Living Large!

Here we are at the Vancouver Zone Conference sitting to the left of President and Sister Nelson.  If you look carefully you can almost see us.  There will only be one more zone conference before the Nelsons leave on July 1.  President and Sister Tilleman from Arizona will be our new mission president and wife.  They both grew up in Calgery so they have dual citizebship.  It will be fun to see what changes happen when they come.  They have 5 children and they will be bringing their 6 yr. old daughter with them.

 Here we are on our preparation day down by the wharf.  It is a beautiful day and we just walked around taking in the sights.  I'm wearing my raincoat that I wear everywhere.  The rule is-always have your raincoat, umbrella and camera.

Paul bought a new Vancouver Canada hat.  He also bought a box of cookies from a cute little "girl guide," Canadas equivelant of a girl scout. We are in a small town called Steveston which is a suburb of Richmond where we live. We are always very close to the water (ocean) and in this case commercial and personal fishing boats. The humidity makes it seem colder than we are used to in Colorado....it is about 47 degrees but it feels more like 32.

There were many of these boats set up all along the water selling their fish, and there were quite a few people buying their dinner for the night.  We chose instead to go to a little cafe and get 2 tuna fish sandwiches and 2 diet cokes, all for the "reasonable" price of $17.25! For us the sandwich looks better than taking one of these fish home and looking at it because we would have no idea what to do with it.  If it doesn't come in a box, we don't eat it!!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!!!!  Don't you love it!  Elder Lahache is the sane one in the middle and is a First Nation (Mohawk Indian) from Canada and Elder Williams, the insane one on the right,  is from Utah.  The weird guy on the left is from somewhere north of the ozone! The two Elders are currently working in the office making a DVD for a temple grounds tour of the Vancouver temple so we get to see them every day.  They are awesome!

Sightseeing in Vancouver

Isn't this beautiful!  This is looking at the North Shore across the bay from downtown Vancouver.  We think the mountain in the background is Grouse Mountain where some of the Olympics took place in 2010.  The sun finally came out so we went downtown to do some sightseeing.  It was sunny but boy was it cold.  We can't wait for warmer days ahead to get out and see the sights. It cost us $12.00 to park for an hour and a half.  Then when we went to Stanley Park we had to pay $2.00 for 2 hours. Wow I think we got a deal on that one!

Paul took a picture of the Vancouver skyline,  We are right down by Canada Place where the cruise ships come in.

We drove from downtown Vancouver to Stanley Park, a distance of 3 miles which took us an hour.  The totem pole is unique to the BC Northwest Coast FirstNations (Indian Tribe).  Each pole tells a real or mythical story.

On President's Day in February we decided to close the office and go sight seeing.  We went with President and Sister Nelson and Elder and Sister Nielsen. We took the sky train all around town, the sea bus out to North Vancouver and ended up in Chinatown to eat lunch and do some shopping.  All the Elders have silk Chinese ties but Paul didn't find one he liked--so that's my mission now-one Chinesen tie for Elder Traxler.

On Wednesday March 10 we attended our first zone conference.  Because our mission is so large geographically, we actually have 6 zones and 6 zone conferences.  The President likes us to attend one of the conferences which are held each quarter.  We hope to go over to Victoria in June and stay a weekend when  the Island has their next conference. We came away with a new admiration, respect and love for those young men and woman. The 4 sisters you see are mandarin chinese speaking.  In the group are also Korean, Spanish, and of course English speaking. Now a note on the tsunami and earthquake in Japan.  We trained with a couple at the MTC who were going to the Japan Toyko to be office missionaries.  After we heard about the tsunami I called over to Japan(it was 2;30 pm Fri. our time and 7:30am Sat. over there.) They had 60 missionaries at the office who had spent the night because they had their zone conference the day the earthquake hit and no transportation was running so they couldn't get back to their area.  Their mission president had changed their zone conference by one day which resulted in all those missionaries being in Toyko instead of in Sendai where they would have been right in the middle of the tsunami--isn't that  awesome.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  They felt the effects in Toyko but all were safe.  We are so greatful to be a part of this work and watch the hand of the Lord in everything all around us.

Our Humble but Enjoyable Abode

This picture is of the outside of the house that we live in. We live in the basement and enter our 2 bedroom/1bath apartment from the door to the right of the car in the driveway.  The picture is taken from across the street in a beautiful park that we use to take walks in. The great selling point is the covered parking which most apartments don't get according to Balbir Dahandra, our landlord.

Here is our large screen TV that came with the apartment. We are fortunate to have the rabbit ears as we get 6 channels...2 in a foreign language and 1 with hockey highlights and games of the high school and club teams.  We don't watch much tv as you might expect. We do however go to the local library and get DVD's of old movies and documentaries.  I have to sit next to the TV to read the inscriptions to Sue who is sitting on the couch.

This is the whole bedroom. We added a matress top to soften the existing bed. The lamp on the left is broken and the lampshade kind of tilts toward the sun like a sun flower but it does still turn on. I asked the prior missionaries and they said that it was already broken when they got there. We are going to keep it as a symbol of the pioneer spirt.  The only other thing in the room is the dresser which is about 2 feet wide and has 6 drawers high.  Sue has the top 3 and I get the lower 3...sounds equal!!

Acutually, this looks bigger than it is.  Only one person can get in here at any one time. Sue makes her breakfast when I am getting cleaned up and then we switch.  It really is very functional and doesn't require any foot work to get around in it. You can wash dishes and put the food away in the refrigerator without moving! This is great for older people like us!

This is our living, dining, relaxing, reading  and all in all general purpose room that we spend almost all of our time in. The heater in the foreground is for survival and not just not a decorator piece. The tv gives you a perspective of the size. The chair on the right is the one I have to sit in to read the stuff on the movies that we watch.

It is small but we love it as it is easy to clean each week and I have only gotten lost once. The whole package costs $850 a month which includes utilities and the use of the owner's washer and dryer once a week.

Getting Started!

We are getting into the groove of our new callings and living arrangements. We stay busy every day and even some evenings...the good news is that apparently it will get busier when we get settled into our new Ward  and recieve callings there as well. Above we are attending our first Family Home Evening with other Senior couples that serve along with us. Most of them will be going home this summer when they finish up their 18 months.

Our community is very diverse. We live in a suburb of Vancouver called Richmond and the population is about 70% Chinese. We are in the process of celebrating the Chinese New Year and these were the decorations that we had for our Family Home Evening mentioned above.  Sue and I found out that we are "Dogs" according to their calendar.  It doesn't sound so good until you read the characteristics associated with the sign which turned out better than we thought.

One of our many responsibilities is helping the Nielsen's fix luncheons several times a month for the missionaries as they come in for various trianing meetings and conferences. Here we are getting ready to serve the bannanas that will eventually be used in the desert. We have to prepare the meal, get the room set up, and then clean up after everyone is done. The biggest meal we have to help prepare and serve is on what is called "Transfer Day" when we have about 70 to 80 hungry people to feed. 

 Here the missionaries including President Nelson are singing to us to thank us for the lunch that we helped get ready. Afterwards they play a basketball competition to keep the blood circulating and to keep from going to sleep in the afternoon training sessions.

Here we are in front of the new Vancouver Temple which was opened in May, 2010. We are getting ready to attend with four of the missionaries that are returning to their homes after serving. This is the last event that we do with the missionaries along with Nelsons and the Neilsons (President and other Sr. couple). 

As you can see, we have a lot of different activites and duties which keep the days going by quickly. We are having fun interacting with just GOOD PEOPLE who love the Lord and feel that it is a privledge to be here serving in some small capacity. We love it so far.

We Are Finally Here!!!

We had some problems crossing the border into Canada on Sunday and ended up spending another two days in Bellingham WA.  We finally  got here on Tuesday January  18, 2011 and got set up in our basement apartment at 9231 Williams Rd, Richmond BC.  It is humble but we are enjoying the life that we used to have when we were first married living in a small basement apartment while going to college. We weren't here one hour when 4 elders showed up to welcome us and then the other senior couple, Elder and Sister Nielsen from Idaho Falls came.  We already feel loved!

Paul  sitting at  his desk with his balloon...you're the greatest!  We have a devotional  with the Nielsen's each morning and we are reading in 3Nephi currently.  The mission office is in the Richmond chapel where Richmond 1st ward meets as well as the Chinese speaking branch.  This area is about 80% Chinese (mandarin speaking).  There are also a lot of Spanish, Koreans, and people from India.  There are about 155 missionaries and Paul is in charge of the 58 cars. This along with all the investigator referrals and travel arrangements for the Mission keeps him VERY BUSY!  We got a call Sunday  morning about yet another car accident from one of our missionaries.

Here I am at my desk getting ready to start the day.  I'm in charge of departing missionaries and baptismal records among other things.  There are missionaries in and out of the office all day and it is so fun to interact with them.  They are  happy, enthusiastic and filled with the spirit and doing a great job of preaching the gospel.  There were 2 baptisms last week and prospects for several more. This is a happy place to be.  We cross the border going back into the US once a week at Port Roberts, WA to pick up the mail and. We will go tomorrow which is like a vacation. We also try to get a few groceries because the prices in Canada are very high (everything is about twice as much as in the US). I did go into the dollar store (called "Looney Town") and found a few reasonable prices.  Today was sunny but we are generally getting a lot of liquid sunshine. 

Leaving the MTC...sad!

Friday January 14: Yesterday we  finished our 2nd week at the MTC.  We were training on the  computers so we would know what to do in the office once we get there.  Paul learned a lot and breezed through the  exercises.  I on the other hand am computer illiterate so for me it was very HARD!  But I now know much more than I did before so I'm fully confident that I will eventually get the hang of it.  Elder Holland spoke at the last fireside while we were there and it was a marvelous experience to see and hear an apostle of the Lord.  We met so many other wonderful senior missionaries and quickly formed some good friendships!  And who could fail to be inspired by 2500 young sisters and elders (missionaries) with so much enthusiasm and bright smiles.  We interacted with many of them in the cafeteria as we  devoured our three meals a day.  We left Provo this morning eager to get to Vancouver and get to work.  We made it to Pendelton Oregon tonight and plan to make it to Vancouver by Sunday.  We have to stop at the border to get our "visitor record" (visas) and will ask for a 24 month visa.  There is no set rule and it is up to whoever is there as to how long they will issue a visa for.  We are at their mercy!  Here is a  picture of our whole group and if you look really hard you can see us.

Team Practice!

This is our district (small group) that we were assigned to so that we could practice our gospel discussion presentations. We are trying to win the Gold Trophy by being the best of any other district. When we went through the first session, I asked our teacher how we were ranked so far...they sent me to the office for rehab! They told me that they don't have competitions in church so I suggested that they start. They sent me to Rehab 2!  My next class is for special cases and is titled "The Obedience of the Humble Heart".  Sue wanted me to tell everyone that she was not in favor of me trying to organize the competion.  She must have already taken the class?!

I will keep you posted on how I am doing in time out.