Another great week in Scotland!

This has been an interesting and also fun week.  After our Church meetings last Sunday, we had some meetings with the new Branch Pres and also the Stake Pres. Last week's church was not the best experience we've had.  The stake changed our Branch boundaries and brought  new people over from the Paisley Ward, and they were not happy to have to switch, to say the least.

Today was a little better.  We had a open discussion during Priesthood/RS time where we talked about feeling safe, trusting and showing love.  The new Branch Pres explained a little about some of the difficulties the new Branch members are experiencing over the move and it is somewhat heart wrenching for these people to leave a large ward, good friends and their kid's associations.  We could really feel their pain.  At the same time, we were able to share how hurt the current Branch members felt about how they felt they were treated last week.  People who they have known for years actually snubbed them and they were confused as to why.  This was not a Branch choice to do the boundary realignment, it was the Stake's decision(The Lords Will), so the current members were hurt and confused as to why the new members were so cold.  Anyway, I think it got discussed well and what needed to be said got said, so hopefully we can all move forward and do the best we can to become unified.

We had a meeting with our Stake Pres on Thurs after Institute during which time we gave him a report of what we have been doing during our 3 months here, as far as finding "lost sheep".  We found quite a few had moved, determined who was not currently interested. and found some that they hadn't been able to find.  We have determined who we can work with and have been doing so, so it was nice to have something to report.  Pres Dewey was quite pleased to see what we have been able to accomplish and our reporting of it.  Then we told him that now that we have done all that, we find we don't have much to do and are finding it difficult to fill our time with missionary related activities.  He was glad to hear that we have time to do more  and he said he has some more for us to do.  He told us that he is not going to let us go without a fight, and he recognizes that we have left our lives, our families and are spending our own money, so he wants to make sure we have plenty of missionary stuff to do.  Now that the boundaries have been realigned, more "lost sheep" in that area need to be located, so that will take up our time for the next wee while, and there is another struggling branch in the stake that may have us do it for them too.

So, because right now we don't have that much to do, yesterday we took an extra P-day, and went down to Caerlaverock Castle just over the border from England and attended a Joust.  There is a group with a long french name that I can't remember just now, but they put on what they call Spectacular Jousting at various castle venues around the country.  They have a group of historical medieval reinactors that put on demonstrations of medieval life and then have scheduled jousts along with it.  You all know how much I love historical reinacting, so I was in my element!  The joust itself was rather cheesy, but the rest was interesting.  When the knights first came out on horseback, I looked at one of them and said he was not very big for a knight.  When he got off his horse to do hand to hand sword combat, I was proved right.  He looked like a skinny 14 yr old boy!  As I said, it was cheesy and a little silly, but we got an idea of what happened in a tournament.  Believe me, "A Knight'sTale" was probably a better representation of jousting than this event.

On the way home from the jousting, we stopped by the old ruins of a church called Sweetheart Abbey.  It is a beautiful, peaceful place (see some pictures on FB, posted this morning). The story of Sweetheart Abbey is that Lady Devorgilla loved her husband, John Balliol (parents of the Balliol King of Scotland before William Wallace) so much that when he died, she had his heart embalmed and carried it around with her in a beautifully made box. She called it her "silent, loving companion".  When she died, the box was placed on her chest in the tomb and the stone effigy on her tomb had her holding his heart.  Thus, the name "Sweetheart Abbey".  She was a lady of great wealth and standing, so she had this big abbey church built and brought in Cistercian Monks to run it.  We got some wonderful pictures of it.  Some I think we will have blown up and will hang on our walls when we get home.

Last Monday on our actual P-day we went up to a fairy tale castle called Inverary Castle.  It's not really a very old castle since it was built in the 18th century but they tried to make it look like an old castle with round turrets on the corners and a moat with no water in it.  It is beautifully decorated inside with lots of large portraits of former family dukes and earls and wonderfully painted walls and ceilings.  It is the ancestral home of one of the Campbell clans and the current Duke of Argyll lives there with his wife and 3 kids.  Also, one of the episodes from Downton Abbey was filmed there. It's the one where they go for Christmas at a friend's castle, which they called Duneagle in the episode.  So they had pictures of the cast in costume at various places in the castle.

We also went to a small picturesque town called Killin that had a nice river front area called Dochart Falls.  The weather was beautiful for our outing which was a plus.  While we were having lunch in a little town called Crainlarich, we were waited on by a young man who came up to us while serving and asked if we might know where a branch of the church might be.  That caught us by surprise, but it turns out that he was baptized last Apr and then moved up to this town to work for the summer. He had looked around for a branch but couldn't find one.  We, sadly, had to tell him that we were not aware of any Branches or even missionaries in the area.  Fortunately he is only there for the summer and then will return to Kirkcaldy where he was baptized and be able to go back to church.  

On our way home from Inverary, we stopped in at Doune Castle, which you will all be familiar with if you have ever seen "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". The outside of the castle and the kitchen were used in scenes from the movie.  The outside was the French castle they "attacked" where cattle were thrown over the walls at them, and the kitchen was actually turned into a bedroom where Lancelot, I think, was recuperating from battle.  I have only seen the movie once, so none of it was familiar to me.  Guess I will need to see it again.

We are taking advantage of beautiful weather and our P-days to see as much of Scotland as we can before winter sets in.  It really is a fabulously beautiful country with breathtaking vistas, that we feel very fortunate to be able to live in for a time.

We have standing dates with a couple of people we are working with every week.  We visit the McKees, Robert and Ann, every Thurs for tea, which is actually dinner.  She's one who joined the Church years ago and was inactive all that time.  In fact, the Church record the Branch had for her was still in her maiden name.  About 8 months ago, the Branch sent letters out to everyone on their rolls and asked them to come back to church, or at least contact the Branch to let them know if they were still in the area.  Not many people responded, but something nudged Ann and she decided to come back. Her husband, Robert is not a member, but they both come to Church every Sunday as their health permits.  Ann says she would not miss Church now for anything, except when their health is bad.  The young Elders worked with them before we came, and they loved the Elders, but they said they like having us because we share more of the same life experiences and have an understanding that the Elders were too young to have.  We have been sharing gospel messages and testifying of the Lords love for them.    As soon as Robert can overcome his addictions, he will be baptized.

The other person we meet with regularly is Mhorag.  She is related by marriage to a brother in the Branch and is a convert.  She came to Church for several years after she was baptized, and then someone said something mean to her and she stopped coming.  She works at the local Tesco grocery store and during our first shopping trip there, before we had really even met anyone in the Branch, I turned from the till we were at and saw her waving at me.  Of course, I didn't know who she was or why she was waving at me, but we walked over and she told us that she was a member.  As we left I said "see you on Sunday", not knowing that she didn't come to Church.  She is a cheeky soul and she and I get along famously.  She tells us places we should go and visit and tells about people in the area.  She has been here for years and because she works at Tesco, she knows LOTS of people. In fact, we watched one day while we were in the shop and she was working the express till, everybody stopped to chat with her as they went out of the store.  People will wait in her line to have her check them out, even if there are other tills open.  She's one of those people who everybody loves because she is so much fun. She knows that we are working on getting her back to Church, but she just goes along with it, never really letting us know if we are making any headway.  We have 7 more months and we are determined to see her at Church at least once before we leave!  We are sharing lessons about various gospel subjects with her and leaving our testimony.  

We love you all!

Haste  Ye Back!

Elder and Sister Walker

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Recent Update

Dear Family and Friends

We hope you are all doing well.  We hope you are all enjoying your summer with your families.  Believe it or not, we are envious of your hot weather. It was 57 degrees today and rainy.  I don't think I am ever going to be warm again!

So, we started off this week with taking a hop on/ hop off bus tour in Glasgow.  We thought it would be more fun and interesting than it was, but we did learn a couple of things.  We learned that in Scotland they have 3 legal verdicts: guilty, not quilty and not proven.  Not proven basically means "we know you did it, but we can't prove it, so you better not do it again." Gives a whole new meaning to "getting off Scot free"!  Glasgow University is a beautiful old (1400's) campus and the River Clyde was home to 163 ship building yards at one time-now there are only 3.  They also used to be one of the major manufacturing cities of locomotives.  So, that's Glasgow. which the natives sometimes pronounce Glas-gee and natives are called Glaswegans.  I'm just glad they have both an IKEA and a Costco! Makes them almost civilized!

Tues we made two big pots of chicken tortilla soup and served lunch to 22 missionaries at their group district meeting.  4 Districts meet in the stake center, so we decided to treat them. One of those missionaries is Sis Kim who was with us in Tralee, so we told the Elders that she was the reason they all got lunch.

Tues afternoon we met again with Scott, who is our referal from the Church because he asked for a Book of Mormon. He had some questions, which I think we answered to his satisfaction.

Thursday, I finally got a haircut.  My last hairdresser in Tralee butchered my hair and it was so uneven.  Finally got it looking better.  We met with our Branch Pres in the afternoon to go over the less actives on the branch list, and then dashed off to Institute.  We had a great Institute class with several more new people.  We are really enjoying getting to know these young adults.  Some are lifelong members, some of which have left and come back, and some are new converts. One is an investigator.  It's an interesting mix, but we are all having fun.  It was our last week with Katie who leaves Tues for the Provo MTC before she comes back over to Europe to serve in the France Lyon mission.  We are really going to miss her as she is one of our stalwarts.

Friday we did our service thing at the Town House, transcribing more legal documents.  This time it was a trust by a father for his children, written in 1806.  We sure are learning lots of legal terms.  Friday night we hung out with Mhorag for a bit. She said the closing prayer to our meeting and agreed to start reading the BofM again.  She told us that Sat was the day of the Orange March.  I knew they had Orangemen and Orange marches in  Belfast, but I didn't know that the Scots do it too.  The Orangemen are basically a political Protestant group who dislikes Catholics.  Mo warned us to stay out of Dalry, the next town over, so we did.  She said that there would also be a mini march in Beith, but we never saw anything. 

Sat morning was another stint at the Town House.  I swear, we have done about 6 or 7 legal documents about the same place: "the north or gavil end of the dwelling house high and laigh with the office houses back and fore, with the universal pertinents thereof lying and described in the aforesaid Precept of Sasine, blah, blah, blah".  (Can you tell I have typed that particular phrase more than once?)  I swear, this must have been a popular house in this town because it seems like everyone owned it, had owned it or was trying to own it.  We are becoming very familiar with some of the well known names around here, many of whom have descendants still here.  I don't think we mentioned it: one of the more famous residents to come out of Beith is the Rev. John Witherspoon, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.  He was a minister here in Beith at the Auld Kirk before going to the Americas.  Apparently the Town House gets several American visitors every July 4th who want to see where John Witherspoon came from.

Last night we attended a farewell Ceili for Katie.  It was quite fun. Dad and I even danced a little.  Most of our Institute students were there, plus some parents we hadn't met yet, and others we knew.  Someone there told me that in Scotland, instead of after school sports, they teach the kids ceili dances because they need to be able to do the dances when ceili's are held or at traditional Scottish balls.  I think it is great.  Kids in America need to do more of the old dances like Virginia Reel and such. When I used to teach that one at Old Deseret Village, the kids would whine and complain at first, but were begging for more by the end.

Haste Ye Back!  

Love, Elder and Sister Walker (Dad and Mom)

Goodbye Ireland, Hello Scotland!

About a month ago, we were taking a little holiday from our missionary labors because our dear friends, Layne and Kris, came to Ireland to visit.  As we were touring the Ring of Kerry one day, we got a phone call from Pres. Thompson, 1st counselor to Pres. Donaldson, the mission President.  Pres Thompson is over the Ireland area at the request of the President.  Anyhoo, we got this phone call, wherein Pres. T tells us that we are being transferred to Scotland!  That was a big surprise.  Pres had discussed with us the possibility of being moved at the last All Ireland Conference and we told him that we would serve wherever he felt we should serve.  Then we left it in his hands.  So we knew it was a possibility, but the surprise was that it was Scotland.  The area where we were to be assigned is Beith, a tiny village 20 min west of Glasgow.  Obviously, we've never heard of it, nor have most of the people we talked to.  The news of our transfer was bittersweet: bitter because it meant we would be leaving behind all our great friends in the Branch, the English class and the town of Tralee.  Sweet because we would be heading on to new adventures in a new place.  We hadn't entertained the thought that we might be able to serve in Scotland.

Pres D decided to take Senior missionaries out of Tralee completely for the time being, so besides packing ourselves up, we also had to close down our flat, which meant we had to pack up, give away, and dispose of everything in the flat except the furnishings.  That made the move somewhat more difficult.  It took us several days, in between teaching our final English classes, trying to find a new flat in Beith, arranging for a baptism, and saying goodbye to all our friends.  It was a whirlwind few days.

It was so hard to say goodbye to all the dear friends we've made.  At our final Park Run, they thanked us for our volunteer service for 24 weeks, and we received goodbyes and hugs from the many friends we made there: Siobhan, Pat, Tony, Triona, Jerry, Joan, Stella, Malachy, Caroline, and several others.
Saying goodbye to our dear, sweet neighbors, Kathriona and Sophie was particularly hard.  Kathriona did so much for us and took good care of us so we would love Ireland.  Then, of course, there were all the members we worked with in the Branch: T and Aggie, the Brownlees, Louise, Jack, Robert, Tadd (formerly E. Hoppe, that "trained" us when we came to Ireland) and the Knight family. Also the investigators, Con and James.  We had so many wonderful, and sometimes hard experiences, with all these people-they will be always in our memories.  We pray that they will all stay active and growing in the Gospel and will help that little "twig" to grow into a full ward someday.

It took us a while to find a flat in Beith.  We only had pictures on websites to go by.  Sis Broadfoot, the Branch President's wife was helping us from the Beith end.  She had looked at the flat here in Beith and was scheduled to look at 3 others, but we felt like it was going to take too long, and none of the other flats were in Beith, so we took the plunge and decided that the Beith flat would be the one.  We wanted to be able to go straight from the All Ireland Conference in Dublin, to Belfast and then on to Scotland, we we pushed things along a little.  The landlord agreed to furnish it for an extra 100 pounds a month, so we sealed the deal.

The Sisters were continuing in Tralee, and we all wondered how they would get by without us and a car. Fortunately, E Peacock, who was our ZL for 11 days before being elevated to AP, worked his magic and got them a car. Now we didn't feel so bad leaving them.

So, the night before the Conference, we packed up our car, added 6 cakes for the Conference to the pile in the car,and sent the Sisters by bus to Dublin. Tues morning at half 5 we departed Tralee for Dublin and ultimately Scotland.  Farewell, Tralee!

After the Conference, we headed out for Belfast, where we spent the night.  We found a lovely B&B guesthouse called "The Gregory" to stay for the night.  The concierge was a lovely young woman named Ines, from Portugal.  She was so sweet and helpful and delightful to be around.  We had a beautiful room with a kingsize bed that was so soft and comfy.  It was heaven to get a restful night's sleep in such a bed.

The next morning it was on to Beith!  We enjoyed the 3 hour ferry ride to Scotland and had a beautiful sunny drive to Beith.  We didn't know our flat address so had to call the Mission Office. We finally arrived at a row of terrace houses and located ours.  Our first view of the flat was not encouraging.  It was old, shabby, had holes in the walls and was papered in a black and silver design on one wall and dark grey green on the other three walls.  Thank goodness there were two big window fore and aft to make the room more light. The stairwell is cramped, we can feel holes in the floorboards in a few places and it's pretty tiny.  One of the first things we noticed was that there were no closets in the bedrooms, or dressers.  No place to put our clothes.  When we mentioned it to the letting agent she said, "well, you didn't ask for closets."  Maybe because we just assumed there would be closets.  Overall, we weren't too thrilled with our new accomodations, but decided we would just have to make do for the present.  Our letting agent ordered wardrobes and dressers and we finally had them after two more days.  We did a wallpapering and painting DIY on the living room and finally feel comfortable there.

We have now been in Beith two months and we are loving it! Yes, the town is small and crowded, but we are close to the big city, we are making wonderful friends, the Branch is fabulous and we are being given many opportunities.  Come along with us as we continue on this Scottish journey!

HASTE YE BACK!

Genealogy Bonus!

We started off the week with a visit to Stirling Castle (again) but this time with the Sisters.  They are in a trio and one, Sis. Parker, goes home in early July and had never been to Stirling, so they just had to go.  We have taken a liking to Sis. Parker because she is so sweet and has a voice like "buttuh". (Dads words.)  This time we took the guided tour and heard some interesting info. One of the buildings at Stirling is painted a gold color, while all the other buildings are a grey sandstone. He told us the color is officially known as "King's Gold" and that the whole castle was painted this color.  Also, there are carved statues along the outside of the Great Hall and gargoyles and such and during the royal Stuart's time there, they were painted and gilded.  He said it was probably the Disneyland of their time because of all the color and splendor.  I always thought castles were dull and gray and imposing, but apparently not this one.

We also made the short trip over to the William Wallace (Braveheart) Monument.  It was built in the late 1800's and is really nice.  However, we opted not to climb the 297 steps up the tower to see what was on the three levels (My foot doesn't like stairs) so there was really not much to see.  A replica of Wallace's sword is on level two and you can tell from the length of it how tall Wallace was. 

Tues was the South Scotland Mission Conference in Edinburgh.  It was the usual teaching agenda.  I brought three Better Than Anything cakes, which are gaining quite a reputation in this mission.  I had to modify the recipe when we first came to Ireland because they do not have caramel syrup, but they do have a caramel condensed milk that they use to make Banoffie Pie, so that's what I have been using.  However, I did discover here in Scotland that they have a toffee syrup, so I was able to make the regular cake and it was YUM.  In fact, Pres Donaldson made a special trip to our table to see if there was any cake left. ( the Sister missionaries always descend on this cake like a plague of locusts). Dad sacrificed his piece.  Pres Donaldson is diabetic-I hope this cake doesn't kill him.

Thurs night at Institute, we had an activity in lieu of a lesson.  A member of our ward is a producer/director for the BBC and has been tasked with producing a short segment on Mormons for the show he produces, directed to the 18-35 demographic. We had approached him about using our Institute students in the piece and he agreed.  So Thurs was a dinner and planning session to talk about the approach he wanted to take.  He showed us a short film he and his kids made for the recent Stake Film Festival using his producing skills.  It is really cute.  Head over to our Scotland Ireland Mission FB page if you want to see it.  There's another fun youtube video of a set of triplets in our Paisley Stake opening their mission calls. Not sure what it's under but you can probably search "triplets opening mission calls" or something like that.

Our investigator Irene, has dropped off the radar.  She went to church with us last Sunday and said she liked it, but we have not been able to contact her since. We hope she has not returned to her heroin use. We have a second appt this week with a young man who contacted the Church for a Book of Mormon and we got to take it to him and present the first discussion. We'll let you know how that goes.

Other than that, we have just been trying to find and contact lost sheep; people who are on the rolls of the Branch but have dropped away. We're also visiting less active members and fellowshipping them. 

We finally got back over to the farm at Shutterflat and got the 12 pages of genealogy from the current residents living there.  The Lamonts are  related to the Stevensons in some way, and live on the farm now.  Some guy, 10 years ago, came to their house and told them he had done extensive genealogical research on the Stevensons and had 12 pages of history about them, which he subsequently brought to them.  She allowed us to photograph the pages so we could have the info. It is quite detailed and has birth and death dates we don't have, plus a slew of other Stevenson people we didn't have.  However, a lot of it is not jiving with what little Dad had on his line.  Yes, there are people that are the same as what he has, but the dates are not lining up.  According the the info that we got from the Lamonts, Agnes, the daughter of Robert Stevenson and Marion King apparently didn't marry.  He couldn't find evidence that she did.  Doesn't necessarily mean she didn't, he just didn't find any record of it. Agnes is the tie into Dad's line, so without her, there is no connection to the Stevensons.  We have two experienced genealogists in our Branch who  are looking into it for us.  The guy who compiled all this info did give a reference for where he got all his info, but we need to find out where we can see the book he got the info from.  So the saga continues...

On Fridays and Saturdays we are volunteering at the local Town House of Beith.  It is like a city history office.  Currently we are transcribing old financial documents having to do with land purchases.  On Saturday a gentleman and his wife from Australia walked in looking for information about their family members that lived there. One of them was Andrew Clark.  It just so happens that two of the records we had worked on in previous weeks involved Andrew Clark.  They were so happy to hold and touch a piece of history (200+ years old) from their ancestors.  What we doing there is making a difference in people's ability to find out about their family.  Oh my days!!!

HASTE YE BACK!

Another Week in Beith Scotland

We had a good week this week.  On Monday (P-Day) we met up with a set of sister missionaries from our Zone and went to Cuzlean (pronounced Culleen) Castle near the town of Maybole on the the northwest Scottish coast.  It was amazing!  The castle is beautiful with lots of beautiful architectual  detail.  It is the second great house we've seen that was designed by Robert Adams.  He also did Hopetoun House, which we saw the week before. The Castle sits on the Firth of Clyde and has wonderful views of the ocean.  We took the Sisters because Sis. Paxton is on her last transfer and will be going home in July and she hadn't had an opportunity to see the Castle.  We are trying to give at least the Sisters in the area a chance to see some of the sights of Scotland while they are in the area.  Tomorrow we are taking another trio of sisters to Stirling Castle near Edinburgh for the same reason.  Sis. Parker is also on her last transfer, so we wanted to give her an opportunity to see Stirling before she goes.  Next week we are reuniting with our dear Sis. Kim from Tralee who is serving in Glasgow and we'll go back to Stirling, making it the third time we'll see it.  Fortunately, we invested in a Scottish Heritage Pass, so we will get in for free both times. In case you are wondering why we only take sisters- they are a lot more fun to take to places like this. They get way more excited than the Elders do.  Besides, no Elders have asked us.

Tues we went to visit the Elders in our district because the mission home had gotten a complaint from the landlord about how they were taking care of their flat.  All was fine there, so tempest in a teapot.  While we were there they gave us a referral for someone in our area.  Her name is Irene.  We called and made an appt to go meet her.  When we got there we found that she had just moved to the area and had literally nothing.  The Council had put her in a flat and were in the process of getting her assistance , but it was going to take a week or so.  She had no money, the clothes on her back, one fork, one plate and one cup.  The Council had provided her with housing and a bedroom set.  After visiting with her for a bit and finding out a little about her, Dad told her we were taking her shopping for some food because we couldn't just leave her stranded, and you know Dad.  The next day we picked her up and took her to a charity shop in town and she got some dishes and some clothes.  Her money should come through by the end of this week.  She is a wee thing and looks like a strong gust of wind could blow her away.  She's coming off a heroin addiction (8 weeks sober, according to her) and trying to turn her life around. She has a deep smoker's voice that doesn't match her appearance and she says she's had 10 kids! She has had a very hard life; father died when she was young, mother became an alcoholic, had a husband who beat her, etc, etc.  It seems to be the story for a lot of people around here. We taught her the Restoration discussion yesterday and she came to church with us today.  She says she liked it.  We'll let you know how it goes with her.

We're getting to know some of the less active people in the area.  One is a cheeky lady named Mhorag or Mo.  She's a large woman with short dyed red (literally) hair.  We first met her when we went on our first shopping trip here.  She works at the Tesco in Kilbirnie where we shop.  As we were standing in the check out line, I looked over to the next till and saw this lady waving at me.  I looked around to see who she was waving at.  Finally she got our attention and we went over and she told us she was a member.  She didn't tell us she hasn't been to church for years.  Her nephew is counselor in the Branch Presidency so he told us a little about her.  We've visited her twice and she is a hoot!  We are looking forward to some good times with her.

On Thurs we went to dinner at Robert and Anne's house. Anne has been a member for years, but not active. Robert has been learning; they were being taught by the Elders and Anne loves to mother the boys. Now she has taken to mothering us.  We are set up for dinner there with them every Thurs now.  She is going to teach me how to do strand knitting.  She LOVES to talk, but has a very thick accent which is hard to understand sometimes, tho' our ears are starting to tune in.  She's cheeky too and I think we will get along great!

Another sweet sister is Agnes Brown, or as she is known to everyone Wee Nan Sans.  She's 85, I believe, and a wee tiny lady, but with a personality twice her size.  She brings sweeties (candy) to Church every Sunday and has her cousin or someone else in the Branch take it around to everyone to share.

Today we went back to the farm in Shutterflat where Dad's ancestors lived and the woman was able to show us the pages of Stevenson genealogy that someone gave her 10 years ago. Dad was able to take pictures of the pedigree chart as well as 10 written pages of details about the Stevenson line.  What little we've read doesn't line up well with what is on Family Search for what Dad has on the Stevenson line, so it will be interesting to see what it says when we get into it deeper.  There is a library here in Glasgow that houses a lot of records that might also be a resource for us to find more on the Stevensons.

HASTE YE BACK!

The Tower of Babel

Several weeks ago two Iranian women showed up at Church looking for someone who could teach them English.  They had recently moved to Tralee from Dublin and had been in contact with the Church while there.  Someone told them to find our Branch to ask for help.  We were introduced and set up a time to come see them.  They are living at the asylum-seekers hostel at the Johnston Marina.

We looked around to find a curriculum of some sort to use, since neither of us have ever taught English as a second language before, and found a disc produced by the Church for teaching English.  It is called Daily Dose and is used primarily in the US to teach non-English speaking, LDS people English.  It consists of several sets of simple basic lessons talking about families, eating out, asking for directions, shopping at the grocery store, etc.  It has been very helpful.

We thought, at first, that we would try to teach at the Church, but realized pretty quickly that our two women did not have a car and really didn't want to have to walk to the Church.  So we settled on teaching at the Marina. They let us use the playroom during the morning when most of the children are at school.  We have a table, chairs and a chalkboard.

We started with Anahita and Firooze, both from Iran.  Ana also has a daughter, Elina.  Ana's English was a little better than Firooze's when we first started.  Both have improved.  They told us that the food at the Marina was really awful and they were really missing their usual food, so we took them shopping and then to our house where Firooze prepared us an Iranian meal of lamb, rice and beans, cucumber and tomato salad.  It was all very good.

Firooze, our chef for the evening.

Ana, Elina and Firooze with E & S Walker

We were getting ready for class one day when a man approached us and asked if his wife could join our class.  She is from India and her name is Geniz.  We told her to come along too.

As we were teaching another class, a couple and their toddler came in, and the woman indicated that she was interested in learning English too and could she join.  So then Belan from Kurdistan joined the class.

Now we were up to four students.  The next session, another young woman approached and asked if she could join. Her name is Madiha and she is from Pakistan.

Last week, we were sitting in the reception area of the Marina with Belan when a man approached us and asked if his wife could join the class.  Why not? The more the merrier!  When they came to class today both Saba and Flootor stayed.  They are from Albania.

 We are becoming truly international! Before each class we take the source material from Daily Dose, and take all the new words that will be introduced in that lesson and make a list.  Then we translate that list into the different languages of the people we are teaching. Thank goodness for googletranslate.com!  We are able to find all but one of the languages we need for translation there. We produce two lists each in Persian, Urdu, and Albanian, and one in Kurdish.  

I don't think our class is complete yet.  Who knows who else might want to join?  All the people living at the Johnston Marina have come here to Ireland seeking asylum from their native countries and are looking for a better life.  All can tell stories about the challenges and hardships of living in those countries they came from.  All of the people at the Marina need to learn English if they are going to succeed here. It is a challenge for us to know what to teach them, but they are all so eager and excited about learning and we see improvement every session. 

 

L to R: Flootor, Madiha, Geniz, Saba, S Walker, Belan, Firooze and Ana.


We are having fun teaching and getting to know these warm, sweet, wonderful woman and man and are looking forward to hearing their stories when they have enough English to tell them.

HASTE YE BACK!

Sweet is the Work

A couple of weeks ago, near the end of our church meetings, in walked two women from Iran that spoke almost no English.  A and F are from Iran and seeking legal status to stay in Ireland.  Both have very  heart tugging stories about how they fled their homeland for a new life.  A fled because of an abusive husband and F fled to obtain religious freedom.  F walked four days across the desert to Turkey with no water or food.  After their time in Turkey the government determined to send them to Ireland.  A has a 12 year old daughter with her, and F has a young son who is in the UK with his father, to whom F was previously married to in an arranged marriage.  F  remarried and has a husband back in Iran who supports her.  She attended a religious meeting in Iran and feared for her life so her husband helped her escape.

When these women came to Ireland they started their journey in Dublin and then were assigned to Tralee.  They are now learning English and making friends.  We have been assisting with English lessons as best we can.  They are taking a conversational class in a local school but this class does not teach grammar and so forth.  Each time we meeting with them we learn something new about them.  I has been a sweet experience to get to know them.

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Iranian meal prepared by F for us. Lamb, rice and beans, and diced cucumber and tomato salad

Field trip to a local history Museum 

Lovely desert named Havalah