We are serving in the WIsconsin Milwaukee Mission but we actually live in Greendale, a Milwaukee suburb. Greendale is beautiful - I've never seen so many trees! Every place we go we drive by trees, many forested areas, too.
Greendale seems to be a very safe place to live. Where Milwaukee seems to have nightly shootings and stabbings, many Greendale residents walk outside after dark and don't seem concerned. Our apartment is one of those where a key is needed to enter the building so we feel very secure here. We have great neighbors. They are either Indian or Muslim - the mother wears a wrap around her head. Wish our church could adopt that (?) then I wouldn't have to cut or color my hair!!! Our neighbor across the hall has brought us dinner 3 times. We try to reciprocate and return her pans with cookies or banana bread in them. They have 3 young children who we love to watch play outside of our window. The little girl, about 8 years old, took me to her bedroom to show me the doll house her mom made from cardboard. Her mom apologized once for her noisy children. She said she told them they needed to be quiet because "a grandma and grandpa live there." I told her we had 18 grandchildren at home and we missed their noise and that her kids didn't bother us at all. We love talking with them and plan to spoil them at Halloween (they are the only kids that will probably trick-or-treat in our building.)
Our apartment is VERY small - 650 square feet - 1/3 the size of our house in Clifton. 1 bedroom, 1 small bathroom, a living room, eating area, and very small kitchen where only one of us can be in at a time. Some of our missionaries live, on the other hand, in apartments with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, balconies overlooking rivers, etc. And they rent for $550 a month where ours rents for $850. The beauties of living in the smaller areas, I guess.
Well, life is passing quickly and this blog is about 1 week late. Sorry........we continue to love this mission!
