hey!! how are you??
yoo! I was worried that no one would be one today.... seeing that it is general conference and all of that
haha yeah, I'm watching it, but I thought to just come here to see if there was anyone one *on
yeah true I'm watching it too...but I'm on here to try to stay awake There's nothing wrong about general conference...but it can be a bit boring sometimes The great talks are awesome though I really enjoyed Elder Uchtdorf's talk he's a legend. I just really appreciated the christlike message.....I think we forget remember the bigger picture sometimes a talk feels like it's targeting certain people...and I feel so bad for the people who are on the receiving end of those talks
I know what you mean I guess I just think that each talk was specifically for someone. Just because I didn't get anything out of it doesn't mean that it wasn't a specific answer for someone else do you have any post-general conference plans?
you're so positive! That's great I should probably keep that in mind too ummm I don't really have much planned actually, my cousin from japan is here and we're going to have her farewell before she goes on her mission that's going to be really exciting for sure my family is really big and when they decide to party....it's time to party there's going to be so much free food <3<3<3 I can't wait
wow that sounds like a lot of fun. congratulations to your cousin where is she going to go?
I think she's going to hawaii! there's  actually a funny story about her mission call she's from japan but has a US passport, but in her mission call she declared that she had dual citizenship, so church HQ assumed that she would need a couple months to get her visa and everything before she can go so her original MTC date was actually sometime in December'
oh so she's reporting in early?
yeah! I've never heard of that happening before they found out that she has a US passport, so I think that the Mission President sent a letter to ask whether she could report early that's pretty crazy I think
that is pretty amazing. so how long will she be at the MTC? she speaks fluent English, I assum? assume?
well, she went to BYU idaho for about a year so her English is not bad. But she did grow up in Japan her whole life, so I guess you could say that she's fluent but not native A lot of my cousins and family members seem to follow this pattern: 1. born in the states 2. grow up in Japan 3. Move back for university and learn english then
that's so cool. so is that your life, as well?
umm not quite so my family is the only one that is not fully japanese my dad is chinese and he met my mum at BYU way back So I was born here, but grew up in California, Japan and Hong Kong I just got back from a mission actually!
this story gets more interesting. welcome back! where did you go?
I went to Brisbane Australia it was amazing the story is very very complicated indeed do you know anything about Australia? it's the coolest place
I've never been there! But I here that it's nice, tell me about it I only know Sydney and Melbourne
yeah haha most people only know about those places those two cities are actually quite far from Brisbane Australia is just as big as the US but there's less than 10 percent of the population, and the land is a lot harder to live on because there are so many desserts civilization tends to exist on the borders of the seas so Brisbane is on the north eastern side of the country
huh, didn't know any of that. You sound quite well informed about Australia! are there a lot of immigrants there?
so many! It's really similar to how it is here but instead of mexicans, you have middle eastern people and asian people and instead of native indians, you have aboriginal people but something that was really surprising to me was just how many aboriginal people there were! I don't meet too many native americans walking around, but in Australia, they really are everywhere
what do they look like? I think that there are a lot of people who are part Native American, but you're right. I don't recall meeting too many actual native americans around here do they have reservations in Australia?
I'm not sure what they're called down there but they definitely do have certain protected lands and they get a lot of benefits like the people here
interesting what kind of benefits?
well, there's a certain tribe of people who are only allowed to climb or walk on the famous rock It's called Uluru, and it's just a massive rocking that sits in the middle of Australia
I didn I didn I didn't know that! *sorry I kept missing the apostraphe
yeah, but in regards to benefits and stuff, the Australian government is really kind to its poeple people in the states complain about welfare and how poor people receive too much help but in australia, homelessness is abolished well I mean, they take the necessary steps to make sure that no one is homeless and women are paid by the government to have children the government literally sends a check for a few thousand dollars whenever a baby is born it's pretty nuts in my opnion people there can get so much help from the government, and it's a lot easier to sustain the help too
that sounds like a great place to live, to be honest. I'm sick of people here bashing on others because they "leech" off the government. The truth is, we have no idea what they've been through, and welfare should only be a question of to what extent can we afford it, not is this the right thing to do
I agreeeeee Welfare is a no brainer. There are no moral concerns there. BUT, it is so important that charity doesn't trump sustainability we can't keep tricking ourselves into thinking that we can borrow money forever