Hello to all, It is about 1:00 P.M. here, Sunday afternoon. We just got back from church, our block for the next couple of months has been changed to two hours. Most of the Kennedy Center students have gone home for the summer. The numbers are few right now. We had about 28 there today. We will have sacrament meeting every week and then every other week the Relief Society and Priesthood will meet, as well as the Young Women and Aaronic Priesthood. The next week, we will have Sunday School, and just keep going back and forth till the new students arrive. It is so comforting to know that there are church members wherever you go and that they have the same testimonies that we do, and that we can draw strength from them. We have quite a mixed branch, people from the USA, Korea, Canada, and a brother from Africa.
As you are aware, from Sue’s post we are looking for a house or apartment to move into. Those who say living in a Hotel would be fun, need to experience it. It is already two weeks here. We thought we had a very nice apartment ready to close on. Yesterday, I e-mailed our agent about what the status was of the negotiations and he called me and said that the apartment we felt really good about probably wasn’t going to happen. The people who own and or renting it out said that this is the first time that they had ever rented out an apartment and there were a lot yes and nos going on during the negotiations. They seemed very willing to meet our requests. After talking with Tony, our real estate agent, he said that this same landlord had asked to bring in some Chinese clients to look at it. Sue and I feel that they might not want to rent to foreigners. We are having a taste of what it might be like to be discriminated against. We aren’t sure that is the case,but it is sure what it feels like. Nevertheless, is was a real bummer to get this news. Here we were thinking that we would be moving out of the hotel in hopefully a week or. Now, we could be here for a couple to three weeks longer. That is not a pleasant thought. Tony, is coming today at 4:00 P.M. to take us to go and look at another property. Wish us luck!!!
Last night we went to the Westover’s home for a Fourth of July Bar-B-Que and fireworks. It was better than we could even imagine. We had fresh grilled hamburgers and hotdogs on real charcoal briquettes. Boyd, who is originally from Lewiston and Cornish, said he gets the hamburger patties at the Metro Market and they are so big that he makes two out of one. These hamburgers were still a nice piece of meat. The hot dogs are long and skinny. They have a little different flavor, but they were still a big hit for this Cache Valley Boy! We had all the usual trimmings: beans and dips, chips, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. Alauna said that she makes her own pickles here. There are lots of cucumbers, but the biggest thing is to try and find the dill for the process. Nevertheless, it was a good night of food. Boyd said he had a few fireworks to help celebrate the 4 in good old USA style. We had to leave the housing compound and go out on the main street and towards the end of it to do the fireworks. I guess last year some of the neighbors complained that at 9:00 o’clock at night it disturbed them and their families. But it is okay to shoot them off at 5:00 o’clock in the morning. (I’m venting a little here). We get there and they are setting out these boxes in the middle of the road. There were probably ten to twelve starting with the smaller boxes and then going to the bigger boxes that held the fireworks in them. The big boxes were probably about the size of a box that a lawn mower would come in. He also had some handheld sticks that were like pop bottle rockets, only they shot out a charge that flew through the air and exploded. These sticks probably had 30 or more of these charges in each one of them. The little kids would hold them and shoot them up into the sky. We had to keep a close eye on them though. If they turned or held the stick down it could have been a disaster. Lane Sparks, a work colleague, had told us some about the Chinese New Year and the amount of fireworks that are shot off, it is amazing. They lit off a couple rolls of fire crackers that were all hooked together, probably about a thousand firecrackers in each one. These took about a minute to go through the roll. It was quite a sight and a lot of noise. They then started to light the boxes starting with the smaller ones and moving up to the biggest one. These were the aerial displays, the smaller boxes usually just went up in the air and made a loud bang. Just imagine that in each of these boxes are ten to twelve rows going both ways full of aerial display. As we progressed to the bigger boxes, these aerials had the bang and then sparkling streamers coming out of them. They would shoot off maybe one at a time or there would be four or five go almost all together. About 45 minutes later, our fire works were over. It was a real treat. When Sue and I get a little bit settled and a little more tech gadget educated, we will try to get some pictures posted for you to see. That ended our evening and Lane brought us back to the hotel for the night.
Last week it was really hot and windy and helped to clear the air some. It was fun to be able to look and actually see some blue sky and see for a couple of miles distant. The temp. was in the 90’s most afternoons, with the humidity in the high 80’s or 90’s most days. It was really nice to get the hot temperatures out at the plant site. Everything is still just a lot of dirt piled up and no paved roads. The week before we had almost the whole week of heavy rains. hot, humid, and rainy, not a good combination for us not so local folks. Things had really started to dry up. Then it started to rain this weekend again.
Work is going good, I am learning a little about being on the other side of the management chain. It will take some getting used to. The team I work with in the office is really fun and a bunch of good people. Many of them are very young, 20-30 ish. It is really funny sometimes in the office, as they are making phone calls. I think it is a Chinese custom to see who can talk the loudest. It is almost total chaos with about ten different conversations going on. Sue would probably say that I would fit right in with the loud voice when talking on the phone. Oh, just another little side note, I was in a meeting with about ten of my Chinese friends, trying to remember names and just getting to know them a little better. Come to find out, my nick name is Grandpa to a lot of them. Don’t know if I should feel honored or look for a burial plot.
Hopefully, by this week’s end we will have a place we can call home. It has been a hard adjustment for me the first week. I must admit I wasn’t prepared for it. Things are going much better now, but I still a ways to go. But better. We are missing all of you and feel your prayers in our behalf, thanks. We can really use them and need them. I love all of you that this gets to. I have learned in these two weeks that we have been here, just how blessed we are to live where we live and especially for the blessings and bounties that we enjoy. Never take them for granted. I am so much more thankful for all I have after being here. May God bless all of you and keep you and us safe. Send us emails as often as you can. They mean so much to us we look forward to hearing from you. I am trying to get Facebook figured out so I can post and try to keep more daily updates going.
Love,
Craig (dad) Sparky
Last week it was really hot and windy and helped to clear the air some. It was fun to be able to look and actually see some blue sky and see for a couple of miles distant. The temp. was in the 90’s most afternoons, with the humidity in the high 80’s or 90’s most days. It was really nice to get the hot temperatures out at the plant site. Everything is still just a lot of dirt piled up and no paved roads. The week before we had almost the whole week of heavy rains. hot, humid, and rainy, not a good combination for us not so local folks. Things had really started to dry up. Then it started to rain this weekend again.
Work is going good, I am learning a little about being on the other side of the management chain. It will take some getting used to. The team I work with in the office is really fun and a bunch of good people. Many of them are very young, 20-30 ish. It is really funny sometimes in the office, as they are making phone calls. I think it is a Chinese custom to see who can talk the loudest. It is almost total chaos with about ten different conversations going on. Sue would probably say that I would fit right in with the loud voice when talking on the phone. Oh, just another little side note, I was in a meeting with about ten of my Chinese friends, trying to remember names and just getting to know them a little better. Come to find out, my nick name is Grandpa to a lot of them. Don’t know if I should feel honored or look for a burial plot.
Hopefully, by this week’s end we will have a place we can call home. It has been a hard adjustment for me the first week. I must admit I wasn’t prepared for it. Things are going much better now, but I still a ways to go. But better. We are missing all of you and feel your prayers in our behalf, thanks. We can really use them and need them. I love all of you that this gets to. I have learned in these two weeks that we have been here, just how blessed we are to live where we live and especially for the blessings and bounties that we enjoy. Never take them for granted. I am so much more thankful for all I have after being here. May God bless all of you and keep you and us safe. Send us emails as often as you can. They mean so much to us we look forward to hearing from you. I am trying to get Facebook figured out so I can post and try to keep more daily updates going.
Love,
Craig (dad) Sparky
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