We have been getting questions from some friends and family about our status, so we thought we'd write a brief blog to catch everyone up.
We have been home in Palo Alto since April, and should be for awhile. When we came home on March 25 through Salt Lake, where we quarantined, we were hoping we would be able to go back in July or August. Then it was August or September. Then it was sometime in the Fall. Now it's looking more like January. With COVID-19 cases rising in both USA and South Africa the lockdowns carry on and migration between countries is difficult-to-impossible.
But, we are still serving. We discussed with President Lines the possibility of being released and he could find someone else, but he discouraged that. He can't bring anyone in from another country, and there are few South African senior couples in a position to serve full-time missions. And we can still do most of our work from home on our computers. Thank you Zoom, WhatsApp, TeamViewer and OneDrive.
So, what are we doing?
We are online from home nearly every morning with the new Office Elders, handling travel, finance, phones, housing, vehicles and miscellaneous matters. The 27 (of 130) Elders, and our Mission President and his wife who remain, continue to serve and teach via smartphone, even though they are not permitted to return to the office where much of the paper records are stored. Our apartment was turned into the Office. The Elders live in three other apartments in our building, and they can travel that far to the Office. The 'real' office is still closed for the foreseeable future.
This morning, dressed in our Sunday best and wearing our Missionary name tags, we attended a devotional via Zoom with the whole Mission, now redeployed to a few apartments within thirty minutes of the Mission Home. The regular Sunday Evening Devotional for the Mission is at 6 pm in South Africa, so that's 9 a.m. for us -- just the right time. But on June 18 we went to Zoom Zone Conference -- from midnight to 3 a.m. our time. It was worth it!
To this day, we have not been able to evacuate all our non-South-African Elders, even those whose two years is stretching past 27 months. We did get our seven Brazilians home, finally, on 3 June. It was their third set of plane tickets -- earlier flights in April and May were canceled. We received South African Elders in our Mission on temporary assignment as they were evacuated from their assigned country missions. Newly called non-South African Elders are being sent elsewhere temporarily, and newly called South African Elders are coming in to our vacant houses to received MTC remote training. We have one Elder called to Ukraine from Durban, but he's serving in Durban for now.
While here at home, Elder Allen (Ken) is following our 100+ Russian returned missionaries and various friends on Facebook, tending to a modest garden of corn, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, artichokes, berries and beans, picking fruit from three trees, and walking at least a mile a day with Sister Allen (Sue).
Ken built the new raised bed in the middle, then filled it with home-made compost and planted corn, beans and zucchini.
We won't be "knee-high by the 4th of July." We will be eating our corn on the 4th of July! And we are already giving away zucchini like crazy. Look at those huge zucchini leaves!
Ken has taken this unique opportunity to digitize and edit old video tapes of historical interest, which may take thousands of hours to complete…if at all. He has given away hundreds already and will be disposing of hundreds more at some point. Here is a list of some of the latest works: http://kenallen.tv/video.
All these shoe boxes are full of tapes and DVDs, and there are file-cabinets full in the garage.
He has posted shows of various concerts to the local cable channel and links on FamilySearch of some of the family who are no longer with us. The latest effort was of his mother’s funeral.
Sue remains busy but semi-bored. Besides working on Mission secretarial duties, she reads scriptures (as does Ken), listens to a lot of audio books, and volunteers at her old job in the technology department of the East Palo Alto Schools. She is continuing the project she started last Fall of getting old tech recycled.
She is baking sourdough bread twice a week using flour Ken grinds from our food storage wheat. And he does the dishes.
It has been a great Spring for roses. Our garden is wonderful, and we enjoy eating out on the patio. Anything to get out of the house, right?
During lockdown, our Friday night dinner 'out' was Chinese take-out in the back yard.
But, as of about two weeks ago, local restaurants are allowed outdoor dining. The two main shopping/dining streets of Palo Alto have been closed to traffic for a few blocks each, and restaurants are setting up tables in the street.
This week we ate in the garden of the historic Rossotti's Alpine Inn, a stagecoach stop in the foothills established in 1852.
The plaque on the wall commemorates this as the spot where SRI scientists ushered in the Internet Age in 1976. It honors the first transmission from here to MIT. One of them, Dr. Don Nielsen, the SRI historian, now 85, is in our ward! We asked him today if he was there, and he said, "Yes. I took all the pictures. So, I'm not in any of them." They all knew it was a big-deal-day.
A few weeks ago the gardens at Filoli opened for limited visitors and we took advantage of a few hours in this beautiful place, with a nice hike, even crossing the San Andreas Fault.
Each Sunday morning we have our Mission Devotional, then watch the live concert from the BYU Jerusalem Center and then have Zoom church with our ward. It’s gorgeous outside, and life goes on.
We are blessed with good health, a wonderful family, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives. Especially during times like these we are grateful for the Eternal perspective the Gospel gives us. "This too shall pass."
We have been home in Palo Alto since April, and should be for awhile. When we came home on March 25 through Salt Lake, where we quarantined, we were hoping we would be able to go back in July or August. Then it was August or September. Then it was sometime in the Fall. Now it's looking more like January. With COVID-19 cases rising in both USA and South Africa the lockdowns carry on and migration between countries is difficult-to-impossible.
But, we are still serving. We discussed with President Lines the possibility of being released and he could find someone else, but he discouraged that. He can't bring anyone in from another country, and there are few South African senior couples in a position to serve full-time missions. And we can still do most of our work from home on our computers. Thank you Zoom, WhatsApp, TeamViewer and OneDrive.
So, what are we doing?
We are online from home nearly every morning with the new Office Elders, handling travel, finance, phones, housing, vehicles and miscellaneous matters. The 27 (of 130) Elders, and our Mission President and his wife who remain, continue to serve and teach via smartphone, even though they are not permitted to return to the office where much of the paper records are stored. Our apartment was turned into the Office. The Elders live in three other apartments in our building, and they can travel that far to the Office. The 'real' office is still closed for the foreseeable future.
This morning, dressed in our Sunday best and wearing our Missionary name tags, we attended a devotional via Zoom with the whole Mission, now redeployed to a few apartments within thirty minutes of the Mission Home. The regular Sunday Evening Devotional for the Mission is at 6 pm in South Africa, so that's 9 a.m. for us -- just the right time. But on June 18 we went to Zoom Zone Conference -- from midnight to 3 a.m. our time. It was worth it!
To this day, we have not been able to evacuate all our non-South-African Elders, even those whose two years is stretching past 27 months. We did get our seven Brazilians home, finally, on 3 June. It was their third set of plane tickets -- earlier flights in April and May were canceled. We received South African Elders in our Mission on temporary assignment as they were evacuated from their assigned country missions. Newly called non-South African Elders are being sent elsewhere temporarily, and newly called South African Elders are coming in to our vacant houses to received MTC remote training. We have one Elder called to Ukraine from Durban, but he's serving in Durban for now.
While here at home, Elder Allen (Ken) is following our 100+ Russian returned missionaries and various friends on Facebook, tending to a modest garden of corn, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, artichokes, berries and beans, picking fruit from three trees, and walking at least a mile a day with Sister Allen (Sue).
Ken built the new raised bed in the middle, then filled it with home-made compost and planted corn, beans and zucchini.
We won't be "knee-high by the 4th of July." We will be eating our corn on the 4th of July! And we are already giving away zucchini like crazy. Look at those huge zucchini leaves!
Ken has taken this unique opportunity to digitize and edit old video tapes of historical interest, which may take thousands of hours to complete…if at all. He has given away hundreds already and will be disposing of hundreds more at some point. Here is a list of some of the latest works: http://kenallen.tv/video.
All these shoe boxes are full of tapes and DVDs, and there are file-cabinets full in the garage. He has posted shows of various concerts to the local cable channel and links on FamilySearch of some of the family who are no longer with us. The latest effort was of his mother’s funeral.
Sue remains busy but semi-bored. Besides working on Mission secretarial duties, she reads scriptures (as does Ken), listens to a lot of audio books, and volunteers at her old job in the technology department of the East Palo Alto Schools. She is continuing the project she started last Fall of getting old tech recycled.
She is baking sourdough bread twice a week using flour Ken grinds from our food storage wheat. And he does the dishes.It has been a great Spring for roses. Our garden is wonderful, and we enjoy eating out on the patio. Anything to get out of the house, right?
During lockdown, our Friday night dinner 'out' was Chinese take-out in the back yard.
But, as of about two weeks ago, local restaurants are allowed outdoor dining. The two main shopping/dining streets of Palo Alto have been closed to traffic for a few blocks each, and restaurants are setting up tables in the street.
This week we ate in the garden of the historic Rossotti's Alpine Inn, a stagecoach stop in the foothills established in 1852.The plaque on the wall commemorates this as the spot where SRI scientists ushered in the Internet Age in 1976. It honors the first transmission from here to MIT. One of them, Dr. Don Nielsen, the SRI historian, now 85, is in our ward! We asked him today if he was there, and he said, "Yes. I took all the pictures. So, I'm not in any of them." They all knew it was a big-deal-day.
Each Sunday morning we have our Mission Devotional, then watch the live concert from the BYU Jerusalem Center and then have Zoom church with our ward. It’s gorgeous outside, and life goes on.
We are blessed with good health, a wonderful family, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives. Especially during times like these we are grateful for the Eternal perspective the Gospel gives us. "This too shall pass."
