Rain, Ducks, and Dinosaurs?

Hey Family,

Well the Lord does hear and answer prayers ~ we had a rain storm come through which cooled everything down for most of the week.  The heat has started to come back but it is getting closer to summer here so that is expected. 

We have had a pretty slow week on the finding front. We have found a couple of potientials and hope to be able to go back and teach them a lesson early this week. We visited a lot of less actives and members this week. It was really nice to be able to get to know the members a lot better. A lot of the older generation in the ward are converts themselves and have shared their amazing conversion staries with us. 

Last night Elder and Sister Comb, the senior couple missionaries serving in our area had us over for dinner. It was a great meal and was really nice to be able to get to know them. They are from Canada but Elder Comb is originally from Perth. 

After dinner we went to a really cool park to do some contacting. Sadly nobody was interested in our message we had to share but we had a great time. 

Just feeding the ducks

 Hello from your favorite Elder

 I did some duck hunting ~ I shot them with the camera!

 Taking a nap?

I just wanted to share my message….I'm Sorry!

 Ride'm Cowboy!

We dropped Elder Tafilipepe off Wednesday and picked up Elder Maughn. At transfers I was able to see a couple of people I came in with that I have not seen since so that was nice to be able to talk to them. Sorry my week was so boring I hope yours was not as boring as mine. 

I love you all and have a great week!

Love,

Elder Leatherow

This past week Elder Leatherow hit his 3 month mark!

Thank you Darbie for the wonderful countdown photos!  Keep them coming.

Transfer #2

Hey Family,

Well to sum up this week all I can say is "where did it go?" I don't feel like it should be Monday already but I'm happy it is. 

The baptism for Arol was changed about 3 or 4 times before we finally drew the line with  it and set it for 10:30 Saturday morning. It was a great baptism and the other ward that uses the building had a child of record baptism a half an hour before so they invited us to their lunch and we all had a great time. Arol was confirmed the next day in sacrament and given the Aaronic Priesthood in Priesthood meeting. 

Elder Kay and I were blessed to be in a three way companionship for a couple days. Elder Nuku's companion had an accident and had to have surgery and be on bed rest for a couple days so Elder Nuku came with us. Don't worry his companion has made a full recovery and they are both back to work in their area. 

Elder Nuku and Elder Lafo'ou got my camera.

We had district meeting Tuesday. Its was Sister Rechter's last one. By the way Sister Rechter is my missionary "mom" (that means she was the sister in the district who had been out the longest when I came in. For her last district meeting we had a huge feast after. We all made some dishes and brought them to share. We had a great time and I had a great feast. I better be carful though or else I'm going to start putting on some kilos. 

Last of all the transfer calls!!! ................ Elder Leatherow....... Will be staying in Girrawheen with Elder Kay for at least one more transfer. We only had two changes in our district one we expected due to Sister Rechter going home but Elder Tafilipepe leaving was totally unexpected. President Fife has said he wants to keep missionaries in an area for a long time so I don't expect to be transferred anytime soon. 

Well that wraps up my week. 

Hopefully I will have more time this week or at least feel like I have more time in the week.

Love,

Elder Leatherow 
A few photos of the week:
Its so hot and we can't afford real hats so we make our own.  For real it got up to 40 degrees C!  (104 degrees F)

The Balajura District!

A member gave us some prawns (giant Shrimp) to cook up!

MOM:  I would have loved to taste those!
C: For me to prepare them and tolerate the smell was a small feat!  But I conquered it
DAD:  How many did they give you?
C: A lot ~ about 2 kilos!

Elder Kay was a little sick and Brother Reeday was taking no chances! It was hilarious!

Finally had my first meat pie down here!

MOM:  How is the ketchup in the land down under:
C: was weird at first but I am used to it now.

Colton has found a new obsession/addiction ~ he LOVES clothes, dress clothes to be exact!  He is having a great time!  

Roller Coaster Week

Hey Family,

Well this week was a roller coaster it started off pretty horrible.............. While we were at a members house Monday evening for family home evening our car got broken into. I was on splitz and the other missionary left his wallet on the back seat so someone decided they would like to have it so they broke the back window to get into the car. This meant I had a long night of phone calls and paper work. There is a lot of paper work to do when the a car gets damaged that the church owns. It took me about three days to get everything finally done and taken care of. But its all fixed and everything now so its all good. I felt really bad because this was the first time these members had missionaries over in a very long time and they were horrified that our car was broken into. I hope it does not cause them to not want to work with us missionaries. 

But on a better note I was able to see my whole zone at Zone meeting and catch up with them and receive some training. 

I had the opportunity to teach Arol a couple of times this last week and he is super excited to be baptized. We had to move his date up by one day to Friday because the stake has activities all Saturday and my Bishop does not want to interfere with them. When we told Arol he was super excited to be baptized a day sooner. We realized this week though that after Arol we really do not have anyone else progressing........ We decided to do some serious finding this coming week to get our teaching pool back up. We went to a less actives house for a lesson and we showed up and he had his friend over who is not a member. We were playing it cool but the less active right off the bat says "lets fill up the bath tub and dunk him" The guy was really confused but we were able to work through it and hopefully we will be able to meet with him again. 

We got a new ward mission leader in the ward I'm in. He is really nice and ready to get to work. I am excited to be able to work with him and see the success we can have by working with him. 

Well that my week basically ~ cars getting smashed into and teaching and meeting some amazing people over here in the land down under.

Love,

Elder Leatherow

I had to pay for my own pizza

Thank you for my package and THANK YOU Celeste for the new ties!

Have a great week.  Love you all.

Zone P-Day and Kangaroos

Hey Family,

Sorry this is really late but I had a Zone P-Day out in the country in a place called Ellenbrooke. We went hiking as a zone  then had a huge BBQ at a members house. 

 The Dianella Zone

 He was swimming but not swimming because we are not allowed to;)

This week has been really good. We had a Halloween party at the chapel and we were asked to come help with it. It was really fun to be able to see all the customs. 

Arol my investigator preparing for baptism is doing great and I am so happy to see him start to make friends in the YSA. Friends in the ward will make the adjustment for him much easier and will help him with the social conversion. It has been amazing to me to see how much the Lord has prepared him for this and to see him truly accept the gospel.  We have been blessed in my area to bee able to find more people but it seems more like they find us more than we find them. We were walking down the road the other day and a lady pulled over and asked us if we covered a certain road. We said yes and she said great my house number is... you need to stop by and visit me please. WOW! That's amazing! My area is amazing and I'm crossing my fingers that with transfers coming up I will stay in my area. usually over here you don't stay long in one area but President Fife seems to be changing that so I hope I can stay. 

We celebrated Elder Lafo'ou's Birthday this week as well so that was really fun to be able to spend it with him. I was actually on exchanges with him on his birthday. A really nice family in the ward took us out to dinner for his birthday. I was extremely thankful because I did not know what to make him for his birthday to be able to set it apart from the other days. 

Sorry I know this is short but I hope the photos make up for the shortness. 

I love you guys and I hope you all have a great week. 

Let me know if I can do anything to help any of you.

Love,

Elder Leatherow

I finally saw some kangaroos!

One of the investigators had this hanging up..... I got a kick out of it