Murray Ceff's Blog

Just recently I have started a new job. I am working as a sales representative, out on the road, for one of Australia's largest physical therapy supply companies. It been quite a few years, maybe ten, since I have been in a front line position like this, day after day (well to be honest it's only 2 1/2 days a week) out knocking on doors to sell the message and products. I am doing one other job for them before I actually get out on the road. That is proof reading their website. There are quite a few typos on it, and I am very particular about these things. One would not publish a book with this many typos and often the first exposure someone may have to the company is their website. As the old saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. So I think it is important that it is right. There are some obvious parallels to the Church here. The Church has invested a lot of resources in to building up what is most likely the best online presence of any Church on t...

The Primary President spoke in Sacrament meeting in our ward today. Early in her talk she mentioned that she had a journal that she had written in 3 times. She had bought the journal nine years ago, I guess full of intention to write in it more regularly. I can relate to that very well. I started writing this blog with the hope of writing regularly and having it take the place of my journal. I did fairly well for the first few weeks I think, but I seem to be fairly rapidly falling back in to my old habits. I am not a natural writer. I think I am better at speaking than writing. But perhaps if I persevere at the writing I will get better. I am reminded of the scripture in Ether 12 that talks about our weaknesses becoming our strengths. I think I had better write quite a lot to get this weakness to become a strength.

Just a short note to let you know that my mother died very early in the morning (about 1.00am) of June 22, 2011. She was 83 years old at the time. The funeral service is to be held at St Andrews Uniting Church, Sydney Pde, East Geelong at 2.30pm on Monday 27 June. She went peacefully, after a few days of being barely conscious. My sister, Laurel, was with her at the time. We took turns in staying with her since 2.30am on the previous Sunday. I was there within a few minutes of her dying and I stayed with her until the undertaker came to collect her body. It was a relief to know that she has gone somewhere better. I hope and believe that her parents, who have been sealed in the Temple, were there to take her to her heavenly home.

My mother (Jean Shirley Riach Ceff) is 30 years older than I am. She is 83 and I am 53, so she turns 84 on April 11 2012 and I turn 54 on October 4 this year 2011. I don't think she will live to celebrate another birthday though. Mum has not enjoyed a great quality of life the last few years. She has battled breast cancer, and two strokes over the last 25 years or so. Neither of those things will kill her though. A few months ago we decided that we should perhaps do something about a few skin cancers that had grown on her face. Two of them, one on her nose and one on her forehead, were removed in the plastic surgeon's surgery just using a local anaesthetic. It was quite painful at the time for Mum and the surgeon joked that she cleared their waiting room with her screams as he injected the local anaesthetic. She recovered quite quickly and her face healed quite well. But there was one skin cancer just under her right eye. Injecting a local anaesthetic there would have been ...

After 5 weeks now of living with the Ross River virus, I definitely think we should ban mosquitoes from living anywhere near human beings. Sounds pretty stupid I know, and impossible to enforce. Maybe we could just put a tax on them, or make them live in detention centres? Yes, while I have been home so much I have definitely been reading and listening and watching too much politics! But today I actually got some things done. I am still sore in the mornings and maybe not as energetic as I usually am, but I was able to do some work on one of the beehives and then, after 4 weeks of not surfing, I drove down to 13th beach and found a nice little peak to myself and had a great time. I rode one of my new 6'10" Fish and I was very impressed with how well it went. I really had a ball. Every wave, except my first, I was able to to a proper cutback back in to the white water and pull it back around and get back on the the face of the wave. Admittedly they were quite small and slow wa...

Last night we sat down as a family and watched the Ron Howard movie of Apollo 13. Apart from a bit of bad language, it was a very inspiring movie. Just in case you are in the dark about Apollo13, this was the mission to the moon that had to be aborted as there was an explosion on the ship on the way to the moon. They then had to go right around the moon and use the moons gravitational field as a bit of slingshot to get back to Earth. Maybe about half way back they started to notice the CO2 levels getting dangerously high. This was where the ground crew had to devise a way to fix the CO2 filters so that they guys on the ship could fix it and get back to Earth alive. As you no doubt know, too much CO2 can kill a human. Just as well Julia Gillard was not in charge of that mission. We all know her answer to too much CO2 don't we? PUT A TAX ON IT! That will get the levels down! What a stupid idea!

Well, I have just completed my third week of being a bludger. Now you cannot call me a dole bludger as I am not getting that. I am sure there are just too many forms to fill out. Maybe not, who knows maybe I should do it! Anyway, I cannot really recommend bludging for a living. There is no future in it, and it's boring. Oh, I forgot to mention why I am bludging. I got a positive result to the blood test for Ross River virus. I have the energy levels of a snail and I am full of aches and pains, which seem to vary from one day to the next. I spent the whole day at the shop in Torquay yesterday and had quite a busy day. Sold two boards and a two board day is a really good day! But of course I was on my feet all day and not really walking anywhere. By the time I got home at nearly 7.00pm I could barely walk my feet were so sore. Fortunately I woke up this morning and felt well enough to go to Church. Margot stayed home with Miriam who is still home suffering from this persistent ...

For almost a week now I have been taking it easy, which as you know, is not like me. I have had a bad shoulder for a few weeks now and started getting treatment from my good mate Darrell Pummeroy, who is an osteopath here in Geelong. My shoulder started getting better but then after I had a spa last Thursday night, I woke up on Friday morning and almost everything hurt. Left knee, right ankle, left elbow, and almost everything in between it seemed. After walking around the house for a few minutes, full of aches and pains, I started to suspect I was suffering from some viral infection. I went to work down at Torquay on the Friday and chatted to some of the guys in the shop. They were suspecting Ross River virus so I did some net surfing and it looked like I had the classic symptoms, except the rash. I called the local medical centre the next day and made an appointment for the following Tuesday. So two days ago I went to see the doctor and by this time I even had the rash. The doc...

I started the day yesterday with the old Falcon breaking down on the way to work down at Torquay. It's a forty minute drive to Torquay and I had to walk home. Fortunately I was only about 1 klm from home when it broke down! So I walked home, grabbed the Subaru and drove to the tennis courts where Margot was with Miriam. we had to wait for Miriam to finish her game, but then we drove home and Margot came to the where the Falcon was on Watt St, and we towed it home. So I ended up not getting down to Torquay until about midday. In a very short time I had sold one mini-mal and one SUP Board, and then the phone rang. It was Margot calling to tell me a tree had come down across our driveway and it needed to be moved. This was not that surprising as we were being hit with very strong winds and there were trees down all along the Surfcoast Highway to Torquay. So in the car, back to Lara, out with the chainsaw, and the Mormon Aussie Bloke was in action! And then I was at work down on ...

Twice in the last four days I have been to visit my new (my first) grandson, Jiah William Crimmins. First visit was on Sunday afternoon when Margot, Miriam and I drove up with my Dad and his wife Norma, to visit the Crimmins family while they were still at the Angliss Hospital in Ferntree Gully. The second visit was yesterday when Margot and I drove up my Mum to see them, in their home at Croydon. This is hard to write about in some ways. I have to really explore and express my feelings, and like many Aussie Blokes, I am not terribly good at doing this. Here is one simple regret. We did not get a picture, in either visit, of Jiah with his father, Leahannah's husband, Zane. We were so involved in getting photos of him with all of us, that we forgot about Zane. I am getting a bit teary as I write this, which I think shows that this really was a bad thing, that in a small way we didn't really acknowledge Zane. Zane is a good husband and father. In saying that, I am very conf...

Now I know you're all thinking I am way to young, but yes, its true, I have just become a grand-dad! The phone rang while I was talking to a customer here in the shop at Torquay and everything went a but crazy for me on the emotional side of things when I saw the call coming from Leahannah. I had to take the call of course as I thought it might be something a bit serious with her being so close to being due. So anyway mother and baby are well. It's a boy and I think his name is Jayah or something like that!

This is an attempt to re-write a post I wrote. I wrote it on my mobile phone and I was sure that I hit the publish button, but if I did it didn't work and I lost everything I wrote. I know I wrote about Miriam's last day of her school holidays. I took her surfing in the bay at Pt Addis. It was the second time we had surfed there. We have surfed a few different places over the holidays and it has been a lot of fun and good one-on-one time together.

A few weeks ago, the 2nd Counsellor in our Stake Presidency called me aside for a private chat. I assumed he was going to be giving me some assignment as I was serving on the High Council, and since our new Stake Presidency had been called, there was some juggling of responsibilities happening. To my surprise he released me and said that our new Bishop had something important for me to do in Geelong. So later that morning Bishop Sandford called me in to his office and called me as the Young Men President. A bit of a surprise I must say, but I am enjoying the calling already. It is now the last week of the school holidays and on Monday I took all the active deacons surfing at Raafs, near Barwon Heads. Tiui, Epati, Jean-Paul, and Josh all enjoyed themselves immensely , and Jean-Paul showed great potential. Today I took Tristan on a service project at Bob L's place in Newcomb. Tristan is the only active Priest in the Ward, so it was good one-on-one time for us. It's a much...

On January 15, my oldest daughter, Leahannah, married Zane Crimmins. This was a significant event in my life, not to mention hers! I can't write from her perspective of course, but I can write from mine. The wedding was held in the Maranoa Gardens in Balwyn at about 12.30pm. Quite a crowd had gathered to witness the event and it was a beautiful sunny afternoon, which we were all very grateful for as it had rained almost continually for about 3 days prior to that. While most of the crowd waited patiently for Leahannah to arrive, I waited at the main gate for her arrival. NOt having been party to the planning of the event, I was somewhat surprised to see her arrive, with her mother, maternal grandmother and older (half)sister in a white 1960 model Rolls Royce. After a few photos of her being taken as she was getting out of the car, I walked her down to where the marriage ceremony was to take place. The guest had formed an isle down the middle and lined our walk to where the c...

I usually work on Saturday nights looking after the kids, but tonight I had off work. I got home from work at Torquay (at Stonker) at about 6.30pm and Miriam and I went down to the Lara tennis courts for a practice hit. After a bit of a warm up we played a set which Miriam won 7-5. You may think I am a bit of a  wimpy tennis player letting my 13 year old daughter beat me, but at least tonight I didn't get beaten by as much as I did earlier this week! After playing tennis we got home for dinner in time to watch Kim Clijsters play Li Na in the women's final of the Australian Open. It was an exciting game, which we were happy to see Kim win. Hopefully with tomorrow being Sunday I might have time to write something meaningful and maybe even spiritual.

I finished work this morning at about 10.00am to go from my night job to my day job. The night job is with MacKillop Family Services and I work there in a "Residential Unit" which is a home for about 4-5 kids who would otherwise be homeless. My day job is selling surfboards down at Torquay (in Victoria). I enjoy both jobs but I guess the one with kids is the more meaningful one. Surfing is just a hedonistic sport (which I am totally addicted to), but I guess on the bright side it does keep me (and others) fit and healthy. So I left the "resi unit" at about 10.00am headed down to Torquay via North Geelong, spent a couple of hours in the shop, and then went for a very, very small surf at Centreside (next to Bells). Then it was back to the shop until 5.30pm. Now it's time to head for home. Maybe I will write a bit more about work at the resi unit sometime. There is some interest stuff that goes one there. You get to see how kids turn out without the Gospel and ...

Today is a National Public Holiday - Australia Day. I am not sure exactly what it is for, but I do see a few people driving around with Aussie flags on their cars. Maybe I am meant to feel more patriotic today than other days? I don't feel any more patriotic today than any other day. I think the most patriotic feelings I have ever had came upon me while I was in New Zealand for 18 months serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was at a Church member's home one evening and we were singing songs and the host started singing Waltzing Matilda. I really felt homesick at that time. Australia is a great place to live - no question about it. How long it will remain that way I don't know. I hope for my children's sake that it doesn't change to much in future years, but I fear it will. Perhaps all I can do is make my own little piece of Australia a great place to live?

Well, here it is my first post. It may not be that exciting for anyone else to read. But then I am not really doing it for anyone else, apart from my family perhaps. Why am I doing it? Well, I have struggled for years with journal writing. Our prophets have been suggesting for a long time that keeping a journal is a good thing to do. I started (before computers were available) with a paper journal. Then I progressed (was it really progress?) to writing in a Word doc. Now here I am with a blog. My hope with the blog is that I will make more regular entries, maybe even daily! Perhaps I will write my own feelings here. Maybe link to articles that I have found to be interesting. Maybe it will be a bit of day to day activity. Why do I call myself a Mormon Aussie Bloke? Well, thats what I am. My view of life is colored by the fact that I am a Christan and more particularly a Mormon Christian. I am an Australian male and therefore have views that are influenced by the fact that I live at ...