Bap, Pram & Ice Lolly

We got to attend our first Zone Development meeting this past week with 20 of our younger constituents. Our Zone Leaders are such sharp elders. The rest of the day was their Preparation Day. They wanted to play a little football (soccer) in the car park (parking lot - asphalt no less!) I was praying that none of them were going to 'eat it.' We don't need any of them getting hurt. We then drove over to the Belfast Castle. Beautiful. It was built not too long ago. (1811-1870. We will include photos of it soon.) We went to Boojum for our weekly fix of a great Mexican burrito. We had such a great time with all these young elders and sisters.

Since we're here in potato country I just had to make us up a big batch of potato soup. I have to admit it turned out pretty tasty.

Learned how to do indexing from our sweet institute teacher, Sister Noble. I'm excited to start doing that. I can fill some of my spare day-time, since we are serving a night mission. Every thing we do with the YSA pretty much starts at 7:00-7:30 in the evenings and goes until 11:00-12:00 or later. On the upside of that we don't have to have our day begin at 6:30 like our counterparts do. For that I'm SO grateful! :D

With Christmas right around the corner I asked some of the YSA's if there was a fun souvenir shop or somewhere that I could find fun things that have a "local charm" about them somewhere here in Belfast. They recommended a place that we checked out right in downtown Belfast. They have the cutest things there and I do believe that it will be my 'one stop shopping spot' for all my Christmas needs this year!!!

We were invited to spend "American Thanksgiving" with our stake president and his wife and their two sweet daughters. They live in a beautiful home in the beautiful area of Bangor. They fixed us one fabulous feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, cooked carrots, green salad, gravy, corn on the cob, soda bread, yams, cranberry sauce . . . I brought a green bean casserole. They had a red, white and blue dessert for us. Raspberries, blueberries and whipped cream over carrot cake. Yum! They really went all out and it was so very kind of them to want us to have a nice Thanksgiving meal.

Later in the week we had a chance to go with President McCrudden and make a four hour drive to Limerick for a youth conference that the 14-18 year olds from the Belfast Stake were invited to. President has really taken us under his wing and wants us to be a part of the various things that are going on that involve his stake. We got to meet several of the future YSA's that will turn 18 this coming year and become young single adults and start attending the Centre. (I think President McCrudden enjoys having company on these long road trips he needs to take, and we appreciate being included.)

Today was YSA Church. We would love to have YSA Church every week, but these youth are needed for various positions in their home wards, so we get to have a great meeting block with them every other month. After our meetings we all eat a nice big meal and visit. I could talk and laugh with these youth for hours! Oh wait . . . I DO ! ! !

From the country that made tights possible. (Best invention EVER! Otherwise my wee legs would have frozen off by now!) Cheerio! Sister Blick

Again, the Irish slang for the week-

bap- bun or roll (like hamburger bun)
pram - stroller
sausengers- sausages
give way - yield
ice lolly - popsicle