Our flights to Brisbane were uneventful, but very LONG. We first flew to San Francisco where we had a six-hour layover. We did have the chance to meet a wonderful member of the church, who is currently serving as a Bishop of a Tongan ward in Salt Lake. He was traveling to New Zealand to visit family. He had befriended a young man who was attending school in the US on a soccer scholarship and was travelling home to New Zealand for the school holiday. He was not a member of the church, and we were able to have a brief gospel discussion and explain our work as missionaries as we shared a meal with them in the airport in San Francisco. Our flight from San Francisco to Brisbane was fortunately non-stop.
We arrived in Brisbane on the morning of May 27, 2025. We gathered all our suitcases and then waited about an hour. We were told that someone from the Mission office would be at the airport to greet us and take us to the Mission Office. After about an hour, we called the office and surprised them. They thought we were arriving the next day.
We were able to meet Sister Widman, the mission office secretary. She picked us up and drove us to the mission office, where we got to meet several other Senior missionaries. We were able to see the Hill’s again. Elder Hill is serving as the vehicle coordinator for the Brisbane Mission. We met them back in December, in Orem, when we went to dinner with Frank and Kathy Edmunds and Dean and Kathy Hill. The Hills are awesome, and we are so to be here with them and to serve with them!
We had been in the mission office less than five minutes when another couple, Elder and Sister Keil, asked if we wanted to go with them to their District Council Meeting (DCM) in Ipswich and meet their missionaries that they work with. I opened my suitcase right there in the office and grabbed out a dress and closed-toed shoes, since I had just been told that whenever we are in the mission office, we must wear a dress and closed-toed shoes. So, no problem, I grabbed some other clothes out of my suitcase, changed into them in the bathroom and off we went to our very first District Council Meeting.
Elder Nelson and I LOVED meeting those missionaries for the first time and being with them. Elder Keil taught a lesson on anger as part of their meeting. We did not meet our mission leaders, President and Sister Vongsawad, on our first day because they were up in the northern part of our mission doing interviews with missionaries up there. President wanted to interview his missionaries before his time as a mission president comes to an end, which is the end of June. We finally met them a couple of days later when they took us out to dinner. They are wonderful and we grew to love them in the short time we served with them.
Our new mission leaders will be President Leo and Sister Kendel Gomez, who are from Liverpool, a suburb of Sydney.
Our first impressions of Brisbane? We absolutely LOVE Brisbane and feel so very humbled and full of gratitude that we have this mission opportunity! It felt so surreal that we were actually here…driving around…and loving looking at everything as we went along. Even though May is the start of their wintertime, the weather has been deliciously perfect. Mid to high 70’s during the day and mid 50’s at night. Elder Nelson and I keep commenting on how the weather, homes on hillsides and the landscape, trees and flowers remind us so very much of San Diego, or even parts of Florida. It really is beautiful here and the people are so friendly. They love listening to our accent as much as we love listening to theirs! We love how Brisbane is green, lots of tropical trees and flowers everywhere, so yes, we have already fallen in love with this wonderful, vibrant, multi-cultural, beautiful city! Downtown Brisbane is gorgeous and is built along the Brisbane River.
Our first night several of the Senior missionaries took us to the “City Cat,” a water taxi catamaran that runs up and down the Brisbane River. It costs .50 cents to ride one way all down the river for two hours and then .50 cents to ride it back again. I was hardly prepared for how gorgeous Brisbane city is all lit up at night! The skyscrapers all along the river’s edge and the stunning Story Bridge all lit up, take your breath away! I don’t have words to describe it, and pictures can’t capture everything like being there in person. You’ll just have to believe me that downtown Brisbane at night is stunning! We were even able to see the beautiful Brisbane Temple which sits on a bluff overlooking a bend of the Brisbane River.
We could not get into our (flat) house for eleven days after we arrived. The Israelsens, whom we would be replacing, had their son visiting and would be gone for most of those eleven days and would not vacate the house they have, which is in Forest Lake, until the morning of June 6th, when their mission ended and they flew home to Chicago.
We stayed with Elder and Sister Hill in their flat for those first eleven days and we loved it. They are wonderful and were perfect hosts. Those days were filled with lots of orientation and training, some jet lag, and some limited sight-seeing in and around Brisbane. We are loving it so far!
Australia Brisbane Mission - May 2025-November 2026 