Mooloolaba, Nambour, Brisbane, Kawana Waters..... Queensland visit

Video taken on Mooloolaba Beach, very hot and humid

We rented a car and headed to Queensland for a week. The drive takes about 10 or so hours. We decide to stop in Coff's Harbour along the way. The drive is beautiful and we see lots of little towns and listen to music and eat all sorts of pastries.
Our mission is to meet with Family History Advisors to present the new Roots Tech Family Discovery Day kits we have been working on and to visit as many Family History Centres as possible. We visited about 10 of them and it never ceases to amaze us how lovely the people are and dedicated they are to being directors and helping others.
We also had some friends living in Mooloolaba and we went to church with them and had a good visit for the rest of the day and the next morning before heading back to Sydney. We again split the trip and stopped at Armidale and visited some senior missionaries (Elder and Sis. Hokanson)there who are helping members do family history. It is a small branch and very cute building.

Josephine and David Dunmow. Dad grew up with David in Elizabeth and Josephine and I were friends when she joined church as teenager. Dad was their best man at their wedding while I attended BYU.

This is a typical pic of Dad helping a Family History Director find her way around family search or reporting portal

There is a beautiful hike (not that we did it!) behind Manly beach on a cliff. Great little cafe for chips.

YSA Convention

Our hotel was across the road from the beach. I walked out there briefly to see what looked like lots of kites flying. On closer look I saw that there were guys on surfboards attached.
At the end of December, there was a YSA convention held in Narrabeen about an hour or so north of Sydney. 500 YSAs from around Australia attended. At the same time another 500 attended a YSA convention held in Perth.
Family History office was asked to participate in the convention. We joined forces with Self-Reliance missionaries and tried to make the space inviting... one that might attract young YSAs when they had many other activities to choose from.
All in all it went better than we anticipated and the room was full for the two hours of each of three days that we held the event.
Dad taught family search tree in real time and had two YSAs at a time on computers and helped them find ancestors and get around family search. Meantime, I took photos of YSAs under the theme of 'ancestors in prison' as we believe they are without saving ordinances.

Dad teaching a few of the YSA. The group would fluctuate in size and sometimes there were people sitting on the floor watching.

Some of the pics of Ancestors in prison pics that were printed and YSAs picked up at end of convention

We used the verandah as a discussion area and Johnny Leota from Self Reliance taught the YSAs about principles of self reliance. He has recently returned as mission president in Samoa and really knows how to relate to the young adults.