We have been "blessed" with a new module. Somehow I think we were supposed to receive training before we attacked the online module, but alas, we had to muddle through on our own. Oh well, next week will be better. Just got a positive feedback from our leader - seems like I did well in the post test. doing well is always good.
We have not been going to shows at the movies - they are either violent, sexually explicit, crude language etc.etc. and I do not need that stuff to enter my head.
We chose to go to live theatre recently and attended a performance of "The Grapes of Wrath". when I was in college in Hawaii it was a movie that they showed us in our American Heritage (U.S. History) class. I did not understand it then, and now since seeing it on the stage, still do not understand what was going on. So a friend took me aside and told me what some of the highlights of the play said about the Dust Bowl Days in American History. It would seem that some rather unscrupulous people sent around flyers to all the areas hard hit by the drought, promising lots of work and high wages. It turns out that they printed thousands of those flyers and the people who made the trek in high hopes of striking it rich, found that there was work, but for a miserably low wage. Many died of starvation and I am sure some died of a broken heart and spirit. It reminds me of the Heuschele brothers who went or sent to Germany, glowing reports of plentiful land for cultivation, freedom and other perks to the impoverished Germans and they flocked to Australia. My own ancestor went as an assisted passage and his piece of land was filled with Mulga and his job was to clean it, and improve it within a year. Clearing Mulga is back breaking work. Another story from a distant relative talks about the back breaking work she had to do because she was an indentured servant and was treated as less than human by the "missus". All because she was a German and did not speak the language of Australia.
The theatre where this play was held is an interesting place. It is a converted church. The whole first floor, as you walk in off the street, has been taken out and terraces go down to what used to be the basement and that is where the stage is located. The balcony is the old choir loft. For the play we saw, all they had was a painted back drop of a road going off to the horizon, with four risers, two on each side of the stage that alternately served as buildings, houses, platforms for speeches, protection from the elements and we used our imagination to conjure up what the scene demanded. One part of the play depicted the family leaving Oklahoma in a jalopy - it was made of boxes arranged to represent a cab and tray in the back but the front was represented by a bedstead with two lanterns hung on each side to represent headlights. A lot of the play depended on this jalopy to add credence to the play. Very well done, but I still am not much wiser about the conditions that spawned the dust bowl days and its backlash and impact on the populace of the early USA history.
We went to another show, this time at the Auditorium on the campus of Yavapai college. This most recent one was of Celtic Dance and Celtic music - performed by Riverdance type performers and an absolutely wonderful Irish Tenor. He talked a lot about St. Patricks Day and what it means to the people of his area of Ireland, Wexford. He said that Wexford had contributed greatly to the USA by sending the Kennedy family over here. (that opens a whole can of worms for me). He told of going to his grandmother's home and seeing a picture of three wonderful people, Jack Kennedy, his brother Bobby Kennedy and the Pope....all in one picture.....then he joked - yes the holy trinity that he and his family worshipped as he was growing up. Oh and By the Way, this fellow now lives in Chicago!
This morning we left around 7.15 am to go to Mesa. Our mission president from the New Hampshire Manchester Mission and his wife were holding a missionary reunion. Since many of us cannot go to Utah for the annual mission reunion gathering, President Wilkey and his wife came to Arizona, because there are quite a few missionaries who served in the New Hampshire mission who call Arizona home. About 20 of them came. There was one other Senior Missionary couple who came so we were not alone. This couple had served in the Joseph Smith Memorial grounds in Sharon, Vermont. When we were in Maine, we drove over to Sharon, Vermont, for a senior missionary couples weekend.
At this mission reunion, the host family had pizza dough balls in plastic bags, and we had to roll out our own pizza dough, add the toppings and they put them in a Brick Oven to bake them. What a novelty that turned out to be. The house and grounds were pristine and fabulous. Obviously they are well off but I know that I do not ever want to have a house that big - it would take an absolute army of maids to keep it picked up and cleaned. I have more to do with my time than clean house.
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