The missionaries came over for dinner, Elder Gardner and Elder F... I can't for the life of me pronounce his last name. I think his family is originally from Tonga, although he lives in Sydney, Australia. They ended up staying until after 9 o'clock, but we had a fabulous discussion about Oz, and he learned a lot about the US. He had one brother who served a mission in Sacramento, CA; and another who served a mission in Auckland, New Zealand, but he really didn't know a lot about the United States. He said he and his friends thought Portland, and Los Angeles were states in the US, not cities and he was absolutely astounded by the size of Alaska and its proximity to Russia We talked a little about illegal immigration and he wondered about the relationship with the US to it's bordering countries. Living on an island his whole life, the idea of having other countries bordering ours is really interesting to him. He talked a bit about immigration and how stringent Australia is about letting people move there. He said even if someone from Australia marries a citizen of another country and they move back to Oz, they'll be closely monitored by the government, their phone calls, e-mail, everything. Interesting. I hate the idea of a "big brother" government, but to be more safe from terrorism and not have the immigration problem we have here now... Who has the better government? I can see there are a lot of pros and cons on either side. I had no idea they were so strict there though. Wow. Looking forward to talking with him again in the future. Elder Gardner's father is some kind of assistant governor in New Mexico and he knew quite a bit about New Mexico's government is run, that was interesting too. Their governor is not paid a salary, they're paid per diem, and after a certain length of time (I think he said 10 years), they can BUY into a retirement plan from the state. Nice. Maybe they work harder when they don't get paid for just sitting on their lazy butt!
Anyway, I'd like to get to church tomorrow. I also want to try to get out to talk to my sisters tomorrow night when (hopefully) Missy will be home. I think we all need to be able to tell dad the same thing when he brings up the phone issue, among other things. I had some kind of brainstorm when I was laying down this afternoon, all this time we've been trying to achieve the same purpose, but obviously haven't been going at it the same way. I was worried yesterday when Mel got so mad at dad and left the doctor's office. Dad said, "I love you" as she was storming out the door and he was upset that she didn't answer him. Dr. Greene pointed out that it's not good to anyone to communicate like that - which I'm sure we all know, but putting things into practice isn't as easy as it sounds. I know he's not going to remember the things we tell him, and I wonder if writing a letter to him that he can keep to remind him that we love him and we're making decisions for his own good would help. I think it may. I remember when we were little and dad would discipline us and he'd say "This is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you", and now as a parent, I know it probably did. Well, now the roles are reversed and we have to look out for his welfare, even if we have to tell him about the letter from Dr. Lyons saying he cannot make decisions for himself. We've never really told him that before and I think that part might make him angry - but we're not going to continue fighting about the phone. It's gone. It's over. End of story. Every single time we have a discussion about the phone all he can say is, "Why? Why? Why?", like a child questioning authority. You don't go into a heated "discussion" with a 2-year-old child about why they can't play in the street. They just don't understand, they don't have the ability to understand and that's where we are and we ALL have to realize that. We'll see.
Favorite photo of the day...
1 comment:
I looked into emigrating into Australia and New Zealand and they really DO want to be sure you are financially stable, so you don't expect the gov't to have to support you. Go figure.
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