June 13th, I met 2 friends from New York in Carlisle.

I went with them north and spent the

evening/night with a friend there. Tuesday, I spent
the day with Betzi going out for brunch at a
amazing cute little café, swimming in a lake (which
was way too cold so it didn’t last long ), ice-
cream, and best of all just sitting around talking!!!
That evening I spent the night at Lawrence and
Carolyn Martin’s, we spent part of the evening
making sure everyone’s paper work, visas, dpd
forms and all matched… and hoped we had
everything we needed. Wednesday, we loaded up
everybody and all their luggage, and were FINALLY bound for AUSTRALIA. We had a layover in LA
California, which lasted almost 3 hrs. longer than it was
supposed to. In
the final check
before we could
board, they
found a dent on
the one wing….
We finally landed
in Sydney airport
around 10 AM
Friday morning.
Stacy (the youth girl from AU) came in with
↑ my traveling group in front of DELTA airplanes ↑ her Ute (pick-up truck) to pick up another girl
that was flying in from Tasmania and she had room for two of us girls so Geneva and I went with her and
took all the luggage. The rest of the took the train… It’s a 5 ½ -6 hr. drive from the airport to the church
area so after you feel like you are finally there, you still have a way to go
I stayed at Lowell and Twila Diller’s with Michaela Holbrook. We got along great, both late to
bed, and waited to the last minute to get up also many a night was spent sitting in the living room by
the fire with our bibles, papers, and notebooks “studying” while eating the snack Twila so kindly let on
the table for us….
So, backing up a bit to Saturday, all of us youth
were at Dave’s we marked lambs in the morning, after
lunch we girls went
around and filled all
the hay feeders in the
sheep paddocks then
we joined the boys
out in one paddock
cutting up trees for
firewood. And of
course, on the way up the hill to the gate between
paddocks we hit a rock and slit the one tire… thankfully
we were close enough to the boys that we could holler to them and they came and helped fix it…
 Sunday morning started the week of Bible
Study. We then had classes Monday-Friday. The
morning started at 9. Around 4:30 we split up for
our supper group. Evening church was at 7… We
had a 15 min break in the morning and afternoon
that usually was playing Spike Ball and then a half
hr. after lunch that was V-ball…. But of course, the
classes topped all and were amazing and full of
inspirations to put to practice now that we’re home
and back to the daily life…. May we all be finding
fulfillment where God has placed each of us…

The church property has a lemon tree and

they were just getting ripe… nothing quite
like fresh picked lemons!!!

And of course, I loved the little

people… Sadly I didn’t get a pic of
the Diller girls to add here since they
are so dear and didn’t want me to
leave… Rosie, Genessa, Valerie, and
Danielle. Valerie is 3 and will talk
three miles a minute if you only
listen she loved it the one
evening when she sat with me in
church, and her sisters were
jealous…

Brett Charlton Kierra and Jalissa Martin

Saturday after we
finished recording, we
had a work afternoon
cleaning up the church
property… most of the
men from church came
and helped…
Us girls weeded all the
flower beds and then
helped the boys with
pulling apart an old shelter that was in the corner of the one yard…
The boys also pulled out the fence posts that surrounded the yard and
we made a huge
burn pile and a
scrap metal pile to
be hauled away at
some point.
Darnell had a huge
pile of firewood
that needed split
and they left for
the states a few days after we all did so some boys worked at
that the whole time to get it done so he wouldn’t have to worry about it…

The Bible School officially ended Sunday

evening and that was the last night I was at
Lowell the next two nights I went over to
the one house on the church property
where the other girls were staying…
Monday morning, I finally had time to sit
down with Twila and just talk… We both
were glad to get to know each other on an
adult basis. She would’ve been my first-
third grade teacher and of course we wished we would’ve had more time than what we had but our
day was planned full. Once all of girls got to Dave’s one of the boys sheared two sheep so we could
watch and then we 6 girls took the ute out to the back paddock and picked up rocks… We did 4 loads full
and were going to call it a day when the 4 boys showed up…
we
welcomed
their help
and
together
we did
another 4
loads!!!
Us girls went back to the house and decided we still
had time to go Kangaroo spotting before it got
terribly dark and so we headed out to a hilly, rocky
paddock where there are always kangaroos and sure
enough, we chased out a whole herd of them…

All the youth and the one young married couple

went into Orange (a town about an hr. away) for
supper that evening… We went to Lone Star which is
similar to Longhorn Steak House here in the states.

Us girls loved the lights strung across the street and

couldn’t leave them just as a memory so we took a picture on
main street as cars were zooming by
Tuesday was the last day we were there and we girls
all went into Orange again in the morning for shopping and
coffee at a cute little café.
Wednesday, we left for the airport at 4 in the morning
and finally we arrived in New York, at Lawrences 12:45
Thursday morning (2 Thursday afternoon AU time) … us girls
didn’t even feel that tired when we made it to bed around 2, until we laid down and relaxed then we
were out. Betzi picked me up then around 10 and she brought me home!
It was amazing how at home I felt in Australia, being so far from home… We all wished we
would’ve had more time there but, we can only be away from our jobs so long… So hopefully I can visit
again!