20

Hello everybody! This has been another one of those weeks :) Thursday-Saturday, we had a Cyclone!

It was really cool. Cyclone Norella was a Category 4 storm that formed north of Australia, and started heading down the coast. It wasn't a direct hit on Karratha by any means, but we saw the edges! Elder Richmond and I were tracting on the far end of our area, most of the day on Friday. Very very windy. And then it rained. Oh my, did it rain. And they all laughed when I brought my rain jacket! (except I left my rain jacket back at home that day, so it wasn't much good.) Karratha has no drainage system, so all the water just stays on the streets. When cars drive by, we got splashed. Elder Richmond and I even went swimming in the ocean! (Not really, the cyclone brought the ocean raining down on us. Seriously.) Brother Clarke loves to track them as they go by, and kept us updated on whether or not it would become serious.

I got the worst sunburn during all that rain. Can't figure out how...

It was beautiful weather outside, other than that! The rain really cooled things down for a few days.

Other than that, It's been a pretty normal week. Elder Richmond and I are starting to hit a wall. Right now, we've got 2 investigators we're teaching. The Tupou's finished moving away Saturday. They've started meeting with the missionaries in Sydney, so that's good, at least. As for us, we're spending most of our daytime hours knocking on doors that were knocked on a few months ago. When we follow up on potentials, they seem to keep falling through. *sigh* This is another part of missionary work, I suppose. A hard part. We're trying to stay focused, keeping diligent, finding ways to work, etc. A couple of members in the branch might have referrals for us, so...

Optimism! that's the key :) And perseverance.

Hey! I'm 20! What a surprise! We'd told a couple people in the branch, but they forgot. Oh well. Elder Richmond and I decided to make a cake for it. So, we got our cake mix all mixed up, and then tried to start the oven, which runs on gas. Nothing happens. Tried the stove, same thing. Our flat is connected to two big tanks out the back. Turns out that the first was empty. And the spare was empty too. So we had ice cream instead. And hopefully they'll send a new tank for us soon. What a birthday XD Oh, and then President Lindsay and family called and sang :)

And that's pretty much my week. Supposedly there's another cyclone forming up north, which would be cool.

Seriously, that last one was awesome, I don't care what everyone here thought (it was lame?).

Hope you're all well, and enjoying the >2 Feet of Snow! Lucky.

Love,

Elder Reeder