Hey everybody,

Heres an excerpt from an email reply to Christi. (thanks Christi) She asked all the pertinent questions, so it made it easy to use here to update 'chall:

> How's the cong.?
>Have you found a place yet?

We finally found the hall right around the corner, maybe a 5 minute walk from our current B&B, in Monktown, is the Dun Laoghire (aka Dun Leary) congregation. It only took us a week to find it. Because we were asking around it the city, and their IS no Kingdom Hall in the city, so we kept getting really lost, and confused. We finally asked our B&B lady, when we were there the same time as her, and she told us it was right around the corner....The cong. had a big wedding this weekend in England, so we only met 1/2 the cong because the other 1/2 was celebrating. Our Watchtower conducter looks like Anthony Hopkins....but he is really nice. We got stuck talking to only a couple of people, instead of meeting everyone. We'll meet more this evening at bookstudy. They all seem very nice, and warm. I haven't gotten out in service yet, because we have to find a place to stay by the 15th. The guy I thought we could crash with is living on the other side of the country still. And his room mates bailed on him, so he's currently living out of a hostle, which would be fine for us too except that we have EIGHT stupid suitcases to lugg around with us. Our B&B lady is really nice, I've gotten to witness to her a bit....she's had witnesses stay with her for conventions, but never really talked with them..."one religion is enough for me". Anyhow, she is letting us stash our excess bags there for a week after we move out (and we only have to move out becasue she's booked after the 15th, otherwise we'de just exted our stay with them). Its tough to find any accomadations anywhere here on a temp basis (not signing a lease, since we don't know where Matt's job is gonna be yet) because the stinking biggest holiday here is coming up. St. Patty's Day is a FOUR day holiday here. Its huge. It begins the 15th, ends the 18th. So I'm leary about finding a bed to sleep in. And no one at the hall has offered yet..... All of the pioneers are away at this big wedding....I guess it was a bethel brother/pioneer wedding so everyone is there. The Bethel Branch here is only about a 30 minute train ride away. I' looking forward to seeing it. But first things first....

We've been starting everyday off with a 10 minute walk to the internet cafe. Then we go up to the City and meet with recruiters and look at unavailable apartmetns...Matt spends a few hours sending out emails, resumes (CV's) and I look online for places to stay, get side-tracked by permenant places, and try to write to people. Then, I study, or write in my journal unitl he's done.... He's had a lot of positive interviews, especially one he had yesterday, but there hasn't been any actual job offers yet. Just people that say they will have something for him very "soon", whatever that means. Recruiters keep telling him that its not going to be a problem to get a work permit, but a lot of companies are being very slow to hire anyone at the moment. We have had people tell him straight out that he will get a job, it will just take time. I'm still not too worried, since matt did get his severence pay from @Home. If we don't get anything for a while, we can survive a while. Better if we don't have to spend time without income, but what'cha gonna do?

Pray.

Its hard to even get dressed in the morning because we're living out of 1 of our 8 bags, and so have to recycle clothing....the laudrymatts here take your clothes and wash them for you, and you pick them up next day. I know somewehere in the city I can find a regular laundry place where I can wash my own stuff and wear it that night, but no one seems to know where it would be.....I have washed things in the sink and hung them on the land lady's laundry line, crossed my fingers that the gael force winds will dry the things before the rain starts. It actually snowed 2 days ago, then 15 minutes later tha sun was shinning again... go figure.

> Have you gone out in service yet? >Is it any different?

As I said, no door to door yet, just informal....And now we've returned our rental car, so I'm going to be relying on the other pioneers to show me where to meet for service (other peoples houses, not the K.H.) and give me rides. :( but, I think it's gonna be very similar to the kind of service I'm used to, just that peole want to chit chat first. Even people that can't help me at all, like the apartment they had for rent by the week is taken, want to still chat for a while about it, and I'm ready to hang up the phone. So, that I'm going to have to get used to. But I think that that is only going to improve field service.

> Does anyone give you a hard time about your accent?

No, they just ask you what part of the States your from as soon as you've said hello. Our congregation says they have had American families every year for the last 6 years, (although none at the moment) coming and going....again, I thoguht we were so unique! But this is the city too... And besides that it is a very international place. Just in our congregation were visiting, there are Nigerians, South Africans, English, Dutch, and those are jsut the ones we've met. And one guy with an Oakland Raiders jacket on, but we didn't get to met him....

So, thats about it for now.....we have a lazy day today, no actuall interviews or appointments to keep until tomorrow. I think we're going to the movies for a change. A few days ago we went to a Chineese Circus too. That was crazy funny. NOT what I expected to be doing in the middle of Ireland.....

Cheers