A road, a building and a Family Home Evening...

The building in the background houses our office. The grounds are beautiful and make walking pleasant though it's a bit too cold for too much of that. On the right of the photo is a road called Pennant Hills Road. This is one of the busiest streets in the area with four lanes of traffic constantly whizzing by. The traffic includes large tractor/trailer rigs that are 70 feet long and 10 or 11 feet high. The road is not wide at all so the cars drive VERY close to one another making driving a bit of a dare devil sport. The shopping centre where we buy our lunch and get groceries is on the other side of this road and we have crossed it once on foot. No quarter is given to pedestrians and they actually call the traffic islands in the middle of the road "pedestrian safety zones", presumably meaning that you can stand in the middle of the road and the cars won't hit you...talk about sport! We have taken to driving across the road that requires a detour of a mile or two but keeps mum's heart rate some what lower.

At one time the Area Presidents Office was on this campus and about 140 people worked in the four or five building that we now work in. But the Area Presidency moved to Auckland New Zealand about 18 months ago so there are only about 40 people occupying the place now. It makes it very spacious with lots of empty rooms and offices but a bit ghostly.

We attended a Family Home Evening for our group of Senior Missionaries last night. It was held in a large room in the largest building and included a slide presentation by Elder Roberts (a lovely man) of the story of the Mormon Battalion with lengthy explanations. We now know much more about the Mormon Battalion than previously and if you're interested, we can get the 350 slides with commentary and put it on line... just let me know. We ate rice and chili and a trifle without jello (jelly). It was good. The Temple President (President Barr) and Matron (Sister Barr) attended and I must say they were great. Not what you might expect. They are Australian and in their early 70's but look much younger. They are very slim and he was dressed in jeans and boots with a black turtle neck sweater and a well worn jacket. Very relaxed and in stark contrast to our old missionary suits and ties.

We are enjoying our mission so far. Our assignments are a bit nebulous right now and we are not entirely sure of the nuts and bolts of the operation. We don't want to be stuck in the office answering phones, that's for sure. Mum can't take it. She jumps up in the middle of the night (3 o'clock this morning) with cramps in her leg shouting about how she can't be sitting in an office all day! Scary stuff to wake up to at that hour... but with more knowledge and a bit more time we should be able to carve out something effective and enjoyable.

We love and miss all you guys and the little ones. You occupy a great deal of our time, watching little videos and ooohhhing and aaaahhhing at your photos. We love it so keep them coming.

We will write more as it happens but you must know how much we love you and appreciate you for being such good people.

xxxxoooo DAD