We bought local cranberries bulk at the grocery store.  Much fresher and nicer than the bagged kind that have so many spoiled by the time we use them.  I sorted, washed, and dried them before storing them for my favorite cranberry salad for Thanksgiving.  I'll freeze some for another salad at Christmas.

Photos

Photos of the inside of our apartment: (plus the last one taken from inside our apartment)

The shower with skylight.

Bathroom sink area, Dad keeps hitting his head on the slanted ceiling, but not Mom.
 There is an advantage to being short.

Bedroom, skylight, doors open to bathroom (the open one) and kitchen (closed).

Bedroom, opposite doored wall.  Part of our "closet" on left.

Opposite side from skylight photo.  The rest of our "closet" with front dormer window behind coats,

Kitchen/dining area with other front dormer window.  Dad hits his head on the ceiling above the sink, but Mom doesn't.

Living room, work area.

Another view of living room showing our other work table and slanted ceilings.

Doe and 2 fawns breakfasting on leaves in our yard.  Taken from our dormer window.

Back Again! After a few years at home, we are away again.

Beginning October 26, 2015 we are serving a 6-month mission in the Washington Tacoma Mission (more at home than abroad this time).  We are serving in the Gray's Harbor Ward in Aberdeen, Washington, which is located at the head of Gray's Harbor on the west coast of Washington state.  The climate here is not at all like our high desert climate in Idaho.  Since arriving we have seen the sun a few times, but have mostly had clouds, rain, and fog.  I doubt they ever have a clear blue-sky day all day long. The mornings are foggy; later in the day the clouds may clear a bit and the sun shine, but soon changes to cloudy again.  Then for a few days it rains constantly.  This is the way it is here in the winter.  Snow, though, is rare.  I hope so, because we live on a hill and the streets up to our home are steep and narrow and it would be very scary to drive if they were snowy and slippery.  Every time we make the drive up here I think "this is a lot like Austria".  The road is quite narrow, there is moss and green and even still some wildflowers growing in the grass at the side of the road.  We walk (when it is not raining) along the road behind our house.  Deer are all over in this area and they are not afraid of people.  They come into the yards and eat what they want.  Fall colors are still on a few trees, but a lot have lost their leaves by now.  There are lots of evergreen trees as well.  I think that is the "name" of Washington--The Evergreen State.  The weekend before we arrived they had several days of lots of rain and flooding in some areas.  It is happening again this weekend--lots of rain and periods of high winds.  The Olympic mountains to the north of us cause the clouds coming in off the ocean to dump their rain, the rivers bring it all down and then overflow their banks down here.  A real threat and fear is that of mud slides and hillsides collapsing with the already saturated soil being deluged with more rain.  There are a few houses on these hills where the earth behind their house is gone and their house is literally on the edge. They have huge plastic tarps hanging down over the dirt.  They have to be terrifically nervous when weather like this comes.

We were at the MTC in Provo for the first week and arrived here on Monday, Nov. 2.  Sunday after that was Stake Conference (about 1/2 hour drive from here).  Stake Conference was very good.  The stake covers quite a large area.  Our ward covers a large area, too, but most of the people live down here near the harbor and not up in the mountains.  We have met a few ward members, but haven't really "met" most of the ward yet.  There are many, many names on the ward list (like over 1000) and a great many of them are unknown (not active, moved, etc.).   Most of our job here will be to help with that and help with reactivation.  There are 4 elders serving here in this city, and 4 more in surrounding areas/branches that are in our district.  There was a baptism Sunday evening.  We visited with an elderly couple in their home, the Petersons.  The wife was raised in Driggs, and the husband in Archer.  He knew Aunt Bertha and Uncle Olin.  They moved here to work in the logging business in the late 1940s.  We are grateful to be safely here, to have good shelter in the storms and to be protected when we must go our in the storms.  We hope that we can be good help here to this ward.  Thanks so much to Rachel for keeping an eye one our house and stuff in Sugar City.

I'll post a few photos of the area here.  Some show the harbor and some of the city below.  I had Gene stop one day one our drive up the hill so I could take a few photos of the view from there.  Others are in the area behind our house where we walk, photos of our apartment, etc.

Driving up the hills toward home.  The town of
Aberdeen and Gray's Harbor are in the distance.
There are houses on each side of the road all
the way up.  The day was overcast but not
raining and it is hard to see detail in the distance.

Here you can see the town and the upper end of the harbor.

Main house belonging to the Bishop

Our apartment upstairs, across the drive from the main house

Our apartment on left, main house on right

The driveway, looking opposite direction from above photo.

Fallen fall leaves by the road we walk on.

The road behind our house where we walk.  Our house up the road bit, to the left.

We're Back!

Perhaps no one even looks at this anymore because it has been so long since we have posted anything. Well, there is a reason for that. We got busy for several weeks in the late spring and then in the summer when I decided to add some photos and text, I couldn't get into it--I forgot the password and wasn't even sure of which email address we used. I hadn't written it down, so it took a long time for me to figure out what I needed to do to get back in. (The instructions we get are in German and it isn't easy to figure out what it all means.) Finally, when I went to try it again, the new computer at the center had a block and wouldn't let me in to Blogspot. So, now I am finally getting around to it at home and I probably won't put more photos on because it uses so much of our highly priced upload/download bytes. You've seen what Graz looks like from the photos already posted, though.

In the spring our group of young adults sponsored a sport weekend here and invited other young adults from German-speaking stakes to come. They stayed overnight with member families here. There was a dance on Friday night. Some of the members of our group have formed their own band and they played for that. They decorated the cultural hall with flags from surrounding countries. The them was "Come all ye Nations". Saturday they rented a high school gym here and had lots of sport activities during the day. Then after a grill meal in the evening we had some workshops and performances (we taught a squaredance workshop, and other workshops were dances from other countries) and then more dancing. On Sunday we held a singles ward, had lunch together, and said farewells. The weekend before we had been with the young adults on a temple trip to the Freiberg Temple. There we met some young adults from Hungary who were there with their families. We invited them to come to our sport weekend and 5 of them did come--their town is only about a two hour drive from here. What a great opportunity that was to help organize and hold this weekend, and meet many young adults from other areas. We recently learned that there are two young men who are dating two young women that they met during this weekend.

We bought a senior summer pass for the Austrian trains that was good for a month. We took several trips to see more of Steiermark and also Kaernten. Then we went for a weekend to Innsbruck and the train route there was mostly through country that we hadn't seen before. Actually, we have come to the conclusion that most of Austria looks much the same. The mountains are higher in some places, but the lower rolling hills where people live are lovely, green and very picturesque. It was so great to see our friends in Innsbruck again. We spent two nights there and stayed at a small hotel in Axams that we had passed everyday when we lived there. Naturally, we took some time to hike the Panoramaweg above Axams--one more time.

We also went to Munich in August for a senior missionary conference. We all went to see a museum with carriages that belonged to the Bavarian royalty of former days. That was more interesting than I thought it would be. Some of those carriages were so extremely elaborate that it seemed just too much.

Our group of young adults has increased in number and we really enjoy working with them. They are terrific group with strong faith and we love them so much. It is such a great opportunity to serve here and gain strength and commitment from their example. Our assignment when we came was to work with them to establish a center for young adults here. That has been accomplished and we now have new furnishings and games in our room in the basement of the church. The young people are enjoying the welcoming atmosphere, the classes, and activities that are held there.

That's a brief account of our doings for the past many months. We are doing great and really enjoying serving here. Autumn is about over. A couple of days ago there was a bit of a breeze and the leaves were falling from the trees like snowflakes. That was a new experience for us.

Can March be here already?

I'm not very good at keeping this blog up-to-date! It has been a month since I posted anything. We had a great month in February, even some warmish weather, but it didn't last long. The woodpeckers, though, are finding bugs to eat in the trees in the woods near our apartment. We hear them a lot and the sound of their drilling echoes through the area. We traveled by train to Vienna twice and to Munich once for zone conference and other conferences in February. The conference in Munich was for all the senior missionaries in the mission (32 of them--that is a lot of seniors in one mission). It was wonderful to meet the others and have that training together. Our group of young adults dwindled in size a little during February because the Fall semester finished at the end of January and then they have the month of Feb. off and start the next semester in March. Some of them went home, or traveled, and some live/work here so we still held FHE and Institute. We are doing well, for the most part. Elder Jeppson fainted on the train on the way to Vienna (while I was visiting the WC) and it really scared the 2 elders. We worked together to get him out flat, the elders gave him a blessing and he was fine by the time we needed to get off the train 40 minutes later. We are being watched over and we are very grateful for that and for the opportunity to serve here.

Can February be here already?

We can't believe the time is slipping by so fast! We had a great month in January and not much snow at all. We even had some spring-like weather in the middle of the month. Lately it has not snowed much, but the sun doesn't shine either. It is just kind of grey, just winter. We look forward to spring. There are a few birds that sing in the trees around our apartment building. The Center for Young Adults here in Graz will soon be an official center as we have completed the 4-month preparation period. We have a good group of young adults here and they are so great to work with. We are really enjoying ourselves! We especially enjoyed ourselves during the tour through a chocolate factory a few weeks ago. We could taste and taste and taste all we wanted. It was great!

Merry Christmas

We are thinking of all our friends and loved ones at home this time of year, but we are happy to be serving here. It is a blessing to celebrate the birth of our Savior with these wonderful people. This Christmas card winter scene is the view from our bedroom window. All it needs is a horse covered with jingle bells pulling a sleigh with Elder Jeppson and I riding in it waving to everyone.

We hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas. We are so grateful for this time of year to remember the birth and life and example of Jesus Christ. His great atoning sacrifice is the greatest gift of all and is available to all who will come unto Him. May you all be blessed with His spirit in your home and lives this week and all during the coming year.











This photo with the Weihnachtsmann was taken at the ward Christmas celebration.