July 20, 2014

I've been missing in action for a while, but with good reason; we've been busy with our everyday what-have-yous as well as moving to a new building. We been moved from our temporary hallway location to the Family Services building. This is a move-up for us because now we have an actual office, but we were also kind of sad to move because our hallway location allowed us to be able to visit with employees who worked in the Service Center. Our 'office' was the shortcut to many people's desk area, so we had lots of opportunities to visit with a variety of people (which usually resulted in us wasting some time as well). Now we are located in the back room of a long hallway in the last building on the campus, so I think our employee visitors are going to decrease dramatically! We will be stuck doing actual work all day long instead of in spurts. Before coming here, Dave and I both had jobs where we were around people all day long and had time everyday to visit with people while we worked. My experience so far with a workday that is nothing but uninterrupted computer work is that it makes the days seem really long. Hopefully, once our new location is better known, we will get more people in and out of our office. As it is right now, we don't have many people dropping in. That should pick up soon once the word gets out. The nice thing for us is that our new office is a one minute walk from our house.

Elder Smith hard at work!

We share a common area with Family Services

The long hallway... we are at the very end!

Our new office building

I continue to be amazed at what it takes for a person, or family, to move from their home country to a new country. Almost always there is a huge sacrifice on the part of the first generation to immigrate. Rarely, from what we've seen, does a person transfer over from the 'old country' to the new country without sacrificing their training or education. We see people everyday who were highly trained in their home country-- have a college degree, masters, or doctorate and come here and have their certifications denied because the education doesn't match up with Australia's. They almost always end up working an entry level job because, a job is a job, and they need money to live on. The hope is that their children will have a better life in Australia than they would have had in the country they left. We see people with masters degrees or doctorate degrees driving truck so their children can have the advantages of a land of freedom. Every day I realize how much US citizens need to stop complaining and appreciate the advantages they have in their US citizenship. God bless America!

Grandkids:

Grandpa and I went downtown with two of our friends on Saturday afternoon and rode the tour bus around Sydney. I'm surprised we haven't done this before, but somehow we have never gotten around to it, so since it was a nice day, we decided to ride the tour bus around the city and see all the sights. We rode on the top roof part of the bus so we had a very good view of everything.

This guy has one of the nicest 'houses' I've seen on the streets, he has a chair  instead of just the sidewalk!

It's surprising to think that it is the middle of winter down here and the weather is still nice and sunny. It's cold enough now that we have to wear lightweight coats, but the days are so pretty and sunny that it just doesn't seem like winter. Before we got on the tour bus we went to the Italian part of the city and stopped at a really great Italian bakery. Here's what I got...

We had a moment of silent appreciation for Uncle Mike and all the Italians in the world who know how to make such great treats!

After our morning treat we went into the local Italian grocery store. I took a picture of one of the cheese displays. This was just one of many cases of cheese. Whitney and Mike, this picture is for you. I know you guys would have loved this store!! 

This meat counter is the real deal.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been helping some big rugby players get their resumes created and looking good. Two of them play for a university in Sydney that is located down by the harbor. They told me that there is really great seafood area down on the wharf by the university and that we should go there to eat sometime. It just so happened that our tour bus went right by the fish market so we hopped off and walked down and got some really great fish and chips!

While we were there, we happened to run into a girl from the ward we go to, she served a mission in Taiwan just like Grandpa did. She was meeting some friends from Taiwan at one of the restaurants down by the fish market. Since the people she was meeting were from Miaoli, one of the cities Grandpa served in 40 years ago on his mission, we tagged along with her to meet them so Grandpa could talk to them. They were both pretty old. They had moved to Miaoli soon after Grandpa had left, so he didn't know them, but they went to church where Grandpa had served. They actually were good friends with one of the women Grandpa knew when he was there. When Grandpa knew this girl she was only 15 years old. She grew up, got married, and had children, sent them on missions, and stayed stalwart in church. Sadly, she just died recently. Talking to these people made Grandpa happy; he got to find out about the people from church he knew 40 years ago. When Grandpa was there as a missionary there were only 15 members meeting in a rented building in that branch, now there is a whole ward and they have their own building. Grandpa and I are thinking we might stop in Taiwan on our way home from Australia. He hasn't been back since he left 40 years ago.

Eating awesome fish and chips.

After our bus tour we met some friends and ate dinner at a restaurant at the top of this big building. 

It made me nervous to ride the elevator so high up in the air. The restaurant twirls around (slowly) so while you are eating you can see the city and the ocean. It makes one rotation per hour. That might seem slow, but it's fast enough that it kind of makes you dizzy if you look out the window all the time. It was twilight when we first went up and was dark night when we left.

Looking down on the city

This was my appetizer... it's kangaroo meat!!  It's sliced very thin and is raw in the middle. It tasted ok, but isn't my favorite type of meat. I think I might like it though if it were completely cooked all the way through. I didn't like the idea that the meat was mostly raw.

It was very expensive to eat at this restaurant, our dinners cost $100 per person! It was fun to eat at a restaurant up in the sky once, but I doubt we'll ever go there again.

I thought I would finish today by telling you about one of Australia's most famous songs, in fact, they like this song so much it's called Australia's unofficial national anthem. The song is called 'Waltzing Matilda". It's the story of a swag man (a swag man is a man from the olden days who walked around Australia looking for work). The song was written a long, long time ago when hardly anyone had a car, so the really poor people looking for work had to walk everywhere they went. In the United States these kinds of people were called hobos. The swagmen walked all over Australia, especially out in the outback where it's hot and dusty and there's not much water. They carried a swag on their back, a swag is a rolled up blanket with all your belongings inside that you carry on your back. Swagmen usually traveled alone, but when they met each other at gatherings, since there weren't any women to dance with, they gave their swags a woman's name and danced with their swag instead. That's why the song is called Waltzing Matilda,  the man in the song had named his swag Matilda and he danced with it. Here's a picture of an old-time swag man.

Look at his billie can and his swag

The song is the story of a swagman who is making a drink of tea in a billie (an old can they used to boil their water over a fire in) at a bush camp by a billabong (a big pond of water). He captures and kills a sheep that comes to the billabong to get a drink. When the sheep's owner arrives with three policemen to arrest him for stealing and killing the sheep, the swag man drowns himself in the billabong rather than be captured and sent to jail. I'm not sure why the Australians love this song so much because the story it tells isn't very inspiring, but they love it a lot.

The Australians love the song Waltzing Matilda so much that:

The words to the song are on the final pages of all Australian passports.

The song was played at the 1974 World Cup and at the Montreal Olympic Games in 1976.

The Australian National rugby union team plays it at every game, they play it especially loudly when they face the New Zealand All Blacks during the time when the All Blacks are doing the haka.

The Australian women's national soccer team is nicknamed the Matildas after this song.

It is the quick march of the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment

It is even the official song of the U.S. 1st Marine Division (in honor of the time the unit spent in Australia during WWII).

Here is a kids' link so you can see and hear the song:
http://youtu.be/1ZIqXRDv4EM
Here is a link with the song with the Australian National rugby team:
http://youtu.be/bZo62S1QFMk

Grandpa and I love and miss you very much!