Shopping

16 December 2006 – Saturday

It seemed strange not to go to the MTC this morning. Of course we did not sleep in but at least we did not have to hurry around getting dressed.

We woke to about 9″ of fresh powder everywhere. I did not even try to get the blower started so snow removal was all manual. I took my time over a number of sessions so it was not bad. After he got home from work, Brian finished up the parts I did not get.

I am not sure where the day went. We spent part of it packing, part of it shopping, and part of doing I know not what. The morning shopping trip went really quick and the traffic was not bad at all but the afternoon trip reminded me why I do not like to do any Christmas shopping after 10 am. The diagonal looked much like a long parking lot.

I just realized that if the traffic in Jakarta is half as bad as they say, what we went through today is just a preview of what we will go through everyday.

One of the funny things that happened today was how we went completely overboard at the grocery store. We bought enough food – including a lot of junk food – to feed a family of four for a week. I do not think we could pass anything sweet without putting it in our basket. I would guess that we will not eat more than 25% of what we got and the rest we will leave for Brian. As we left I said that at least it is the last time we will go to a grocery store in the US for 18 months.

When we got our visas, Mary noticed that they were only for 3 months. I was concerned that we would have to leave the country and apply for a new visa in March. I wrote to the mission president and got an e-mail back saying not to worry. As soon as we get into the country we will go somewhere in Jakarta and get it extended to one year. Actually I was a little disappointed – I was hoping that we would have to fly up to Singapore or somewhere like that for a few days. Oh well – maybe on the way home we can do some sightseeing.



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