Each Wednesday we have Institute classes, some refreshments and sometimes an activity which we as the YSA leaders plan. Last week we had a young brother and sister, the McLaughlins, teach the group some traditional old time dances. They were great teachers! Most of the native Scots knew the dances, and the students from other countries were good sports and joined in. Everyone had fun and stayed to dance. It looked so fun, something that you would see in movies, such as My Life So Far which took place in Scotland at a castle. One of the Institute teachers, said that they did these dances at her wedding.
On December 8 we drove with another senior missionary couple to Pitlochery to see the play, White Christmas. Several senior couples and our mission president and his wife attended. We got there early to walk around the town which was a very interesting old town , had lunch, then attended the play, which we enjoyed .On our drive, we could see Stirling Castle on a hill. I would really like to go and see that castle, there are Christmas events going on there now.
On Christmas Eve we will be singing in a missionary choir at a big shopping mall in downtown Glasgow. I'm not a singer, but I can do my best and hopefully not scare anyone away with my sour notes! We have gone out with the young elders to help them teach, it's been fun and rewarding. Next week we start going out to inspect the young missionary's flats, that will be interesting. It will be nice to get out to see some different areas. We have many investigators and people joining the church who are from China.
Yesterday we drove out to a town Beardsdon, I think, nearby to walk, it is an area of nice old homes and pretty gardens. I can see that Scotland will be pretty in the Spring and summer, there are so many trees and plants that haven't frozen. Sister Whitney
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Friday, December 7, 2012
ICE, MERCY AND JOSEPHINE
Elder Whitney back.
ICE
Lets be brutally frank up front. This country is one big ice sheet. Driving is one thing. Walking is another. Utah does not even come close. We tippy toe from one benign looking spot to another, avoiding compliments of the family dog, cars and now ice. In fact, while Mrs. Diamond a Glasgow native was out breaking up the ice on her sidewalk today, she told us that a big one was coming next week, which she went on to clarify was blowing out of "SIBERIA". I was giving her a pass along card while Jean was breaking up the ice with a shovel. It was only yesterday that I mentioned to Sister Whitney that we may as well be in Siberia, to which she scoffed a bit. Now, it appears Siberia, or at least the wind therefrom, is heading our way. This made me realize how comparatively close we are to that country or province. Not in my wildest dreams.
MERCY
From Kenya, Mercy is a post graduate student at the University of Glasgow, a few short miles from our flat. She is a law graduate, a member of the Kenya bar association and a shining light in our Young Single Adult Group. She flew back to Africa last week so that she could be personally present for the swearing in before the bar. In addition, she is one of the nicest persons I have ever met: upbeat, pleasant and generous with her time and talents. Like Josephine below, she is a welcome addition to the cause of Zion, lovely in every respect, as are so many of the young single adults in Glasgow.
JOSEPHINE
No one can describe Josephine. Like Mercy, she is a phenomenon to behold. She is a native of India, part East Indian and I think part Indonesian, not tall, but powerful in more ways than one. When I first noticed Josephine, she was on the badminton court with other young single adults, quick and powerful. She is a medical doctor from India, finished her post graduate studies here at the University of Edinburgh, and left Scotland on Thursday to return home to India, to a "small" city of only 10 MILLION! Before she left, she volunteered to buy and make the dinner (typical Indian street food, that the poor eat, which I actually liked), which fed 16 handily, transported it along with a sizable Christmas tree and decorations and table settings in a BACK Pack on her 5 foot or so frame, on ICE by foot in the darkness and on the bus from her flat some distance from the Julien stake house. The she got it warmed up, served it, did all the dishes and was her typical brilliant self. She bought the tree and decorations from her own funds, then gave them to her friends when she departed for India 4 days later. A week or two ago, she presented a family home evening lesson where she ended up giving a brief plan of salvation overload to Rohit, another graduate student from India who was visiting our home evening activity. She was met by the Mandarin speaking elders I think last year, was taught and baptized and brought with her a protestant background and at the same time a vocabulary and approach that would suggest in many ways that she had been LDS all her life. Much like Mercy in this regard, who I think has been a member several years, she will truly be a pioneer among her family and people. She does so many things with so much energy that we will NEVER forget her example. Sister Whitney was mentioning today that briefly knowing these two, and others like them, has already been an experience for which we have been richly rewarded. We really hope to see them both in Highland for a brief tour of our area.
PHOTOGRAPHS
I am not unmindful that a picture is worth a thousand words. Therefore, as soon as I can solve a few puzzles posed by a lack of technical savvy, we hope to have graphic illustrations of what and who we are describing. We actually have photos and even a few short "films" on the Ipad which document not only the people, but also the foreign nature of the English language many of them speak!
ICE
Lets be brutally frank up front. This country is one big ice sheet. Driving is one thing. Walking is another. Utah does not even come close. We tippy toe from one benign looking spot to another, avoiding compliments of the family dog, cars and now ice. In fact, while Mrs. Diamond a Glasgow native was out breaking up the ice on her sidewalk today, she told us that a big one was coming next week, which she went on to clarify was blowing out of "SIBERIA". I was giving her a pass along card while Jean was breaking up the ice with a shovel. It was only yesterday that I mentioned to Sister Whitney that we may as well be in Siberia, to which she scoffed a bit. Now, it appears Siberia, or at least the wind therefrom, is heading our way. This made me realize how comparatively close we are to that country or province. Not in my wildest dreams.
MERCY
From Kenya, Mercy is a post graduate student at the University of Glasgow, a few short miles from our flat. She is a law graduate, a member of the Kenya bar association and a shining light in our Young Single Adult Group. She flew back to Africa last week so that she could be personally present for the swearing in before the bar. In addition, she is one of the nicest persons I have ever met: upbeat, pleasant and generous with her time and talents. Like Josephine below, she is a welcome addition to the cause of Zion, lovely in every respect, as are so many of the young single adults in Glasgow.
JOSEPHINE
No one can describe Josephine. Like Mercy, she is a phenomenon to behold. She is a native of India, part East Indian and I think part Indonesian, not tall, but powerful in more ways than one. When I first noticed Josephine, she was on the badminton court with other young single adults, quick and powerful. She is a medical doctor from India, finished her post graduate studies here at the University of Edinburgh, and left Scotland on Thursday to return home to India, to a "small" city of only 10 MILLION! Before she left, she volunteered to buy and make the dinner (typical Indian street food, that the poor eat, which I actually liked), which fed 16 handily, transported it along with a sizable Christmas tree and decorations and table settings in a BACK Pack on her 5 foot or so frame, on ICE by foot in the darkness and on the bus from her flat some distance from the Julien stake house. The she got it warmed up, served it, did all the dishes and was her typical brilliant self. She bought the tree and decorations from her own funds, then gave them to her friends when she departed for India 4 days later. A week or two ago, she presented a family home evening lesson where she ended up giving a brief plan of salvation overload to Rohit, another graduate student from India who was visiting our home evening activity. She was met by the Mandarin speaking elders I think last year, was taught and baptized and brought with her a protestant background and at the same time a vocabulary and approach that would suggest in many ways that she had been LDS all her life. Much like Mercy in this regard, who I think has been a member several years, she will truly be a pioneer among her family and people. She does so many things with so much energy that we will NEVER forget her example. Sister Whitney was mentioning today that briefly knowing these two, and others like them, has already been an experience for which we have been richly rewarded. We really hope to see them both in Highland for a brief tour of our area.
PHOTOGRAPHS
I am not unmindful that a picture is worth a thousand words. Therefore, as soon as I can solve a few puzzles posed by a lack of technical savvy, we hope to have graphic illustrations of what and who we are describing. We actually have photos and even a few short "films" on the Ipad which document not only the people, but also the foreign nature of the English language many of them speak!
Monday, December 3, 2012
GETTING STARTED
Sister Whitney here
We are glad to be here in Glasgow. Our flat is very nice comfortable and warm, and that's important to us right now. It is taking us awhile to get situated and oriented and driving on the left is an exciting challenge! We have two parks nearby to walk in and get our daily exercise. We can look out from the top of these parks and see the scene on the top of this page. There is a very nice botanical garden very near our flat that is fun to walk in and will be very pretty in the summer. We have driven out to some areas of the country which is interesting terrain. It's nice to see the farm houses and individual homes. In the city people live in flats and many are high rise, ours is 3 stories and we are on the ground floor.There are many old stately homes and flats. We hope to get out and see more of Scotland soon. We will be inspecting the missionary flats and visiting people so we will get the chance to visit some of the more interesting sights, castles etc. Things take time here, we have to be patient. It's fun getting to know Glasgow, and the Glaswegians, they are so very friendly and helpful, if we could just understand what they were saying. We will catch on soon. signing out, Jean
We are glad to be here in Glasgow. Our flat is very nice comfortable and warm, and that's important to us right now. It is taking us awhile to get situated and oriented and driving on the left is an exciting challenge! We have two parks nearby to walk in and get our daily exercise. We can look out from the top of these parks and see the scene on the top of this page. There is a very nice botanical garden very near our flat that is fun to walk in and will be very pretty in the summer. We have driven out to some areas of the country which is interesting terrain. It's nice to see the farm houses and individual homes. In the city people live in flats and many are high rise, ours is 3 stories and we are on the ground floor.There are many old stately homes and flats. We hope to get out and see more of Scotland soon. We will be inspecting the missionary flats and visiting people so we will get the chance to visit some of the more interesting sights, castles etc. Things take time here, we have to be patient. It's fun getting to know Glasgow, and the Glaswegians, they are so very friendly and helpful, if we could just understand what they were saying. We will catch on soon. signing out, Jean
GETTING ORIENTED
Elder Whitney here. I have no shame in taking a leaf from a blogger much admired in another part of this mission, one whose assignment mimics mine. Never light minded, but always light hearted, he seems to be able to find a silver lining in just about every cloud. In fact, his writings ring a bit of Mark Twain. My tendency is to ramble, more like William Faulkner, or maybe James Joyce, but of course miles from their talent with words. Rambling is a nice word for disorganized. The only reason I don't direct the reader to his blog, where you can get a Northern Ireland context, is that he is not me, and hopefully our friends and family, or whoever else might be so fortunate as to grace the pages of this blog, will find that it contains sufficient insight as to warrant his or her attention and at least passing interest. Make of it what you will. This writer does intend to improve not only on clarity, but on content, as the days progress and he becomes more accustomed to not only blogging, but to typing on this new laptop and working with this new software program or whatever it is properly called, including this word processing brand, whatever it is, which seems to include an unfathomable ability to plant what is being typed anywhere and everywhere but where it is supposed to be in the sentence being typed!
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