Kelly Times Two

From nine choices on a recent survey, the women at church selected this event as their first pick for upcoming activities for me to plan.  The concept of a once a month (or close to it) Relief Society activity hasn't really been grasped here, and past events have been sort of lumped in with other activities, like our baby quilt making project turned out to be.  As I felt the importance of my calling and striving to carry it out the way I believe the mid-week activities are intended, I expressed to the RS president that I hope that we can make this event be just for the women, where they can eagerly look forward to a special time of socializing with others and not have to worry about taking care of the kids and simply enjoy a night out together.  In order to emphasize that this was planned for the women, after I heard that it had been announced in priesthood meeting and the men were excited about it, I knew my work was cut out for me.  Since then, I created these...

A friend of mine from church owns eight bakeries between Hsinchu and Taipei and invited me to tour the factory where they make everything.   Vivien is so nice to have given us a hands-on bakery tour. This baker has worked for her for four years and has been trained in Japan on some specialty bread techniques.  This is Bori bread that is like crusty fresh loaf and soft inside.  He makes a quick cut with a blade held at an angle before putting into a hot stone oven (225 degrees Celsius) for 16 minutes.  A favorite bread for me in Taiwan is this delicious cheese bread.  I paid close attention and hope to be able to make my own version of cheese bread at home.  After a sprinkle of black pepper and a row of high-melt cheese is added, it gets rolled up for the final rising.  The bread is placed on canvas and handled gently before it goes into the oven.  The scoring on this raisin and walnut bread was very artful with a sprinkling of flour be...

A rare snowfall in Austin in January.  Thanks to our excellent house-sitter for capturing what we missed out on.

Our production of Much Ado About Nothing that we've been working on for six months was performed last Saturday.  The youth did an outstanding job.  Everything came together very nicely, including the background music that one of the young men put onto his laptop to match each scene.  Another young man put the entire script onto an overhead screen to provide Chinese subtitles for the audience members who don't know English well enough to follow along throughout the play. Demi and Emma (Alina's older sister) helped out with hair and makeup as the kids were getting into costumes for the big night.  Anticipation for the production was building up as stage props and sound equipment were getting set up.  The weeks and months spent practicing and memorizing their lines of foreign dialog were finally shared on stage with the eager, attentive crowd.  By their positive reaction and applause, I would say the show was a huge success. Aaron and his dad helped ...