For some people, Sunday is a day of rest, time to play, run around and do errands and laundry etc. etc. but for me it is a time to go to church. Our services start at 9am with Relief Society for the women and then Sunday School. I have been asked in this ward, to teach the investigators class. This has turned into being a full time job for me. I read the lesson every day and work on it all week until I have to present it on Sunday. I never know who is going to be in the class from week to week. Sometime we have 9 or 10 people and sometimes just the young missionaries and ourselves….and therefore I never know how in depth to make the lessons or how shallow to make them. It is hard to ask questions in the class because the new people are afraid to answer and they never seem to ask questions themselves. In all the times I have taken Teacher Development, I never once learned what it takes to get people to ask or even answer questions. And so it goes.
In Relief Society I think I got kangarooed into conducting the chorus to be presented in two weeks. The music conductor pulled a fast one and I landed the job with no time to even think about it. I am not a music major; I am not a music conductor. If I have to play the piano for anyone to sing, I have to practice and practice and practice and even then I hit wrong keys – well, they seem to get in the way of my fingers and that’s the truth. So I plunged in feet first and the one thing I can do is sing, so I sang to them and within minutes I had them singing with gusto…………..yay for me! I will try to get them to be enthusiastic about singing this one song, “Love at Home” and perhaps get them to pay attention to loud and soft, rests and commas and periods. Breathing is one thing that people do not do usually in community hymn singing but I will work for that particular process with this ladies choir.
A man from the next apartment block came to church for the first time and he seemed to have a good time there. He knows the owner of the apartment block and sat with him during services. I was a little worried about taking him to church with us because he has threatened to shoot the little boys who also live in his apartment block and I was afraid he might be carrying a gun. In Arizona it is not against the law to carry a concealed weapon, I wonder if they have that same law here?
After lunch, we went walking in a development that is a little way from here. The homes there are called Turn Key homes and are actually trailer homes. There is quite an amount of land between each home so they do not look like a bunch of well ordered mushrooms growing in a row, seemingly arms length from each other, like they do in some trailer parks in Arizona. The only drawback is that they do not have garages and there is no way one can put a garage onto the trailer home. It looked like it was spring cleanup at the trailer park and people had put out all kinds of stuff in front of their yards. Most of it was broken etc. and of no value but I did see a lady pick something out of her neighbors trash pile and was walking down the hill to her home with her treasure. Also observed a truck of ‘Pickers’ trolling slowly up the road, driving from one side to the other inspecting the piles and from time to time one jumping out and pulling stuff from a pile and putting it in the back of the truck.
When we came home, we got on the internet and called Sara on Skype. The wind funnel that tore up the northern side of Lincoln brought loads of rain and wind to all of Lincoln but they came short of calling it a twister or Tornado. Lyla has allergies really bad and her eyes are all puffy and her nose is running. When Sara was little, she came to me and said that her nose was running off her face and if I could put a band-aid on it that it would stop running. I did put the band-aid on for her and lo and behold it did stop running – along with a shot of Benadryl. Sara told us that her home teacher showed up with a small tractor and pulled out the cedar tree/bush that was in their front yard. He also wants to help get the big tree cut down that is growing right outside their kitchen window. I just hope that he knows what he is doing. The last thing we need is the tree to fall on the house or on the neighbors etc. etc. Oliver has had his physical for Kindergarten and the doctor has referred them to an optometrist to have Ollie’s eyes checked. He has one brown eye and one blue eye and he does look quite a character. Sara said he had trouble with close up vision but the optometrist will be able to discern better, I Hope. When I was little, the family doctor tested my eyes and said I should go to get my eyes tested so my mother took me to Chas. Sankey Fraser Optometrist. This was a chair of optometric offices and the man just looked at my eyes and said – Oh, she will grow out of that. After I had recuperated from a bout with the measles, I could not see well. Hence, the visit to the optometrist; My mother was not convinced that this guy knew what he was talking about, so she frog-marched me up to the ophthalmologist, Dr. Charles Moreton, and he said I really needed glasses. So we purchased glasses – ugly pop-bottle lens type things with Harry Potter like frames – but they were not popular at that time for that reason.
Today is Monday 16th April and is a holiday for all state employees. Hence, we did not get to go to the archives today. Instead, we went to the YMCA to exercise, then after breakfast we hopped in the car and headed for Boothbay Harbor. Last time we went to this place, it was when darkness fell at around 4pm and we only found our way to the Chinese restaurant and ate and went home. Today was different. We actually went down as far as the little shops that line the streets with all the twists and turns that these small harbor/tourist trap towns have. We got out and expected to be able to enter the shops, and look around, but most of them have not opened for the season yet. They just shut down for the winter and even though today was 78 degrees, “the Season” has not started so they were closed.
We drove around Boothbay Harbor roads and saw some wonderful homes etc. then we headed for Portland. Bill wanted to go to the Apple Store in the Portland Mall. We went there but the fast talking salesman did not sell us anything.
I drove home on Rte. 295 and it was 66.2 miles from Portland Mall to our front door. I was not impressed with the offerings at the Mall. The clothing stores seem to cater mostly to the young teen group and us older ladies are relegated to the Suit and business attire aisles at Sears and J. C. Penney.
Tomorrow it is back to the Archives. We had an email today hinting that we will be moved to New Hampshire for the remainder of our mission. That is going to be a hard move for us to make. We have made friends here in Augusta and we cannot take them with us.
I have photo's of the weekend activities to post and will post them tomorrow because the connection at the Archives is much faster than the Verizon Hot spot.
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