One nice thing about being in Melbourne is that there are
other senior missionaries with whom we associate. The six we work with at the archive celebrate
birthdays and they had my work area decorated on my birthday. We brought in a yummy cheesecake and shared
it at lunch.
The Dillinghams attend the Caulfield ward and have become
friends with an actress who was playing the part of Fantine in Les Miserables
which is playing here in Melbourne. She
let them know about “rush” tickets, or tickets which have not been sold on the
day of performance. So, the Dillinghams
and Sis. Madden and us decided to go downtown and see if we could get them for
that evening. We were able to get them
for $45 each, regularly $110. The
performance was wonderful and we appreciated the fact that even in live
professional performances, sometimes they forget to turn the mics on when
actors are speaking. While waiting in
line to get our tickets, we talked to a lady standing in front of us and she
recommended a Chinese place for dinner, The Golden Orchid, which was just
around the corner. We decided that was
fine so we walked around the corner and were so surprised to see China
Town. We had one of the best Chinese
dinners we have eaten. We will definitely
have to have a repeat performance of that meal.
And on the other end of the “good food”scale, there is
McDonald’s, but in Australia, everyone calls it Macca’s. I guess the owners decided to go along with
the crowd and hung a Macca’s sign.
We are working on a huge project which is wills and
probates. All four cameras are working
on this and have been since last February.
We found the “Rust” name in several places in Tasmania, but here was the
first “Dockery” name we have found.
(Kay’s maiden name.)
A P-day in the Dandenong Mt. Range found us at Grant’s
picnic grounds where you can feed the birds.
Last time we were here (2008) most of the birds were the colorful
parrots. This time, most were the
cockatoos. There is now a specific area
to feed the birds. You must pay for a
dish of food and go into an enclosed area.
However, we found that if you stand outside the area and hold out your
arms, the birds come to you anyway. You
are not allowed to feed them (penalties apply) but the birds don’t seem to
notice if you have food or not.
We had to stop at Miss Marples for a late lunch and
thoroughly enjoyed these delicious desserts.
No one went away hungry!
We came to Melbourne at the most beautiful time of year as
roses are blooming everywhere. These are
in front of our house, and are only some of the roses around the front and side
yards.
Marvin and I decided on a day in the city, and we wanted to
see where we were in 2008. We remembered
we crossed the Yarra River and walked along the pedestrian area next to the
river. As we exited the Flinders Train
Station, there was the river. It was not
the same area (we didn’t walk down that far), but we were in the general area. We walked across the “love” bridge and saw
the locks which lovers had locked onto the bridge. What a nice tradition.
This week, two of the archive staff members came to our
rooms to announce that the Victorian Archive Center had received the coveted
community award for volunteers. This is
an award which is given each year to a company who uses volunteers to give
service to the community. The companies
must apply for the recognition and there was stiff competition. The archive uses about 150 volunteers, but we
were told that about 90% of the service has come from our 3 rooms where we are
digitizing records. As a group, we are
digitizing an average of 40,000 records each week.
We are happy to be here and are glad to
provide that service to the good people of Australia.
