I'm behind on this now. For the past week things have been pretty crazy. Work gets busier each day while I'm still settling in my new apartment. At the same time this place is already transitioning into a condominium with a new name Footprints on the Bay! And they are already persuading us to buy the unit! I wish I could afford it as I'm liking this place each day. I can swim in the pool pretty much any time I want and the laundry room here uses a smart card system which means no saving quarters!!! And I also discovered the sauna room last night! Hooray! The only downside is that animals are everywhere here. It is not that I don't like animals (remember, I was a biology major) but the night I moved in I saw at least three raccoons running around the parking lot which was kinda scary. Then I almost hit a deer while driving. Basically this town is like an open zoo. You see new form of life everyday. Yesterday a hummingbird was lingering around my head on campus for a short while and I thought it was going to attack me!

Another experience I had was that I got a haircut at a national chain salon SxxxxCuts but it cost twice as much as what I would have paid in Utah. When I first talked to my hairdresser I thought "Uh-oh.... I can hardly understand him." It turned out that he was a Vietnamese refugee who lived in Hong Kong for a few years! He told me all those interesting experience he had and even told me how much he paid for hair beauty school to become a stylist! The only other hair stylist in the shop was a Korean lady who spoke even less English and I felt for that poor Caucasian man who came in later and it was quite entertaining to see how they interacted.

This past week I also gave a talk in my ward and my assigned topic was "Enduring Well". I really enjoyed the process of preparing the talk and I have learned a great deal. The script can be read here.

Oh I also taught the EQ lesson today at church and I had been nervous the whole past week! I hardly knew any people in the ward! It turned out pretty good, just too short on time. It was on "agency". And in addition to President Woodruff's quotes from the manual, I found these quotes as I prepared the lesson:

• Next to the bestowal of life itself, the right to direct that life is God's greatest gift to man. -David O Mckay
• Every drop of divine blood was payment for a costly plan that provided us with moral agency. -Elder Spencer Condie
• There is little advantage to living in a free country if we are in bondage to personal habits. -Elder Spencer Condie

These were some of the very few pictures I took since I got to Monterey...

The night before I arrived I stayed at Howard Johnson in Vegas and had a nice breakfast buffet ... I needed energy for my long drive! And in the car... notice the wind turbines on the mountain... it looked really cool when you drove up close!














I live within walking distance to the beach... when the weather is good, the view is stunningly great! I love the ocean! And I'm also very close to the very well known Cannery Road. I found that great chocolate/ice cream shop that I loved in San Francisco here... Ghirardelli, Yeah!