One thing you may not know about our Storehouse is that because of the wide geographic area that we serve, we assemble about 70% of our orders and ship them out by truck to be picked up by the patrons at a chapel closer to their homes.

The other day I was tabulating some information for the change we are contemplating and I came across a peculiar entry.  Why, I thought, would a household of two people want 10 adult toothbrushes?  I looked over the order and noticed that it was written up by the same person who had, a couple of weeks previously, filled in 10 pounds of tomatoes when she really meant to put 10 pounds of potatoes.  Now our volunteers are taught to fill orders as written because we are not judge what others may need.  If it had been one of us in the office, we might have questioned it but this faithful volunteer filled the order just as the form was written.

I went back to the 10 toothbrushes order space.  Sure enough.  Right beside the toothbrush space was the space for toilet paper.  I stopped for a moment and then laughed and laughed.  I thought how horrified the unfortunate people would be to be expecting to get 10 rolls of toilet paper and instead getting 10 toothbrushes.  Now you know why I was the RS class clown.  It's worth a winter laugh.

In winter the roads here are white.  This is because of the salt they use to melt ice.  It’s not always cold enough to use gravel on the roads like they do in Alberta.  Drivers here are impatient and consequently rude.  They will honk for any and every reason; if you don’t put your foot on the gas the second the light goes green or, if you’re moving, if you even take your foot off the gas, they might honk at you.  They think that the safe distance you leave between cars is a space to be moved into.

We had some perfect Alberta weather days such as I love a couple of weeks ago – crisp and cold (but not arctic) and brilliantly sunny.  Often the skies here are a dull blanket of grey, grey and grey.  Even in the summer.

I am at last done my wildfire afghan for my yellow, yellow and yellow living room.  As I have been cold for the first time in about eight years, I may be in great need of it.  I have also been crocheting roses.  Our oldest daughter, who is getting married in July, is as deeply into crochet as I am.  She does craft shows and does them very successfully but she prefers to do larger crocheted objects.  So I am crocheting roses to make her wedding bouquet.  Besides the obvious greenery she will add, she is also going to weave in some purple coloured yarn which will coordinate with the bridesmaids’ dresses.  These are the roses posing against the afghan.

The Storehouse is open until noon Saturdays.  A couple of weeks ago at about 11:30 we got a phone call from someone asking for directions.  Paul tried to help him figure out where to go.  At 5 to 12, he called again, still lost, and this time Paul figured out that the reason he was lost was that he was in Markham instead of Etobicoke.  This is not as unlikely as it sounds.  It seems like every town in Ontario has the same street names so it’s easy to get in the wrong place.  We said we would wait for him but by a quarter to one, I was starting to wonder if he was going to get there at all.  He walked in at 5 to.  He explained that his phone, which had been his GPS, had died unexpectedly on him (when do people count on their phones dying?).  He had had no idea where he was going, had never been to the storehouse before and he had only arrived at the right place at all, he said, because he had prayed.   He exclaimed it over and over, he was so impressed that his prayer had been answered so quickly once he had voiced it.

Well, at last the Storehouse has been open and we’ve been able to get some hands-on experience.
 

It needs just a bit of refurbishment so I have been trying out some change on the shelves.  The products are loaded from behind on rolling shelves but so far they’ve been left in their cardboard boxes.  We put things in plastic bins instead.  It took all day to change over just the one section of shelf, with the help of a volunteer.  Now hopefully we can change all the others, too.  We have been buying many of the bins at Canadian Tire (you’d be surprised how many bins those shelves holding going towards the back) and getting many strange looks at buying 90 at once.  Perhaps they think we are survivalists.

BEFORE                                                                                      AFTER                                         

      

This ward that we are attending is very diverse.  That is not at all unusual for this area.  There are many different accents spoken but hopefully everyone in this ward at least, speaks English.   In Sunday School I sat while the gentle sounds of snoring emanated from the person next to me.  But wait – it was a two year old girl.  Our Sunday sacrament meeting themes were forgotten today in a bit of drama.  The last speaker was just winding up his talk.  He was a young man, not long back from his mission.  Suddenly in mid-sentence he dropped forward, hitting his head on the podium and then fell over sideways.  The whole congregation gasped and was instantly attentive if they hadn’t been before.  People rushed forward to see to him and a baby on one side of the chapel began to scream.  I don’t think it was any relation to him but it must have been alarmed at the suddenness of what happened.  9-1-1 was called and everyone hustled off to their classes.  I was glad to see no one tried to have the closing hymn and prayer over top of him.

We are finally settled in our little apartment and I will be lucky if my carpal tunnel syndrome doesn’t flare up again due to the amount of furniture I have assembled in the last week.  We were not taking over an apartment from anyone else so we had to buy all new things.  This is nice in one way but it takes a toll on the wrists.  Our place is very yellow.  The walls are pale yellow and then the leather which covers the chairs and sofa is pale yellow.  This is not on purpose, just accidental, so I intend to brighten things up with touches of red.  So far I have a red clock and a picture from Ikea of a red double decker bus in London.  The rest of the picture is black and white.  I have ordered some lovely LionBrand Homespun yarn to make an afghan to throw over the pale yellow sofa.

Though we have been to the Bishop’s Storehouse several times, tomorrow will be the first day that we see it in action.  The delivery truck will be there at 7:30 in the morning and we will be there to meet it.  So obviously it’s time for bed.

I was listening to a list of people’s favourite Christmas songs the other day.  It included “Silent Night”, “The Little Drummer Boy” and “Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer.”  I have never liked “The Little Drummer Boy” (the only version I really like is the symphonic version called “The Little Bolero Boy”, sort of a blend between “The Little Drummer Boy” and Ravel’s Bolero) but I really HATE “Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer.”  Even when I was a child I disliked this song.  I thought about the cruelty of the other reindeer in slighting Rudolph and then their insincerity in accepting him only when he could be of use to them.  Would they revert to their former behaviour after New Years, I thought.  What was Santa up to, anyway, allowing the reindeer to indulge such bullying in the first place?  I like the cartoon where Rudolph relaxes in an armchair while above him there are mounted deers’ heads labeled Dasher, Dancer, Blitzen, etc.

There are other Christmas songs I also hate.  Such as, “I Wonder as I Wander.” I hate it because of its rampant bad grammar.  “Like you and like I?”  This sounds like the Marilyn Monroe character in “Gentlemen Prefer Blonds.”  “A girl like I.”

Then there’s “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”  I want to know.  Does ANYONE like “The Twelve Days of Christmas?”  I have heard several amusing version of “The Twelve Days After Christmas” but the traditional “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is just universally annoying, as far as I know.

But there are some songs I love.  I never used to like “O Holy Night” until one year I heard it performed by a girl at the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and hearing her sing it was an epiphany.  In actual fact, I think there should be a law that you have to have a certain quality of voice before you are allowed to perform this song.  It is so beautiful that it should not be performed by less than stellar voices.

The Wexford Carol is lovely.  Good People, All. 

Your opinion?

It is rather tremendous to see all the new, young missionaries here although some of them have questionable (read appalling) taste in ties.  But overall they are wonderfully beautiful, all those worthy young men in dark suits and well dressed young women.  The head of our department is also a stake president and he said that as of the change from 19 to 18, he has 110 applications on his desk.  They can no longer accommodate the seniors at the MTC but are housing them at the Marriott and teaching them at the stake centre next door.

The RS on Sunday, our speaker was Linda S. Reeves of the new General RS Presidency.

Sunday night the fireside featured a men’s choir from BYU.  I love male voices.  They sang lovely Christmas songs and several of them spoke.  The second and third speakers just may turn up as general authorities some day.  The third one said he was introduced to the church by the “flirt to convert” initiative.  He is now back from a very effective mission and he never mentioned the original girl so we must conclude that though she played an important part in his conversion, she is no longer in the picture.  But what a great influence she had for good.  The last song was accompanied by one of the films from the New Testament which had everyone (including me) in tears.

Tuesday’s devotional featured Elder Hallstrom of the Seventy.  The fellow who leads the music is always very enthusiastic and earnest.

Monday we went to Welfare Square.  I missed being able to sort through Deseret Industries while there.  I love thrift stores.  To Paul’s consternation, I already bought six sewing patterns and three knitting magazines at a different DI.  He is carefully watching the capacity of the car.  They make great cheese at Welfare Square.  The Deseret products are very good but we don’t have them in Canada because of labeling and “best before” issues.  We are learning things but I think the best teacher will be on the job.  We are anxious to get going.

The paper today featured a news item about the Mayan prediction that the world will end on December 21.  That will be tough on my granddaughter who had her braces removed on the 10th.  I personally have too much wool to knit to have the world end just now.  I found this great website that has fabulous sales every Tuesday.  The end of the world will just have to wait.  There are still the hungry to feed and souls to save.

Love to all.

Our first day off.  We were to have had a Welfare Services meeting today but as they are expecting the first influx of 18 year old missionaries next week, they are now longer able to accommodate the senior missionaries at the MTC.  We will have to relocate to one of the stake centres.  And weep for us.  They didn't even have space for us to stay at the MTC.  We had to suffer with accommodation at the Marriott.  The things we suffer for the kingdom!  We have been in a "District", a group of eight where we have done all sorts of role play in learning to teach.  It is beginning to be cold here and may even snow today.  We are glad that we are not leaving today.  Several in our district are going to places that I was frankly afraid to go:  Uganda and Albania, and (not so much) Hong Kong.  They have long plane rides to look forward to and, some of them, malaria pills to take.  The ones in Uganda will look forward to boiling their water and washing their food in bleach for 18 months.  They all say they envy us our assignment.

Next week we are going to Welfare Square and will probably be following the "Humanitarian" training as we have already toured a couple of Bishop's Storehouses.  They don't quite know what to do with us as we are neither fish nor fowl.  Normally managers of Bishop's Storehouses are called from within the adjacent district so we are peculiar (as if you didn't already know that).