Dopp Family Cruise

 For Bruce and Marlene's 50th wedding anniversary, We planned a cruise to see New England in the fall. We all flew into New York at different times and met up at a musical on Broadway the night before the cruise.

Jeremy and Jenny arranged to have the marquis outside their Times Square hotel honor them. It was so fun to see their names in lights!

Scott and I took the redeye Thursday night, so we had all day Friday and most of the day Saturday. Our hotel, the Jane, was in Chelsea, so we checked in early and just started walking. Scott had never been to Greenwich, so we walked towards that neighborhood. We found a cookie dough place that's trendy right now and got a cup of chocolate chip. We agreed that it wasn't as good as Marlene's. We spent time in Washington Square, right next to the NYU campus, just listening to street musicians and watching people. It was an absolutely breathtaking fall day in New York, the kind of day people live there for. I was happy inside, just to be there, and to spend time with Scott. We hardly even see each other.

Our strolling took us through Nolita, and into Little Italy. It happened to be the San Gennaro festival, and the street was lined with food and shoping stands. Tony Danza was there at his restaurant, serving food, as he always does during this festival, we learned. It was fun to see the real deal New York Italian-American star in his element. Lunch was leisurely and delicious. We watched as the servers catered to the nice people and completely ignored the pushy tourists until they eventually got up and left. Tee hee. New Yorkers are only rude if you're a jerk.

Each day of the cruise, we sent postcards to all our kids. While Golda andRuby probably appreciated them, we found all th eones we sent home in a pile of mail tha tthe kids had never looked at. Anyway, Friday night was Come From Away on Broadway. It was an excellent, complex production with great music and a talented cast. We enjoyed it. We stayed up late getting pizza and taking the subway back to Chelsea where we had a nightcap in a cute restaurant by the Whitney.

Early Saturday, we took the subway to the Upper West Side ( we accidentally didn't get off and ended up in Harlem, but didn't have time to stay. We had wanted to have breakfast at Marc Samuelson's restaurant, but the ship was waiting and we had too many plans. So we went back down and walked across the park to see a Modigliani exhibit at the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side. Yesterday was Rosh Hashana, and it was closed, so we went today. It's free on Saturdays to avoid the element of commerce on the sabbath, so even better. We had plenty of time to see the whole exhibit, which was wonderful. We both love Modigliani. The Gugg was under renovation, so most exhibits were down. We had a falafel outside and talked to an artist from Burkina Faso, all about Ghana and the rest of West Africa.

Afterwards, we walked all the way down to Columbus Circle and got a treat at Kaiser bakery.

We boarded the sip at about 3, and got settled in. When the ship left the harbour as night was falling, the skyline was incredible.

First stop, Boston. All the leaves were pretty much still green, so anytime Nikki saw some dead leaves, we pretended to do a fall photo shoot.

Boston Cream Pie at Fanuel Hall

Red. Scott and Nikki came this close to renting a car and driving up the coast to Portland and meeting us there. Traffic out of Boston scared them out of it.

Portland, Maine. Scott and I had the BEST time. We got off the ship early in the morning and found a unique little coffee shop along the waterfront. We people watched while enjoying some organic baked goods, and we got a feel for the town. Our destination was the Portland Museum of Fine Art, because they have an extensive collection of Impressionist and American art. Before it opened, we watched some dancers suspended from ropes and pulleys, rehearsing a piece on the side of a building. It was innovative and beautiful. I'm glad we got to see that.

The museum did not disappoint. It's probably one of the best in the country, and we didn't want to miss it. Who knows when we'll be back in Portland, Maine?

Jonathan Cooper is a well-known violin maker. He gave us a tour of his shop and his stockpile of wood. That was fun. Everyone in Portland was casual and friendly. We had lobster for lunch at a microbrewery with lots of cool atmosphere, then met up with Marlene and Jeremy and ubered out to a lighthouse. (Lyft, actually. It seems to work better than Uber.) On the way, we drove by the rest of the gang riding the bikes they had rented for the day. The lighthouse wa pretty. It was exactly like being in a postcard. The rest of us went back to the ship, but Scott and I wanted to take advantage of every Maine moment. We kept stopping at "one more place." Last stop was a waterfront restaurant with dockside seating, for blueberry pie.

The next port was St. John, Nova Scotia. We were too cheap to take a bus to the waterfalls that seemed to be the tourist spot, so we walked the three miles each way with Ryan, Jennie, Jeremy and Jenny. We saw some quaint architecture and pretty scenery. We all split up for lunch, and we did get to try a donut at Tim Horton's, just like real Canadians. We had some fun laughs with some of the siblings. It was a good day.

There were fun things to do on the ship. Our favorite was late-night pizza and mockery, instigated by Scott and Clint laughing at Scott for something. The best part of the trip was all the time we spent getting to know each other better, especially late at night. We have the best family. Each one is invested in loving one another and staying close, even with our differences. It's so worth it.

We when we disembarked in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the weather was angry and wet. It wasn't just a drizzle, it was pouring. All the waterfront stores and restaurants were closed. We were determined to have a good time, though. I didn't mind being soggy at all. This was our one day in our whole lives to see Halifax, so we soldiered on. We ended up at lunch with Nikki and Clint, laughing our derrieres off. They are so fun! We had another lunch when we met up with Jeff and Richelle. The six of us went to a poutine restaurant that locals had recommended. It turned out to be a chain like Panda or something, but it was a cute place. Scott and I shared butter chicken poutine, and we stayed in out of the rain for awhile just talking. We wandered around and stopped at another place before reluctantly, but gratefully getting on the ship to dry off.

Jeff won the dance contest! He got a trophy.

In Halifax, right when we got off the ship, there was a covered mall with food and stores. We met a Ghanaian woman and bought some food. It was really, really good.

This is Vilina Vidat! She is our exchange student from Beijing. It all happened really fast. Our high school friend Andy Hogan speaks Chinese and has a lot of Chinese friends. He has a friend who is a guitarist from Mainland, who also happens to be Uigher, one of China’s ethnic minorities. This is a tight knit community, so Andy knows a lot of Uighers through Kerman, the guitarist. Andy messaged me to ask if we knew a family interested in hosting an 11yo girl from Beijing. Her parents wanted a family who is into music and ballet. Scott and I talked about it and it seemed like to would be easy, compared to Frank, a 17yo boy. We loved Frank, but it was nice to have that space open again when he left. So we didn’t think we’d do another exchange student, but Vilina seemed like a good fit. Xanthe was immediately onboard, so we said yes. She was born in Boston, so she has dual citizenship. Because of that, enrolling her in school was fairly easy.

We thought Vilina would be in 6th grade, but it turned out when she arrived, she was only 10. So she’s in 5th grade. She is a remarkable person, to travel here all alone at such a tender age. Her English is nascent, but she learns quickly. She is happy, always singing and dancing and teasing Ptolemy. She isn’t shy, but she’s quiet. She gets along great with Xanthe, and everyone is happy.

I am looking forward to her meeting Golda and Ruby when they get back. I wish she and Golda spoke the same dialect, but oh well.  Vilina is a fun girl, and we are happy to have her in the family!

Purpose, and Moving to the New Territories!

This week's word was PURPOSE.

We had an amazing meeting in Kowloon about our missionary purpose: Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. 

Because I have been a Sister Training Leader, I was able to give a 15 minute training with Sister Thomson. We decided to talk about being enough. We wanted the missionaries to know that because they exist, they are enough. Life can try to fade away your knowledge of divine nature, but Jesus Christ is there to remind us of our royal origin as children of God, and of the reality of change. So we did a little skit where Sister Thomson acted really rude and vicious to me after teaching a pretend lesson. After it all the missionaries were confused why she was such a horrible companion in the skit, then we told them she actually represented my inner thoughts. We talked about how sometimes we say things to ourselves that we would never say to others. We then redid the skit but Sister Thomson represented the Savior and only read back scriptures in response to my lines. We invited them to replace negative thoughts with the Savior. We then read the hymn Where Can I Turn For Peace and had a discussion on what "Reaches my reaching," means. Then we watched the bible video of the woman with the issue of blood. How all she did was reach out and touch the hem of Jesus Christ's garment, and was made whole. There is so much meaning in that story, and too little time to explain. I just know that we are enough, and that Jesus Christ will recognize any subtle, finite, struggling, small attempt to come unto Him. He loves us. 

Also, so in Hong Kong lots of people where T shirts with nonsense English on them. Then sometimes they randomly have quotes that make sense and that are actually deep in a weird sort of way. I write my favorite ones down in my language notebook. For example...

It's Time For Change

First Deserve, then Desire

Curiosity is the Beginning of Wisdom

A Winner is a Dreamer Who Never Gives Up

Be Silent so You Can Listen

It is Not Easy, But it is Worth It

If Not Now, When?

Kindness is Key

Tomorrow is the Beginning of the Future 

Mrs. Zach Efron (hahahahaha okay this may be an exception from my thought below)

Walking the crowded streets of HK, I then ponder up a whole gospel message based around the T shirt. So, can you guys all do it? How do these random English words relate to the gospel?

Love you all! In the words of a wise MTC teacher "The gospel gives everything meaning."  We are here for a glorious purpose!

Nana's Journey

 These are all pictures from the end of June, the first time we thought Nana was going to pass away any minute. Josh was leaving for scout camp and he thought it was his last good bye, but Nana was still here when he got back, for another couple of weeks. The past two and a half years have been sweet, having Nana so close. All my kids loved going to visit her. She is always loving and happy, and you just want to be in her presence. The Villas is a really nice place. Many times, as I sunk into a computer chair in Nana's room, I thought how much I wished I lived in the beautiful villas, where someone cooked for me and I didn't have to go anywhere. Of course, we all know that being a hundred years old is no picnic. In fact, it's brutal. As agonizing as it was, this summer was also sacred, as we helped Nana day by day towards her next journey.