10 October 2011

Elder Ashby came home a while ago from the church, where he did his first Google Plus communique with our children.  I was jealous, but have had back spasms for 3 days, and will have to do this writing in segments.  I have to run back to bed every few minutes.  I made him tell me about each of you, except Gary. and Brian and Brenda's tribe, who weren't there.  He gave my S.S. lesson for me yesterday.  I'm doing some better now, but you know how I am with this.  I just can't hurry it along.

I have been enjoying watching the birds from my window while I've been laid up.  There are Ibis, Rosella, Seagulls, of course, and hundreds of others, large and small.  The crows have a horrible, loud cry that sounds like a newborn baby.  But you should hear the magpies here!  Their song is a melody of about 10 notes.  They don't have the bad wrap here that they do in the States.  There's one that perches on the limb of our tree just outside our window and sings his head off each morning about 6:30 till he wakes me up.

Well, I'm so sorry about the pictures, but the little stick we have for internet is very limited, and we can't use it up waiting for it to load each photo when they take so long.  Maybe I can do some of them when I'm at the church some time.  But even that connection is shakey, as you saw today.  It disconnected on him and he couldn't get reconnected.

My companion brought me a beautiful little meat pie today for lunch, for which they are so famous here.  Yum.  The crusts are different on their pies, not flakey like ours, but I like them.  I have to furnish plenty of dishes for the branch, since they get together so often.  There's a party this Friday for the Orths, and a Soup Sunday once a month after church.  On Fast Sundays they have Fast Breaker dinners at each other's homes; Institute on Wednesdays, CES Firesides one Sunday night; and various other get-togethers where we eat.  I don't mind the cooking, it's just finding the ingredients to use that makes it difficult.  For example, there's nothing here that resembles green chillies!  How do you make anything like a Mexican dish without green chillies?  I'm surprised at how many of my own dishes are of Mexican origin!  I want to make Ammon's wonderful soup for Soup Sunday--Mexican Green Chili Chicken Soup, I think--but I looked all over for green chillies.  I finally found one tiny bottle on a top shelf which has Jalepenos with it, but until I open it, I won't know if they're pickled or what.  There is no Jack cheese either.  Even the cheddar is white, and doesn't taste like real cheddar.  We'll see how the soup turns out!