 
Christmas brings massive amounts of mail into the mission office and Mary spends a good deal of her time dealing with letters and packages. At this time of the year, the post office sends a special delivery of just large packages each day. Later the regular mail deliver brings a large stack of regular mail and smaller packages. Each piece must be re- routed to the address where the missionary is living and then taken to the main post office to be delivered. Yesterday we made two trips to the post office – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Missionaries need to get the letters and packages as soon as possible. They consider it kind of like manna from heaven.
The other two pictures are of the Plantation chapel where we go to church. Once the Weston/Pembroke Pines chapel is repaired we will go there. Our guess is that is not going to happen before June of next year. So for now the two wards that are usually in that chapel meet together here. Notice the pond in front. It is so there is not standing water everywhere. No swimming or fishing is allowed here or in the canal across the street. There was an alligator spotted in the canal and this keeps down the desire of children to escape the heat by swimming in it.
Totally different mailing system for your mission. Our Florida missionaries had to wait for Zone Conferences for missionaries coming into the office or apartment checks, etc. I think of all the packages and mail we carried around on our travels around the Durban Mission. Our friends who served in the Jacksonville Mission loved their apartment in the city where they had a similar situation to yours. It was the wildlife that was special for them. Watch out for the alligators – some of the ponds near homes that we visited kept a careful watch over their pets because the homes backed up to the bodies of water and you never knew exactly what was in there! We also had fun eating catfish out of a pond – there was always a fish fry somewhere and the members would just go out to the pond which was stocked and fed each day and fish for whatever amount was needed for the party! We’re so glad you’re serving in Florida so we can remember good things! The Knudsen’s are coming down to check out St. George next week and will stay with us. Will get together with Ladysmith Wilson’s.
Pretty soon there will be enough former Durban mission to have a mini-reunion once a month. Kind of like when the couples got together during zone conferences.
We look forward to hearing about more of our Durban RM couples going on missions. Right now there are three couples who served together in Indonesia out.