I was in a German branch where we shared a building with two American military wards. One Sunday the American wards both canceled due to snow. The branch didn’t, and I’m not sure why. Maybe they figured that people who lived close should still be able to come, while those who lived far away could justify not coming that Sunday. More likely, the branch simply didn’t have the kind of network the American wards did for notifying people of a canceled church. We missionaries were grateful that church happened–my companion and I had three investigators in church that day, a mother, her teenager daughter, and the daughter’s friend. That was a pretty good success for us.

We had a sacrament meeting, saving the sacrament portion for after the meeting to allow more people to trickle in. Then afterwards the Germans gathered to support an American military member get baptized; he had very few members of his ward there to support him, but we were happy to do so.

After church one of the American bishops came outside and yelled at our investigator’s daughter and a couple of the other kids who were enjoying the snow by throwing snowballs at each other. We mentally laughed at him–after all, he didn’t even attend church that day, so he wasn’t in much of a position to criticize a couple of kids for “breaking the sabbath” or whatever.

At the time it was easy to look down at the wards who canceled–we had one member who hitch-hiked quite a distance because the trains weren’t running, and we mentally praised the Germans for their toughness while laughing at the Americans for their weakness. Looking back, the German branch should have canceled. But I’m still proud of how dedicated those Saints were. And I still think that American Bishop was an idiot.

Reminds me of President Obama’s comment when his daughters had their first snow day in D.C. “They never cancel school in Chicago” and something about come hell or high water everyone was waiting at the bus stop Monday through Friday.

Church was cancelled in much of Queensland, Australia yesterday. Much of the area had over 400mm (16inches ) of rain in the 24 hours Sat noon to Sunday Noon. There was also wind up to 150k. Many roads flooded. As people often travel up to 50k to church it was cancelled. At present the main road from Brisbane to Sydney is cut by flood waters. We are having extreme weather so far this year.

We own a house which was flooded 750mm into the second floor in January 2011. Forecast is that it will not flood this time.

Another town in the state has had maximum temperatures of over 40 (105) every day since christmas.

annegb,

Yes Australia is a great place to live in spite of some of the extreme weather events. We live in Brisbane which is a city of 2 million in a state with a population of 4.5 million people in an area of 1.8 million kilometers square, which I think is 695,000 square miles. I think this is california, washington, oregan, idaho and utah combined. We do have the Great Barrier Reef, and we have mineral wealth.

We have universal healthcare, and many others of the benifits of a social democracy, along with a very strong economy. Our rate of government debt to GDP is about 10% compared to yours which is closer to 100%.

In spite of the extreme weather events we have at present, I prefer to live in Australia partly because it is much closer to a Zion society (very few poor) than the US, this makes for a much nicer atmosphere.

These kind of events bring out the best in us.

What did you see on the news fires or floods?

Yes we had those pictures too. Look up goldcoast qld. We live near the coast. It is 40 minutes on an 8 lane freeway to the gold coast where we go to the beach.

Our beaches are some of the best in the world. Unlike california you do not have to pay to park and the council provides, toilets, change rooms and showers for free.

It doesn’t flood very often, but we have had some extreme weather since Christmas, and in keeping with the post still have 220 schools closed, though kids are only going back to school this week after the summer break. 6 weeks annual leave is normal here(family friendly).