McMurray Scotland-Ireland Mission Blog

Service Opportunities As previous, The Tidy Towns volunteer organization in Dundalk is very active. Each Tuesday and Saturday they schedule a clean-up project of some kind. On Tuesday evening we joined in on the project to clean up the Bird Blind area within the fence-line. The Bird Blind is a location at the end of Navvy Walk, at Soldier's Point, where birdwatch groups can get a vantage point for viewing the many waterfowl that come into where Dundalk Bay is fed from the Castletown River. In low tides like Tuesday evening, the birds prance around in the mud and get their fill of insect delights. These Tidy Towns people, Ann, Trina, Helen, and the unidentified male taking the photo - are all wonderful, community-minded volunteers. For years they have seen different missionaries of our Church come and help out, and they were so kind and gracious to us. We had alot of fun serving with them in our beautiful community. The Bird Blind is just a couple of storage containers stacked up, w...

 Fun & Games Alice Gernon, the Elders' newest landlord and neighbor, invited us all to come over for games. After retaining my champion title in SWOOP, we had fun singing some hymns while Elder Schneider accompanied us with piano/organ.  In another home visit, we provided some training and suggestions for a sister in her family history. We love visiting with these Branch members in their homes. We drove these missionaries out to the Cooley peninsula for preparation day activity. Kilwirra Church ruins was one of our stops. The church is from earlier centuries and associated with the Knights Templar. It's located near Templetown, with great views of the Cooley Mountains. We enjoy initiating the young missionaries, to the local Carlingford cuisine, being oysters from Carlingford Lough. Elder Truman was a willing participant. He said that it was ' slimy ', but he liked it just enough to try one more. Atta boy Elder Truman. Expand those horizons. King John's Castle i...

Member Support, Making New Friends May Matthews is a wonderful lady - lives in the home she has owned for 50 years or so. This is her back patio and garden. In the very back you can see a small cottage that she had built for a daughter to live in to have her own space.  May's main home which is not large, was split and made to accommodate another daughter. They are beautiful spaces.  Her daughter Karen was the decorator/interior designer. She is also a professional musician and is in Spain performing for a month. May suffered the loss of her husband, Gerry, a professional singer of some renown, about 2 years ago. She wasn't getting out much. Didn't attend church often. We began visiting her a few months ago when her son, Brian, (now living in Calgary), was staying with her.  We've grown very close and enjoy every moment that we're together. Her fun-loving personality is on display each visit - after a brief spiritual message or lesson, she absolutely loves teasing a...