Melbourne Pettys

Picked up our new car, Nan bought us a new fridge and stove, Vern and I had our forty-eighth birthdays, Nan headed home, we went for a drive to Canberra, Austin did his first Temple Baptisms, Ellen crashed the Mazda, we had our Stake Conference with Elder Tarati.

On Thursday the third I finished work early and I picked up the new car that Calvin and I picked out and our first trip was to the Temple with Nan, Vern, Ellen and Dylan. The next day was my birthday and Nan wanted to by us a new stove. Our stove was deemed unsafe some years ago but they are really expensive. We found one that was very reasonable so Nan decided to buy us another fridge as well. It was some birthday. Janet and Johnny came to my party that evening on their way to Mildura of all places.

For Family Home Evening Nan told us about how she and Gramps joined the Church. I was glad the children were able to hear it from her as she is the person responsible for me being in the church and if that didn’t happen I would not have married Vernice. They were able to hear first hand, part of their gospel history. The next day Nan headed back to New Zealand. Vern was working so Ellen took her to the airport. It was really nice to have her around, the house was very noisy and full of people at times but at least she could retreat to her upstairs hideaway.

For Vern’s birthday she wanted to go and visit her parents in Canberra. It was a good excuse to take the new car for a drive so on the Queen’s birthday weekend we headed up with Carmen and Austin. We left on Saturday the twelfth; it was the wet cold day and it had been wet and overcast for about two weeks. As we crossed over the Great Dividing Range it was sunny but still very cold. We (I) decided to take a bit of a detour after we past Wangaratta to check out Beechworth and Yackandandah since we hadn’t been there before. Beechworth is a lovely old gold mining town up in the hills and has many old buildings. It is a popular tourist town and as it was a long weekend was full of people. We stopped for lunch and after buying a scarf since it was so cold I bumped into a friend from work who was staying up there with his wife. He recommended the local bakery as it is one of the towns claim to fame. We took his advice and had some nice rolls and hot chocolate. It was very crowded but we managed to get a good table in the sun on their upstairs veranda.

It was dark by the time we arrived in Canberra

and we went around to Vern’s parents place in Narrabundah. They have a nice new house there that they share with Kella, Wally and Avery. We spent some time there then went around to Les and Moana’s place where we were staying. We watched the movie ‘Boy’. Church the next day was in the afternoon in Woden and afterwards we went around to Nana and Grampa’s place for a family get together with all the Howes and Abels. Carmen played her violin and Austin his clarinet for their items, I did a handstand.

Monday morning was minus two as I was driving around to get some milk. After saying our goodbyes we headed south for home. We stopped for a break in Gundagai and had a look at their old bridge and got a milk shake. Our next stop was in Wodonga at Vern’s auntie Ena’s place where she had made a nice lunch for us. It was nice to spend some time with Austin and Carmen, they had a good time with their cousins and the next day Robbie Abel got his mission call to Perth and will be in the same MTC class as Dylan in New Zealand. They are both pretty excited about that.

We had what is known as our first Stake week at the Temple the week leading up to our Stake Conference. We were supposed to fill most of the sessions and other things, it went pretty well. There were baptisms on the Tuesday Austin and Carmen went to. Vern and I went along to observe since it was Austin’s first time. Afterwards as we had some McDonalds he said that he liked it because he got to wear a onesy!.

Ellen had a little mishap in the Mazda. It was a very wet day and water had pooled on the floor of the underground car park at Doncaster shopping centre. She lost traction and slid into a concrete pole. The car was just drivable and she made it home with Vern following in the other car. As luck would have it Dylan is looking after a friend’s car for a couple of weeks while they are on holidays so we should be fine.

Elder T. Marama Tarati of the Seventy presided at our Stake Conference at the end of the month. He is from Tahiti and speaks French; he only started learning English five years ago when he was called as a mission President. He was very good and gave some excellent talks and council. It was good for some of our Samoan and Chinese members to see that language shouldn’t hold you back.