work on and I'm trying to get better. This transfer has flown by. it is the 6th week allready and transfers are next week. Elder Tupou thinks President is gonna throw me in deep water. I'm really worried. I'll at least learn how to swim!! or... to float. anyways, i'm thinking of gettinga tasmanian liscence?! It costs 25 bucks and they don't take my usa one... so then I like have proof that I lived in Tasmania?! Good suvanieer (spell check) maybe?! Um yeah, I have to stop wearing some of the ties I have. Pres. didn't like the really dull pink tie I wore to interviews... so I thought the almost glow in the dark orange one is not a good idea to wear. Maybe only on pdays. Yeah, well, other then that all is going well!

I'm almost in Antarctica!!

Here are some new pics from the recent transfer to Tazmania


The gospel must be preached to all creatures...

Presiding...Princess in charge with her two jesters

Scary, scary missionary


Beautiful Lighthouse

A single tree...

Some excerpts from the most recent letter...

Tasmania is awesome! This is what I kinda pictured my mission to look like. It is so beautiful! Things are really looking up. I think the members trust and love us because we have feeds every night. We had a really rough week this week, but are trying to move through it. We had Zone Conference this last week, I woke up with Pink Eye one morning, and have learned that I can actually run pretty fast. I am learning how to better communicate and am learning heaps! I sure love this....more to come later.

New Tricks

Check out the new tricks Elder Langston has learned....see, missions give you time to polish up your skills! Another letter from Abe...

"One guy we are teaching, David, is the coolest guy every! He is Mauir and is totally humble. He is a funny father too. His little boy (maybe 4 years old) was playing and started to cry. The dad was like, "shut it!" and then he started to doing it the way Austin Powers says to Dr. Evil to "zip it". He even lifted his shoe and acted like he was gonna throw it at him and then started saying stuff in Mauri. It was SO funny. We were dying laughing. The kid stopped crying! And those kids will be tough because they'll only cry when they're actually hurt and not just for attention.

David goes above and beyond every commitment we leave him. I asked him to read Moroni 10 and he instead read all of Moroni. I asked him to do three questions, and did the whole pamphlet we left him. He wants to be married and baptized on the same day! We are so excited. He also wants to be sealed. It would be so cool to be here when his family goes through the temple.

Other than that, Elder Langston tells us he isn't having trouble waking up on time. That was a worry for him before he left. He said he can get up at 6:30, walk around a little, and then sit and read the scriptures for an hour without falling asleep!! If we all could do that it would be a blessing!

Would you ride with this driver???

It's amazing they actually let some people drive....

Another week flies by...

Time really has started to fly by... it feels like yesterday I was writing you and it's already been a week! The mystique of the mission has worn off and now it's just hard work, to say it quite simply. It is way hard to get people to talk to you. Waking up at 630 is pretty hard, too.

We were tracting yesterday and it was my turn to knock on the door. It is weird here because all the doors are metal mesh, so you can't see the person unless they open the door. I hear this man's voice and I start up a conversation. He wasn't interested at all and didn't want any pamphlets, so I said, "Do you think infants would live with Satan if they die?" (Once I blurted it out, I thought to myself, "WHAT AM I DOING??!! This guy is gonna think I'm off my rocker!?")

Well, he said, "no, I don't." We later found out that his six year old son died years before and he actually did want to read the pamphlets we had. Who knows what will happen with that. I guess it is true that if you open your mouth, it will be filled.

Lessons Learned

One of the first letters from Elder Langston once he reached Melbourne....

"Thursday Elder Bednar came and talked with us. That was really good. Probably the biggest lesson I'll learn I learned right out of the gate from him, which is how to learn from the Spirit. Before I came out, I think I was trying to hard to be focused on sounding smart and packing my head with one-liners and all that stuff. I found that all of it comes together if you just do what you're supposed to and follow the Spirit all the time."

It's nice to hear he is learning something new each day.