January Happenings

We had 5 Visa Waiters arrive with our last group of new missionaries. Two Elders are waiting to go to Argentina, 2 to Portugal and this is Sister Ashton who WAS waiting to go to Costa Rica. Unfortunately for us, she was only with us for three weeks. We got to take her to the airport when her documentation came through. It was so sad when we got to the airport to check in and found out that her flight had been canceled. We had to make arrangements for her to stay with the closest set of Sisters and then took her back the next day when she was able to catch another flight.

A few weeks ago, Elder Clarke decided he would do an act of service for the Elders in our District. He took all his shoe shining supplies and polished each Elders shoes. For a few it was a major difference. Poor Elder Ibarras Doc Martens no longer have the yellow stitching but he is okay with it. His shoes do look good.

After District Meeting, the our Elders and the Elders in the District which is meeting in the same building, stay around and fix lunch,  Elder Ibarra was making tacos.

Every once in a while the Bishop of the YSA Ward calls a "Huddle" after all the meetings. This is a time that he goes over things he does not want to announce in Sacrament Meeting because he can go into more detail. We have a little group that usually sticks around after to fix food or just snacks to socialize over. This week they made hot chocolate. Good for a very cold day.

 Last Friday was VERY cold.  The maintenance guys in our office building decided that they needed to check the automatic fire sprinklers.  When they tested it, a pipe burst.  This all happened in the attic but the empty office on the second floor above us was flooded.  The fire alarm had been going off for quite some time but someone said they were testing it.  When it shut off Sister Casler thought she heard water and went looking.  She found the ceiling in our supply room dripping.  We were placing buckets in several places and then I went into the Presidents office to see how it was.  Big Leak!  It had run down the wall and our new carpet had a huge wet area.  There must have been a very big drip too because the couch was quite wet.  We left the office that evening with a big fan blowing on the carpet.  Monday morning, all was well.

This past week we had interviews by President Johnson at our District Meeting. Sister Caanan and I fixed lunch for the 2 Districts. Such good young men who deserve to be pampered occasionally.


                                 
On Saturday, we decided to go into Pitt and spend time indoors at one of the many museums. Being a onetime steel town, this is an all steel car. In person it is really pretty. Looking at the next picture can you guess which one we went to?


                                                                                     
There are a lot of Heinz things in Pittsburgh. The Heinz Museum is a fantastic place. I think there were about 5 floors. Each floor is a different theme and one of the floors is a Smithsonian presentation. There is an amazing picture history of Pittsburgh.

There is an area dedicated to Mr. Rogers who was from Pittsburgh.

We discovered that there are a lot of famous people who hail from Pittsburgh. Did you know that Dr. Salk was from here and that the polio vaccine was discovered in Pitt?

 We have been talking for quite some time about going up on Mt. Washington to get a good picture looking out over the city.  We finally went this week but it was a very cold, windy, overcast day.  This is where President Johnson takes all the new missionaries after picking them up from the airport.  They take a picture of the whole group.  We figure we will wait for a brighter day to go back up and take a selfie.

We had one day of snow at the beginning of the month.  It is amazing how they can keep the roads so clear but it makes such a mess of things.  It's a little hard to see but all the cars end up with a white film all over.  The darker cars look pretty bad.

It also makes a mess of the roads after the snow has melted and things dry up. This is our parking lot at the office. That is not snow. It is the residue of the salt they spread all over. This is what all the roads look like until it rains and washes it away.


The last few weeks have been pretty slow but we are getting ready to have a whirlwind week.  All of the Visa Waiters documents have come in and so Monday we will be taking several of them to the airport and then we will go help prepare dinner for the 16 new missionaries that are coming in that day.  Tuesday we will be training the new missionaries and transfers are that day.  We also will head for the airport again to take a Sister who is going home.  We are going to try to teach English to a Spanish speaking family the Elders have set up.  They are always so enthused when talking about doing it but scheduling just does not work.  We hope for success this time.   Hopefully I remember to take a few pictures.