Wednesday, September 16, 2015

LDS Seminary Pen Pal Letters - How we've gotten to know a Seminary class in Coff's Harbour, Australia through Facebook

While we were visiting Australia we met a family from Coff's Harbour who had us over for dinner.  We became instant friends and follow each other on Facebook.  One day I noticed that she was on the same Seminary Facebook Page that I was and we messaged each other about our classes.  She just recently messaged me that she needs some journals for her class.  Since she only has 5 students, and we have hundreds of students, I got permission to send her some journals.  I thought it would be a good opportunity for my class to send letters to the Australian Seminary Students and hopefully they will write us back.  My students loved it!  I listed a few things on the board to write about.  Here's my list:

Dear Australian Seminary Student,
1.  Tell them about yourself.
2.  Tell them about where you are from.
3.  Tell them about America.
4.  Tell them about seminary.
5.  Tell them about your testimony of the gospel.

The students did great!  I loved reading their letters and reading their testimonies.  It was a fun activity for our class.  In our package we included some American candy to share with the students.  

When our Aussie friends got the package they were delighted to hear from us.  They set up a facebook page where we could get to know each other.  My students were surprised to find out that they only had 5 students in their class for their entire area.  We have 28 students and twelve seminary classes!  They shared pictures of their town and their class.  On the last day of class they sent pictures of their scripture study at the beach at sunrise.  What a lucky class!



Here is some generic stationary that you can use for your class.  I printed mine on brightly colored paper to save on ink.





It's been a couple of years since we sent out letters.  Now we keep in touch through Facebook.  It's been a lot of fun to hear what they have been doing in Coff's Harbour.  We usually have about 30 students in our class.  In Coff's Harbour they usually only have a couple.  It's good for the students to understand what the church is like in other areas of the world.

I've shown the students pictures of the Coff's Harbour area.


Not only is Coff's Harbour different from use in numbers, but they live in a completely opposite climate.  We live in a barren desert.  Here's a picture of where they live.


While they might have cool kangaroos jumping around


we have some pretty cook bighorn sheep where we live.


To get to know the Australian customs better we did the
 Tim Tam Slam.


As you can see, my class loved it.


If you want to learn how to do the Tim Tam Slam, just click here.










2 comments:

  1. I am the sister from Australia!

    We are in our summer recess at the moment, but will be heading back to the classroom at the end of the month.

    This year I anticipate having 2 students, unless we can convince some of the less-active members to come along.

    We meet at 6am each morning at the Church, except when we head to the headland to watch the sun rise over the ocean as we do scripture mastery. We love to challenge the full-time missionaries for scripture mastery!

    It's lovely to share with Holly's class! I look forward to doing more of it once we are back into our study!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Linda we can't wait to share more experiences with your class on facebook. Thanks for all of your enthusiasm. You guys are awesome!

    ReplyDelete