Melbourne, Australia

 Today's posted should be entitled Failed Foto Blogger. We didn't think to take a picture of us at the Melbourne Temple or with our miraculous missionary rescuers. Story to follow.

We left the ship early so we could make the almost 2 hour trip to the temple. Jack was thinking Uber but we would have to wait almost an hour for someone to come get us. We could be there via public transport by then. We hopped the tram to the city center where we transferred to the train heading out of the city to the East. At the train station, we hopped on a bus to take us to the temple. Everything went very smoothly until the bus. I was checking with the driver to make sure we had the right bus. He had no idea what we were talking about. We tried giving him the street address. He was looking up the address on his map when I looked over Jack's shoulder and saw 2 sister missionaries. They confirmed it was the right bus. We then sat and talked with Sister Hudson, from Utah, and Sister Naiak, from Indonesia. They were heading to the mission office for training for greenies. We had a great time talking with them and were sooooo grateful they were there to make sure we got off at the right spot. Of course, we were talking so much that we missed our stop and had to get off at the next one and walk back. We parted in the parking lot, with them heading to the Mission Office and us going to the Temple.

It was a very small temple. You walked in with the baptismal font on the right and the rest of the temple on the left. The layout was similar to the upstairs of the Cebu Temple. While waiting to get into the endowment room, we were sat in the sealing room. Very small temple. I looked carefully at the painting in the room to see if there were any fun surprises, like the chicken and pineapple in Cebu. Only butterflies. The spirit was great and it was so nice to be there. We had to head back soon after it ended so we could get to the ship before it left. Totally worth it.

When we got back to the city center, we stopped to take a picture at St. Paul's Cathedral outside the train station, mainly so we would have at least one picture to post for today. While the cathedral was beautiful, it lacked the sweet spirit we had filled ourselves with at the temple. I wish I could have bottled it up for the worker this morning who was helping us figure out the route. She asked, "why are you going way out there when there's a church nearby?" Not the same.