Murray Ceff's Blog

We left London early on a Wednesday morning from Heathrow Airport. It was an interesting drive to the  airport with an Iraqi taxi driver. I think I learnt more about Iraq in that drive than I had ever learned before. One thing I learned was that most Islamic terrorists are Sunni and not Shiite. Anyway, we got to the airport safely which is the main thing, I guess!  Our flight from London to Frankfurt was delayed for some unknown reason. This was going to cause a problem! We had a short flight to Frankfurt where we were to change planes to then fly to Tokyo. It was a short flight to Frankfurt but the distance from where our plane came in (not to a terminal but to a waiting bus on the tarmac) to where our connecting flight was leaving from was far from short! From where the bus dropped us off we had a long long walk and it seemed like not enough time to get to our connecting flight.  Poor Josie! She was really struggling to walk fast enough! Miriam and I went ah...

Not my work - I was sent this in an email recently and thought it was worth keeping and sharing. Top Ten Reasons To Dislike Mitt Romey            1. Drop-dead, collar-ad handsome with gracious, statesmanlike aura. Looks like every central casting's #1 choice for Commander-in-Chief.            2. Been married to ONE woman his entire life, and has been faithful to her, including through her bouts with breast cancer and MS.             3. No scandals or skeletons in his closet. (How boring is that?)             4. Can't speak in a fake, southern, "black preacher voice" when necessary.             5. Highly intelligent. Graduated cum laude from both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School ... and by t...

We had a very busy day and a half in London. We left the airport via bus for our apartment  in the Hyde Park area of London. The bus actually took us to a bus terminal and then we got a private cab from the bus terminal to the apartment. We booked the apartment with our travel agent in Geelong, and had very little idea what it was like. At $300.00AUD a night it was way cheaper than a hotel, and if it was just Margot, Miriam and me it would have been okay, but it did present some difficulties for poor Josie. The problem was the access to the bathroom. The unit had a kitchen and living area downstairs with a couple of sofa beds. The main bed for Margot and me was on  a mezzanine floor. The access to this floor was via a staircase that was more like a ladder. This was just fine for us two. The problem was that the bathroom was up there too, and it was just not possible for Josie to get up there. We went back to the office and explained the situation to them. There was nothi...

At the end of my last entry here I was about to go through customs and immigration at Heathrow. I got through OK even though I could not remember the exact address of the London Temple, where I would be staying for a for a week. Filling in the immigration card, I had learned through experience, is a pretty straight forward affair, as long as you have an address that you will be staying at in the country you are entering. Last time I went to London I didn't have an address as I was staying with a friend (Neil Kearney) who lived there at the time. I had to convince the immigration official that there was a friend meeting me at the airport who I would be staying with and I didn't need to know his address as Neil did know his address and would take me straight there! Anyway, this time filling out the card, I got thrown a bit as I was sure I had the address of the London Temple written down somewhere, but do you think I could find it? So I just sort of made ...

Impressions of China and Hong Kong Where do I start? What was meant to be a family holiday for the Ceff family in the US, turned in to a brief 4 day stopover in Hong Kong and China for me, on my way to London, to meet up with Margot, Miriam and Josie. My intial impression of Hong Kong, arriving late on Wednesday night, was the very organized way they cope with foreign visitors. From the airport, an express train took me to Kowloon Station, just stopping once along the way. Then at the train station there was a free shuttle bus that took visitors directly to their hotels, and of course there were always staff looking for confused foreigners who did not know their way around. I was actually very fortunate on the flight from Melbourne to Hong Kong to sit beside a young English lady, named Sara, who lives in Hong Kong. She treated me like an elderly gentleman and made sure I got through immigration properly and then made sure I knew where to get on a train. So I was dro...

Just recently I have started a new job. I am working as a sales representative, out on the road, for one of Australia's largest physical therapy supply companies. It been quite a few years, maybe ten, since I have been in a front line position like this, day after day (well to be honest it's only 2 1/2 days a week) out knocking on doors to sell the message and products. I am doing one other job for them before I actually get out on the road. That is proof reading their website. There are quite a few typos on it, and I am very particular about these things. One would not publish a book with this many typos and often the first exposure someone may have to the company is their website. As the old saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. So I think it is important that it is right. There are some obvious parallels to the Church here. The Church has invested a lot of resources in to building up what is most likely the best online presence of any Church on t...

The Primary President spoke in Sacrament meeting in our ward today. Early in her talk she mentioned that she had a journal that she had written in 3 times. She had bought the journal nine years ago, I guess full of intention to write in it more regularly. I can relate to that very well. I started writing this blog with the hope of writing regularly and having it take the place of my journal. I did fairly well for the first few weeks I think, but I seem to be fairly rapidly falling back in to my old habits. I am not a natural writer. I think I am better at speaking than writing. But perhaps if I persevere at the writing I will get better. I am reminded of the scripture in Ether 12 that talks about our weaknesses becoming our strengths. I think I had better write quite a lot to get this weakness to become a strength.