Sunday 14 Jul 2013

Dear Family and Friends:

We just returned from Church at the Greenwich Ward which is about 14 miles away and takes about 40 min to get there.  We went there last week and really enjoyed it.  The Williams are going to begin teaching Family History Class in August in that ward.  We would like to continue going there but we got our speaking assignments on Mon. and starting the 28^th we will be speaking in Branches and Wards every other week.  This assignment goes until Apr 28^th.  50-70% are 6-8 hrs away so we will have to go on Sat and stay over.  We are excited to see more of the country but a little nervous to be driving so far.  The Garmin is getting us where we need to go.  We are also going to buy a book of maps to help us out.  We are not too excited about talking but I am sure the Lord will help us seeing as though he evidently wants us to do this assignment.  We also need your help!  We have to teach a Family Home Evening lesson in a few weeks and need ideas!!!  They usually have a lesson and play a game.  I know the lesson tomorrow night must be about the Prophets because we have all been asked to bring our favorite quote from a Prophet.  There are about 9 couples that come.  Just email all your help, we can print anything off at the office.  It is still strange not to have any internet service when we leave the office, but we are getting used to it.

Our flat is very comfortable, cool, we only have space heaters to warm it up.  We can only run 3 at a time or we flip a circuit.  If I use my hair dryer we have to turn them all off but one, and also for the washer and dryer.  We can only run the washer or dryer, but we are getting along.  Our typical day starts at 6:00am.  Dix showers while I make the bed, then I shower.  He fixes breakfast while I make our lunches for the day.  We leave for the office about 7:30 and it takes us about 15-20 min to drive there.  We get the computers up and running and I check our email and Facebook if I have time.  Dix checks the Church computer for any emails.  We get off work at 4:30 and come home.  A couple of nights a week I do a load of laundry because the washer is so small we can’t fit a week’s worth in one load.  I can put the sheets and pillow cases in one load, we have a double bed.  We are hoping to get pictures up soon.  We just don’t have time in the day at the office.  Tomorrow we are going to work on it because we just stay at the office from 4:30-6 for Family Home Evening.  That is every other Mon.  We are enjoying being here.  At night we will work on indexing we have downloaded before we come home, read, and I have started another afghan.

On Sat we clean the flat, Dix vacuums and I clean the bathroom.  We are liking the small space then.  We actually have the largest kitchen of the 3 flats the missionaries have here.  We have a balcony with a grill on it so we are going to start grilling.

One night a week we normally go shopping at the mall across the street from the office, though to drive to it we go about 6 blocks.  If we just need a couple of things we run across a busy street, 4 lanes.  Sometimes it takes us 5 min for a break in traffic.  Shopping is still a challenge as weights and measures are so different.  To get meat sliced at the meat counter is interesting.  We just show with our hand how much to slice off.  Everything is very good though.  The dairy products are very creamy.  The 1% milk is lite milk.  All the cheese is natural and white in color because they don’t add any coloring.  There is no cool whip, but there is double cream that is thick.  There is NO packages of dry onion soup, Italian seasoning, ranch dressing, etc.  Tina came to the rescue with recipes for them.  I made the onion soup last night and put in with meat in the crockpot and it looked and smelled just like at home.  The bouillon granules is powder beef or chicken bouillon.  We can’t get several spices that I am used to but I am just looking it up and figuring it out like Bon Appetite, which is celery salt, onion salt and salt.  I bought some spaghetti to make a spaghetti pie and the noodles only take 2 min to cook.  Friday night after work the Williams took us to a meat market, about the size of the onion shed, with just meat.  We got steak, sausage and things we can put on the grill.  We now have a freezer full of meat with the chicken I got last week.

Tuesday night we walk over to the Temple and go to the 5:00 session.  Dix and I thought it was a small session, about 25 people, and the Williams said that was very large, normally only about 10.  We will do this every Tuesday.  It is a small Temple but beautiful.  We are grateful we can see it every day we come to work and go for walks around it. 

This week we finally got the computer and camera and program all working together and started copying the cards.  Thurs. afternoon we did 1818 cards and Friday did 2900.  We sent the first batch to SL Friday so we can see how we are doing.  Hopefully they won’t fail any or we will have to go back through them.  We are enjoying it and trying to get in a rhythm.

Yesterday we left at 9am with the Williams and got on the ferry down the Parramatta River to go to Sydney.  Just before the harbor we went under the famous bridge in Sydney where the fireworks are held on New Year’s Eve. 

The top of the bridge is probably 500ft tall and people were walking up to the top.  Jerry said it costs $100.00 to walk up there.  That is one thing we will not be doing, because of the money and we don’t like heights that well.

 

As we pulled into the harbor, there is the Opera House.  Wow, it is impressive.  We went ashore and booked a whale watching tour for 1pm.  We then walked over to the opera house and walked around it and went into the lobby.  We are going to go back another day when we can do a tour, we didn’t have time.  We went back to the harbor and ate fish and chips at a little café, and waited to board the boat.  The boat holds over 300 but there was only about 160 on it.  It was pretty chilly outside but we could see well out the windows.  Going to the open ocean there were lots of small boats, and some cool looking lighthouses on the shore.  We found 3 whales and Dix got some really good pictures of them coming up.  They were very active and it was fun to watch them and have the crew give us info about them.  We stayed and watched them for about 2 hours.  We got back to the harbor in time to catch the 4pm ferry back.  It was a fun day.

We are so anxious to hear from all of you about what is going on.  It is fun on Mon morning to see Deven and Loren, your Sun night.  Deven gets us on Google+ so we are all on together. 

We are enjoying our time and experiences here and know this is where we should be.  The Lord is blessing us every day.  Thank you all for your support.  We love and miss you very much.

Mum and Dad