The other day Cindy asked if I had started growing plants yet and I told her all I so far was a house plant that I bought at a local supermarket. But on Saturday when we were out driving around in the far country – an hour or so away – we came across some nurseries and I had to stop and get something. I ended up with a beautiful hanging basket of New Guinea Impatiens and a nice bougainvillea. So the plant life around the Piers homestead is growing. Plants here are very reasonable – about 50 – 75% of what we pay in Utah. At least they are when you get them directly from a nursery. I am sure I will add more plants as we go along.

I spend much of my time in the office helping Elder Beagley who is the fleet manager and has the joyful job of trying to keep the cars in the mission in running condition. Most accident damage repairs are done by a local firm called 2nd Generation which was one of the place we went to yesterday. They are mounting bike racks on the new cars that we recently received to replace some old ones. When the cars read about 50,000 miles they are replaced and then the old ones are sold off to members or sent back to Salt Lake to be sold. I do not think most members realize how much work is involved in just keeping a mission running from day to day. It can often feel like it is not very spiritual but the truth is that the army of Israel would not function very well with out the support troops keeping thing flowing. After just a couple of weeks in the office I have much greater respect for all those who helped us as we served in Indonesia and South Africa.