Last Thursday Shelia Ludlow drove Shirley Hadley (temple matron) and myself to a liquidation store in Etobicoke, The store opens for three days only in the spring and winter. There were people lined up at the check out with shopping buggies full of everything from kitchen gadgets to floor fans.
From that store Shelia drove us to 581 Bloor Street in downtown Toronto to shop and visit "Honest Eds" Shopping Centre. The place is a very very old two-story, two-building variety store a city block long and joined by a walkway on the second floor. It was made famous by people from all over the world, coming to Toronto - going to the "must see" "Honest Eds Shopping Centre". Ed Mirvish was a jew, who opened the doors of his store 62 years ago and advertised selling everything from wine to twine. Ed also owned a resturant called the "Warehouse" and several of the asian artifacts, a rickshaw, budist temple and much more, from that resturant are for sale in his store. Covering most of the walls of this block-long store are life-size photos of movie stars and royalty. All signed "to my friend Ed." The outside of Honest Eds is covered with lights, similar to what you see in Las Vegas. Newspaper clippings showing people lining up outside his store in anticipation of the shopping for bargains are up on many bulletin boards. Ed would give out free turkeys at Christmastime. He was a great man to share his wealth and one of his ways was in building threatres for the performing arts in Europe, United States and Canada.
Today Honest Eds is still the place to see in Toronto. Up staircase and down staircase, not at all difficult to loose your way amid the bins of t shirts, pj's, blouses, trousers, suits for $50.00, pots and pans, dishes, souveniers, groceries, childrens ware and hardware. I purchased a small bank for Grant's lose change. I never have any loose change, I always spend all I have.
Friday after our computer class we went to the Mission President's home for a couples dinner and games. The food was delicious and the games were fun. We look forward this coming friday to a zone conference in our Stake building in Etobicoke in the morning and then we drive to town for our computer class in the afternoon.
Sunday after our meetings, we had Jackie and Eric O'Toole with us for a ride to and from church, we drove around the church area to see the many trees in blossom. We came upon a conservatory that was open to the public. What a surprise on a drippy rainy day to be amongst so many sweet smelling flowers, several budgie birds, a squawking parrot- angel and a tiny field mouse. Also there was a room full of cactus.
Elders from the YSA had supper with us last night and tonight, Marie, Katherin and Christian, our little family from Mexico will have dinner with us. They are going back to Mexico on Friday. Soon it will be the end of april and the beginning of a brand new month. The lovely month of May!
Sunday we will drive to London where we will meet with three bishops and their employment resource specialists then to dinner with Grant's friends from Edmonton, the Jude Bunnages.
We will have our career workshop the first part of next week and womens conference the end of the week. I like to keep busy. Love to you Mother and to all who read this. (I would be interested in knowing if anyone is following my ramblings)
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
April 21, Mid week, mid month, mid Spring
Today Grant and I met our friend, Jackie O'Toole, at High Park in Central Toronto. The cherry blossoms were out in all their splendor, and the greenishyellow blossoms on the giant maple trees made for an almost sacred experience. We clicked and clicked our cameras as all around us others were clicking as well. Babies in strollers, dogs on leashes, a bride in a wedding dress, old, young and all ages in between were taking in the beauty that nature was offering today!
Several Sundays ago we attended a special musical fireside a tribute to the Resurrected Christ. Most of the 120 elders and sisters participated in either singing, violin, cello, organ or panio. It was a truly inspiring evening. Elder Ferland who studied at the University of Victoria played Meditation from Thais on his violin, Elder Pauni sang Oh Divine Redeemer, Elder Argueta played A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief on his cello, and the mission choir sang, This Is The Christ. The spirit of the Lord was so strong there!
We were involved in the preparation of our Area Employment Conference in Brampton this past weekend. We drove to the Grey Hound Station in down town Toronto Friday evening at 4:00 p.m. to pick up a service missionary couple from Montreal who were coming to our Ontario Conference. They stayed in the guest suite in our apartment complex, ate out with us Friday night and had breakfast at our apt on Saturday morning early, then to the conference and back to the Grey Hound Station after the conference. I had a brief 8 minute talk to give at the conference - so needless-to-say we were a bit tired at the end of Saturday.
Did I mention that we see alot of neat places on our way to and from getting lost. In another 14 months we should have a pretty good handle on north, south, east and west Toronto and surrounding areas.
We had our first career workshop at our employment office on Queens Plate Drive. We had 7 job seekers and from the feed back - it was worth the while for the participants.
I walked over to the Woodbine race track last week just as the jockeys were parading before a race. Beautiul horses, reminded me of our horse Barcellona in Victoria who today has his first showing. Good luck Austen and Bar. Elaine
Several Sundays ago we attended a special musical fireside a tribute to the Resurrected Christ. Most of the 120 elders and sisters participated in either singing, violin, cello, organ or panio. It was a truly inspiring evening. Elder Ferland who studied at the University of Victoria played Meditation from Thais on his violin, Elder Pauni sang Oh Divine Redeemer, Elder Argueta played A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief on his cello, and the mission choir sang, This Is The Christ. The spirit of the Lord was so strong there!
We were involved in the preparation of our Area Employment Conference in Brampton this past weekend. We drove to the Grey Hound Station in down town Toronto Friday evening at 4:00 p.m. to pick up a service missionary couple from Montreal who were coming to our Ontario Conference. They stayed in the guest suite in our apartment complex, ate out with us Friday night and had breakfast at our apt on Saturday morning early, then to the conference and back to the Grey Hound Station after the conference. I had a brief 8 minute talk to give at the conference - so needless-to-say we were a bit tired at the end of Saturday.
Did I mention that we see alot of neat places on our way to and from getting lost. In another 14 months we should have a pretty good handle on north, south, east and west Toronto and surrounding areas.
We had our first career workshop at our employment office on Queens Plate Drive. We had 7 job seekers and from the feed back - it was worth the while for the participants.
I walked over to the Woodbine race track last week just as the jockeys were parading before a race. Beautiul horses, reminded me of our horse Barcellona in Victoria who today has his first showing. Good luck Austen and Bar. Elaine
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010
Thursday on my way to the employment centre just in front of the Comfort Hotel were two very large ground hogs, they were not the least bit afraid of me as I walked toward them. Small look-like beavers with fluffy hair. I had expected ground hogs to be the size of our western gophers, these were more the size of large rabbits with short ears. This was a first for me.
Good Friday after our apartment got its weekly cleaning we packed a lunch and went to find an entrance to the walkway along the Humber River. The water for this river collects from 750 creeks and tributaries in a fan shaped area north of Toronto, snaking 100 kms south into Lake Ontario. We did find an entrance about a mile from our apartment. The river is muddy with winter run off, it moves along at a pretty good speed. The temperature was in the low 20's as we walked along the river - bikers on the path and ducks in the water. Pretty nice. We found a bench and enjoyed our bacon, tomatoe and cheese sandwiches.
Next we made our way back to the employment office to work some more on our career presentation for this Tuesday. At around 7:00 I had finished typing the revisions and we began wraping up to go home. I went to the room where we had been using the fax machine, and as I closed the locked door I immediately realized that Grant had put his keys on the counter by the fax machine. Oh no, what to do. It was Easter weekend - we could not get into our car, we could not lock the centre door, who could we phone to open the locked door? What a helpless feeling. We knew there wouldn't be anyone in the centre until Monday Morning. We had two phone numbers for the building maintenance director. We called Henry Lau, he was in Richmond Hill - about 25 minutes away by car. He said not to worry he would come and unlock the door for us. We were rescued!
Saturday the elders ask us if we would like to contribute to pot luch lunch between conference sessions. This was a pleasant visiting and eating time with new converts. This we did as well on Sunday between meetings. Grant and I felt the spirit of God through the talks by the general authorities and the heavenly music. This next week will be a very busy one but I will report on this later.
Good Friday after our apartment got its weekly cleaning we packed a lunch and went to find an entrance to the walkway along the Humber River. The water for this river collects from 750 creeks and tributaries in a fan shaped area north of Toronto, snaking 100 kms south into Lake Ontario. We did find an entrance about a mile from our apartment. The river is muddy with winter run off, it moves along at a pretty good speed. The temperature was in the low 20's as we walked along the river - bikers on the path and ducks in the water. Pretty nice. We found a bench and enjoyed our bacon, tomatoe and cheese sandwiches.
Next we made our way back to the employment office to work some more on our career presentation for this Tuesday. At around 7:00 I had finished typing the revisions and we began wraping up to go home. I went to the room where we had been using the fax machine, and as I closed the locked door I immediately realized that Grant had put his keys on the counter by the fax machine. Oh no, what to do. It was Easter weekend - we could not get into our car, we could not lock the centre door, who could we phone to open the locked door? What a helpless feeling. We knew there wouldn't be anyone in the centre until Monday Morning. We had two phone numbers for the building maintenance director. We called Henry Lau, he was in Richmond Hill - about 25 minutes away by car. He said not to worry he would come and unlock the door for us. We were rescued!
Saturday the elders ask us if we would like to contribute to pot luch lunch between conference sessions. This was a pleasant visiting and eating time with new converts. This we did as well on Sunday between meetings. Grant and I felt the spirit of God through the talks by the general authorities and the heavenly music. This next week will be a very busy one but I will report on this later.
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