Venom and Art

This has been a mixed-up week. Why does it take so long to prepare a 1 1/2 hour lesson for our Pearl of Great Price class? We both read through the chapter and lesson materials then get together to plan the actual lesson. We try to use the Old Testament Visual Resource DVD, but sometimes it doesn't have the pictures and videos we want to use so we make a DVD for the lesson we are teaching. Thus, we spent all day Monday working on the lesson. We didn't even make it over to the church for our normal work.

In member and leader support we have opportunities the younger elders and sisters don't have. On Tuesday we went with Mary and Penny to the Indian River Reptile Zoo between here and Peterborough. Elder Wheeler is practiced in pushing a wheel chair on gravel paths. The small zoo is well known for its collection of various reptiles and supply of anti-venom. It added a few dinosaurs that actually move and roar.

No, these are human, not reptiles

Our friend, the black mamba

Are we supposed to touch the dinosaurs?

Not this one, for sure

An alligator in the reptile show

It's a good thing we went before we left home

 Mary and Penny provided us with a good lunch after the zoo.

Elder Wheeler got a call asking if he could go with Russ Dishington for home teaching on Tuesday evening. They visited Jim McComb, Wayne Emino, and Eleanor Murphin. He really enjoyed visiting the members as a home teacher. We don't know Eleanor very well, but found out she plays the steelpan. Her family played for the Caribana festival in Toronto.

Eleanor with her steelpan

Wednesday we were back in Kingston for our district meeting. We really enjoy meeting with the elders and sisters. We don't see them as often as we did in Toronto. We all went to Hardy's for lunch afterward. We have been working to clean out the church library, but now we are helping President Holt clean out the clerk's office and his office. We went to the church Wednesday evening. This added several materials to the library.

President Holt sorting out materials in his office

On Thursday (and half of Friday)  Elder Wheeler worked on copying district maps. Our scanner is small (8 1/2x11) so this means scanning several sections for each branch boundary and merging them in photoshop. It works very well for scans from the same side of the map, but two of the branches have parts of their maps on the two sides of the large map. This is trivial for Doug, my geographer brother, but more difficult for me. We had dinner with the Havelock Holts then our Pearl of Great Price class. They had invited Cheryl Easterbrook to dinner also. She used to be in the branch before moving to Toronto and now has moved back into the branch. She decided to join us for that class that evening. We hope this will help integrate her back into our activities.

Window display along our morning walk

Our neighbor the "big bad wolf" (actually old and timid)

We saved our P-Day activities for Saturday this week so on Friday we went to Brighton to make another deposit in the bank (worst exchange rate so far on our mission). We then went to the church for an hour (which stretched into three or four) to match our inventory with what is actually in the library.

We saw an advertisement for an art tour in Prince Edward County this Saturday. We visited 14 home galleries along Rednersville Road. We met a lot of people, saw some nice art, and even talked about the church with several of them.

Looking across Quinte Bay on the art tour

That's what I feel like doing

We heard about Birdhouse City by Picton so we decided to see what it was like. There were a lot of birdhouses modeling famous buildings, but no birds.

A piece of the rock

A small fraction of the birdhouses

Birds in training

We found a little trail to follow and found ourselves at a museum in honor of Reverend William Macaulay who built a church in the area. We wondered if some of Sister Wheeler's ancestors knew him.

A trail through the goldenrod

Reverand Macaulay's house

Reverand Macauley's church

 We have seen a lot of unusual lawn ornaments in Canada, but this one beat them all, by force if nothing else.

Why didn't we think of putting airplanes and missiles in our front yard?

We then went to Lake on a Mountain which is a deep lake almost adjacent to the Picton Bay and Adolphus Reach (a bay). The Bay is much lower than the lake. While there we met Joseph Smith's 7th cousin (a non-member who does a lot of genealogy). He is through the Mack line.

Lake on the Mountain

The lake

Aldophus Reach (a bay), across the street from the lake

 Sunday brought a lesson on Home Teaching, since there were new home teaching assignments for September. I don't understand why everyone was surprised about being called on Saturday (September 1st) to report their home teaching for August. Could it be that the July report was just turned in last week? The report for August was turned in today.

We enjoy Sundays because we get to Skype our family. Whenever we skype it seems like everything becomes chaotic, but maybe that's normal, who knows. Tomorrow we have Labor Day and kids will be back to school on Tuesday. That means the summer is over and we can look forward to a long autumn.

Brynlie on Skype