Autumn Arrives 9/23/07

Many know what Autumn means but only Americans know it as Fall. The first day was Friday, in the Northern Hemisphere (Down Under it's the beginning of Spring. . . Fair Dinkum!).

Thursday evening the youth and their leaders from the Westlake 9th Ward held their Mutual activity in our back yard. It was a combination pizza party, fireside and service project. It commemorated the conclusion of their effort to spruce up our back garden. After the pizza was eaten they jumped into planting hundreds of flower bulbs to bloom next Spring (Autum in New Zealand. . . nevermind).

After that they listened to Joseph speak for a few minutes then answer questions. The youth loved it and so did Joseph. He's relaxed and natural with the youth, and his attitude has an amazing impact. They have asked him to speak later in a Stake fireside with the whole story.

These youth pledged over 1000 hours of service early in the year. They have already passed 1200 hours and the snow hasn't begun to fall on the widow's driveways.

We're lookin forward to Conference Weekend, especially the Friday the 5th, when we will get together once again with our EBM return missionaries.

We'll end with a few photos of Tim's recent trip to Indonesia. The first shot is of the team at dinner after a full day recording Joy to the World in the studio. (R-L: Titik Sugiyanto -translation, Nicole Hui -Area AV, Tim, Atin Limbong - translation, Sowignyo- local Materials Management AV producer). The menu included frog's legs and Chicken feet (deep fried like pork rinds. . . chrunchy good!). The others are of one of the Chapels in Jakarta, the Relief Society and a couple of the wonderful Primary kids. It was Fast Sunday and the Spirit is the same the world over.