Yay Summer!!

Happy first day of summer everyone! Actually the first day of summer here was yesterday. Too bad I'm serving in Toowoomba and so the first day of summer was actually freezing cold. I'm wearing a beanie today. Toowoomba has some really crazy weather. But I'm super grateful to be here because it's super hot and super humid in Brisbane and so it really is a blessing to get called to go to Toowoomba during the only summer I'll have of my mission. Although I might get transfered in the middle of summer and go from here where it's so nice to Brisbane and die, who knows! 

We have a car now! That makes us so happy to be able to use our car and not have to share between 8 of us. it will definitely make our work a bit more effective. 

We just got new neighbors recently and it has been so fun getting to know them. A single dad and his two sons Ryan and Harry who are 7 and 9. They are great and on Saturday morning it was pouring cats and dogs and we were wondering what we could do that might be more effective than tracting when Michael knocked on the door. He said they were short on volunteers down at this place where he works and wondered if we would come along and help. So we got to go and basically play soccer all morning with kids and young adults with mental and physical disabilities. It was so much fun! So that was cool. Other than that we are working on a lot of things right now, and we have such a great ward mission leader who wants to help us think outside the box to find people to bring into the gospel. It's crazy how my short 6 weeks in Lansing Michigan have really helped me so much on my mission, especially here in Toowoomba because it really is such a similar feel to the area I was in in Lansing. We taught a once a week Bible/Scripture study class in Michigan and we are going to start one of those up here starting next week. I really hope we can get at least a few people to show up to it. It was a great tool to get people into the church and we were able to give tours afterwards and also invite members to come that would be good to fellowship with those investigators that we knew were coming. So that is pretty exciting. We are also starting up an English study class here soon because there are heaps and heaps of immigrants here in Toowoomba. The Australian government sends all refugees from Sudan and Congo to live in Toowoomba for a year before they are allowed to move anywhere else. So there are big communities here of people from Africa and also a lot of Sri Lankan, Indian, Chinese, Korean, and lots of other people we meet all the time. So we hope our English study class will help us to get into contact with those groups of people. We are also starting to use the family history center more. So when someone comes in for the first time the family history consultants offer them a free tour of the building. And we have a few other little programs like that in the works as well. So things are definitely getting exciting and it feels good to be doing more things and getting out into the community more. 

Toowoomba is so Christian as well that the Christmas spirit is everywhere even though it doesn''t feel at all like Christmas to me. I'm happy to be spending it here. We will be able to skype home, but I'm not sure the day or time yet so I'll have to let you know next week. 

Well I hope no one is too cold over there and I hope my lovely people in Hawaii are loving the beach and the surf comps and the big waves for me. 

Much Aloha,

Sister Rasmussen