Australia does not celebrate Thanksgiving, so we spent the Day hunting for lost in-active members. Lightning Ridge is 6 hrs North of Orange if you make not stops.
There are supposedly members there on the Dubbo, and Narrabri Branch membership lists. How could that be? One town and assigned to 2 different Branches. We went there to find them all. Narrabri is only 2 1/2 hrs away for them instead of 4 hrs to Dubbo. We are hoping to be able to get all their memberships sent to Narrabri. But the first thing we need to do is see if they still live there.
The President of the Narrabri Branch told us that there were some new active members that had just moved there. They are going to his branch in Narrabri. We contacted the Bro. S to see if we could come and visit. Brother S. said he would come and pick us up at the motel we were staying at because it would be hard to describe where they live. He came and we went with him to his house and met his wife. He lives in one of these camps.
Brother S is retired and he likes to buy old houses, fix them up and sell them. This is looking at the end of his current home. He has moved around a lot. He came to Lightning Ridge and fell in love with it. He bought this really worn down shack and fixed it up. It is all really nice and modern inside even though it does not look it on the outside. It all runs on solar power, generators and tank water. You can see the big tanks by the house that collects rain water which runs off the roof into the tanks. It has been raining for 5 days straight. He says that his tanks are almost full. The refrigerator, stove and hotwater heater all run on gas. He showed us his solar power setup with batteries all lined up to store the power. They say they love it there in the country and the peace and quiet. They have enjoyed the challenge of this new way of life. Notice the 2 kangaroos just roaming free enjoying it too.
People in camps buy a plot of land and then mine it for Opals. That is what all the mounds of dirt are. So the camps are built among these mounds because they live on their plots. Just be careful of where you walk. You might just find yourself down a deep hole. Brother & Sister S. said they did not care to mine their plot, they jsut wanted to live there. They had 2 daughters move their families there too. 
You can live like this,
Or this.
Take your pick. There are both levels of living and anything in between.
Lightning Ridge is known for it's Black Opals. The only place in the world that has Black Opals. We went into this store that looks like a cave. In fact it is called the Opal Cave
It has a dirt floor. It is an Opal jewelery store. I asked what a Black Opal was and the receptionist invited us to step into her office (at the end of the counter). She then explained it all to us and you will have to take my word for it that there are Black Opals, because it was a loooong explanation and I can't repeat it so you would understand. All I know is that the Opals are very expensive.
This has water running down it. It shimmered and looked a lot better in real life than in this picture.
We stayed at the Black Opal Motel in room 5.
Hey, look, there I am in the mirror. This was a nice compact little room for $75 a night.
As for non-members, we found one lady out of 5 families that we went hunting for. At one address, the house was empty and being gutted out for remodeling. Brother S. is very active and has been a Branch President twice so we gave him the list and he said he will try to find them. Between us, him and the mission President we will try to get there membership records to the Narrabri Branch.
On the way to Lightning Ridge in Walgett, we had the membership record for a 7 year old boy. No parents. We stopped at the address and found that his mother is a member. She is from an active member family from the Phillipians. It would be an all day outing to go to Dubbo to church so she was glad to hear that we could change her records to Narrabri. She has a three year old son that she wants blessed and her 7 year old son to get baptized next August. Her husband is a Anglican but inactive. He says he is very supportive of her going to what ever church she wants. I think she will start going. We will get the blessing information to her soon.
So we did have some success along with having a good vacation.
Brother & Sister S., along with their 45 yr old daughter, took us to lunch at the bowling club there in Lightning Ridge. It was a really nice meal. Good enough to be a Thanksgiving dinner.
Other information about Lightning Ridge. We were told by a couple of people that there are more Millionaires living there per capita, than anywhere else in the world. So if we were to see a scruffy dirty looking person, don't shun them for they may be a millionaire. Many of them live in the camps and don't look like millionaires at all. It was an over all fun, educational, succesfull trip.
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