Conference and crystals

With General Conference this weekend, we weren't sure if we would be able to speak with Rachel since Saturday is her P-day, which, as Phoebe described it fairly accurately, is "the day that missionaries don't have to do any very much work and can just do things like laundry." It's also the day missionaries are allowed to write their correspondence and—in this day and age—call home. 

But she managed to arrange a time to call us between her breakfast and the beginning of conference, right around 5:00 for us. I had just taken the kids for a pre-conference stroll...

And Rachel was ready to call right when we got home. She has two companions (both going to Thailand) and was made a Sister Training Leader and has already seen her cousin Michael (you can read this week's letter here). She says she has seen him pretty much every day since she's been in the MTC. I told her that it helps that he's so tall. She said it helps that he yells her first name out whenever he sees her (which is technically against the rules). 

Phoebe was really excited to talk to Rachel. She told her about how our "lift wasn't fully openational" during the fire alarm earlier this week (which was rather perplexing for Phoebe) and that "lift is another word for elevator." She listened to Rachel's stories and then parroted advice back to her, "I have four things to say to you: don't fall, don't get lost and wander around in the dark, don't lose track of your companions, and be a good missionary." Something like that. 

She also wanted to see what was in Rachel's bed (she has been requesting such things "show me where you keep your pyjamas," "show me your table," "show me what's in your bed" since Rachel went away to college), so Rachel spun around to show off her bunk bed and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

"Whoa! Who is taking your picture?" Phoebe asked.

"That's...just me..." Rachel said. 

"Oh! I didn't recognize you!"

"You've just been talking to me!"

"Yeah, but I didn't recognize you in the mirror!"

Soon enough we had to say goodbye to Rachel so we could all settle in for conference. Andrew actually had to go off to a dinner for work, so I watched with the kids. We don't have a television yet, but Andrew went out in the morning and picked up a projector (which we plan to use upstairs so we don't have to always have a TV out, and which is much easier to bring home in a shopping bag).

We set out some special conference snacks, which looked a bit different than our typical conference snacks, but which were still very good. We tried rambutan...

And some other yummy things—Andrew ordered some awameh and baclava for us, and seasoned peanuts, as well as more familiar things like apples and bananas and mangoes...

We watched the Saturday morning session and then went out for a bedtime walk, arriving home shortly before 10:00. While the nightlife here is active, as I mentioned, it's more our speed than the nightlife at the hotel in West Bay! I am so grateful to not have pounding club music drifting through my window and instead hear only the distant hum of conversation, punctuated by tinkling laughter of children and perhaps the odd car honking (which we also got downtown, honestly). 

Rather than loud pounding club music, as we could expect at our hotel, the sidewalk speakers were piping out smooth jazz tunes and acoustic samba music (interestingly) this evening—it was just very quiet background noise.

But, as I told the kids, if you go out late enough at night when the music is off and most of the people have gone home to bed, you can hear crickets! We have hardly seen any bugs here (Miriam just got rather excited about seeing a beetle this evening), so knowing there are crickets around felt rather exciting.

We walked slowly to appreciate the crystal displays once we were back on the Crystal Walk.

The kids noticed that there is a little crystal bird in each case—no matter the subject of the scene—and enjoy looking for it in each case. We imagine it might be like an artist's signature (but that's entirely conjecture, so don't quote us on it).

Here are some horses Phoebe rather appreciated:

Here's a well in the middle of a desert, surrounded by rams:

And here's a well in the middle of the desert, surrounded by rams, surrounded by curious children: