Australia: Part 2

Since my last post I've had some pretty great experiences, I really do love this place. I always knew that Australia had some great wildlife but I didn't fully realize it until being down here and hearing about everything they have. Did you know there is a huge population of exotic birds down here. I think Australia has the most parakeets anywhere in the world, also there are cockatoos everywhere, it is so cool to see them flying through the trees. My friend down here said they get dozens in their yard some mornings. Fantastic!

Sunday was a great, relaxing day. I was able to spend the entire day with an old mission friend of mine, Alex Booth. He and his wife have been super hospitable this last week, they've made the trip so much better. I went to church with them and then hung out with them and their families the rest of the day as well as all day Monday. I am happy to report that the Church is the same here in Australia, although I did discover they are doing their tithing settlements right now as opposed to at the end of the year; I was super surprised when I found that out. A couple other things about Church, a guy in the ward gave a great talk in sacrament meeting, then afterward the bishop got up to talk and he informed the congregation that he had asked the brother to speak right before sacrament meeting started, no actually the guy volunteered to speak when he heard that the people who were supposed to speak didn't come. I was super impressed with him, not only for volunteering and giving a solid talk, but for not calling the Bishop out for giving him such short notice. It was very refreshing to not hear someone say, "when I was getting ready for bed last night the First Counselor called me ....", I'm glad he just gave the talk and didn't call unnecessary attention to himself, (I have been guilty of that at times and need to do better). In Gospel doctrine (taught by the same guy actually) I learned the story about Jonathan and his armor bearer found in 1 Samuel 14:6-15. What an amazing story of faith and courage, I am slightly embarrassed that I didn't remember that story. Monday was a great day; I went to the Healsville Sanctuary, it is essentially a zoo with only animals native to Australia. I saw some pretty cool animals; it was here that I started to realize the amazing heritage of wildlife that


Australia has. Some of the animals that I saw are:

Tasmanian Devils (way smaller than I thought, and a marsupial, meaning they carry their young in pouches like kangaroos, their gestation period is 3 weeks, wouldn't that be nice. But then the baby grows in the pouch for another couple months before it comes out.)
Platypus (I couldn't get a good picture of this because the cages were so dark seeing how they are nocturnal animals)
Kangaroo (these animals were so overfed, the workers would hand out pieces of carrots to anyone who wanted to feed the kangaroos, but those animals were so full that they couldn't care less about eating a piece of carrot.)

Emus (not that big of a deal for me because we used to raise them)
Brown Snake (most venomous in the world, but rather plain looking so I didn't post a picture of it)

Shingleback lizard (the tail looks like the head)
Frilled neck lizard (possibly the coolest lizard ever, and super expensive to buy in the States, hundreds of dollars)

Wombat (I didn't get a good picture of this)

Koalas

Echidna (I had no idea what these were until Monday)

Lyre bird ( a pheasant looking bird, it can mimic almost any sound, including drills, cars starting, etc. The pic I got wasn't all that great.)

Tree monitor (Alex said on campouts they would chase these lizards, and they aren't small, maybe six feet long, Australia has more monitor lizard species than the rest of the world combined.)

Bearded Dragon (I didn't take a picture of one because seeing one in a cage isn't a big deal because I had one for a while, but that they are wild in Australia is awesome)

Dingoes (a lot smaller than I expected, they walked two of them right by me, when I asked if I could pet them the trainer said I wouldn't want to because they had just been rolling in wombat manure, like I would let that stop me from petting a dingo. Unfortunately she kept walking really fast and didn't let me give a rebuttal.)
The area we visited that day was quite beautiful, it is called Yarra Valley. It is known for its wineries, not very appealing to me but the scenery was fantastic. Below is just a sampling of the area.
It was a great day, and a great thing about it was it was a national holiday here in Australia (the Queen's birthday) so I got an extra day off this year. My boss didn't realize there was a three-day weekend between the two weeks he planned on having me here, all well.

More to come, I love it here but I have never been more excited to come home from a trip, I miss my wife so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so (I think you get the picture) bad.