February 25, 2013
Dear Family and
Friends--
Yesterday
was just too busy to get a letter written. Got to church early and for the first time since we have
been here, the meeting was started on time. I think it was because
the stake president was there visiting. : ) Had a very
good sacrament meeting, but when it came to Gospel Doctrine, the stake
president was there to make amendments to the lesson given by a man who means
well, but still has a lot of his past thrown in for good measure. (Think, evangelical). I think the class situation was
confusing for some new people that were there. Lynn will be teaching the class again next Sunday and that
will be helpful since he does such a great job.
I
did my picture taking after church for the ward directory then Lynn and I got
together with a man who is a vigorous 75 years of age. He looks and acts much younger. He wants to join the church but he had
a lot of questions about eternal marriage, the Celestial Kingdom and what both
of those things entailed. He has a
military background. He says he
has a doctorate and has been in West Point and has been a military jet pilot.
He is very, very goal oriented and is used to being in command. He's very right wing politically and
socially. All of this sounds good
on paper. But Lynn talked to a man
that knew Doug before he came to the Midwood area and we found out that Doug
had been serving time in prison, 41 years worth, because he had murdered his
wife! Doug is adamant that he
wants to be baptized, go to the temple and do whatever is needful there, find a
stanch committed LDS woman to marry and get on with the business of getting to
the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. He thinks he can get baptized "soon." We never talked about the elephant in
the room because Lynn has never let on that we know about his past and Doug has
never talked about it, never brought it up. At some point the issue will hit the fan and he'll be
disappointed to learn it may be awhile before baptism happens. Can you think of any stanch, committed
LDS women that would marry this man?
Oh my. That was an
interesting hour and a half.
I
came home and took a nap, then fixed a small dinner. We then went to the home/apt. of a dear woman, Claudia
Clarke. I've talked about her
before. That was the sweetest
experience. Then back to the
apartment to Skype. So wonderful
to talk to the kids, big and little.
Lynn found out that the second councilor in the stake presidency wanted
us to teach early morning seminary for this week, starting tomorrow. It starts at 6 am. It's a problem--first off, we've never
taught seminary, but I think we'll do fine there. The issue will be one of sleep for me. We have a little time after seminary to
eat breakfast tomorrow, but then it's off to the temple at 8:30, not coming
home till about 6. We've got FHE
tonight. Then Wednesday we have a
zone leadership meeting at another ward building which will last most of the
day, but I have to interrupt that for a doctor's appointment (follow-up for the
ulcer). So, little rest for the
weary.
As
most of you know we moved into a larger apartment. It has proved to be a very good move. I love the extra space in the kitchen
and have my Bosch mixer out ready to churn out loaves of bread to give out, and
that is exactly what has been happening. We gave one loaf to our hardworking Super who was
extremely grateful. Still
scraping off hardened grease off the underside of the microwave. The filter was a solid brownish,
yellowish, orange-ish mass of grease.
Super yuck. Took two days
of various means to get it clean and now it is. But, we really feel moved in now. We just have one more set of elders to move into this
building (they are taking over our old apartment) then we'll be all set there.
Had
a district meeting under the somewhat unorthodox Elder Johnson, our new
district leader. He had a great
lesson prepared and a lot of fun (threw candy at people that had the right
answer) but the meeting took twice as long as usual. It was worth it.
This
past Tuesday we were scheduled to go to the temple and since we were so new I
felt we should be there. But, it
was also transfer day for the missionaries. I asked one of the sisters the night before how they were
going to get all their luggage down to the mission office in the morning. She shyly shrugged her shoulders and
said "The train." That
did it. I told Lynn we needed to
contact the temple and tell them we weren't coming. They knew we wouldn't be coming every six weeks anyway, but
like I said, I thought being at the temple this week was important because we
were just learning. So instead, we
loaded up three missionaries' worth of stuff and got it into the car packed so
tightly Lynn could not see out the back window. We went to the transfer meeting and just had a great, great
time. Transfer meetings are the
funnest. We have one more set of
missionaries for our ward, making one senior couple and 4 sets of
youngsters. After the meeting was
over, we took three sets of missionaries stuff BACK to our building and over
the course of the evening, it got unloaded.
We
were thinking of having Brian (our Super) and his wife over for dinner because
they were in a huge mess because they are moving into an apartment on our
floor. But, Brian said they had
lots of food and declined. I told
Lynn to ask the sisters to dinner.
He went to the apartment where they were staying and came back to report
that they looked so exhausted they were happy to accept the invitation. So, we had the Spanish and English
sisters come for hamburgers. Two
of them are new, one is nineteen!
She's from Ft. Collins, CO.
We squished all six of us around our round table and had a fun time
getting acquainted.
Thursday
Lynn went to the mission office briefly and then headed to Manhattan and to some
Scout stores and their headquarters in the Empire State Building. He said the offices were old and not
well kept up. Humm. But, he got done what was needed. I spent the day fighting traffic
and crazy people going to three different stores to shop and spend a lot of
money. It's SO expensive to live
here. I need to be careful what I
get where. Sometimes Target's food
is more expensive than the normal grocery store called Shop-Rite. Sometimes it's the opposite. I need to get into the habit of going
to the internet for their weekly specials. Just for an example:
I can get Ocean Spray juice at Walmart in Orem for under $2. The same bottle at Target, here, is
$3.15. At Shop-Rite, it's
$4.15.
But,
the adventure wasn't INSIDE the store, the adventure was OUTSIDE the
store. About three times when the
light turned green for me to go someplace, people on the sidewalks just would
walk out into the street, against the light and think nothing of it. People walk between cars and cross the
street on a regular basis--just normal, just scary! However, the biggest circus was in the small parking lot at
Shop-Rite. It's a long, narrow lot
with parking on both sides of the lot (no space for parking down the
middle). I wanted to get to one
spot that had a van leaving. He
was waiting for someone to back out of a nearby spot and leave, except the old
man was struggling to get his car going in the right direction. Meanwhile, instead of other cars
patiently waiting for this guy to get going in the right direction, they went
around me in the minimum space causing the guy severe problems. I seriously couldn't believe my
eyes. The man driving the big van
also tried to get out of his spot that I was waiting to get into. Between the old man, the impatient van
driver, and the other impatient "I'm coming through no matter what"
people, there was a huge bottle neck.
Finally a 20 something Jewish kid in the van got out and started
directing traffic, and over a period of time, the knot came undone. BTW, there was a lot of horn honking to
go with the mess. What a zoo these
Jews are! They can be loud and
obnoxious, but I'll tell you, we feel extremely safe where we are living with
Jews for neighbors.
This
past Saturday was a busy day. Lynn
and I went to the chapel in Plainview, on Long Island. This was a normal LDS chapel in a
normal suburb type area. It was
great to get out of the city and see lots of trees and yards. We went to the Plainview building for a
mission couple get-together. We
had catered Italian food and a lady who has lived on Long Island all her life
gave a history lesson on the church in the New York area. It was fascinating and we wish we could
have listened longer, but she only talked an hour. We took the Jensen's with us and got caught up with
them.
Then
home to have a short nap, and get ready for an evening of fun at church. Our ward had their Valentine party, it
was just a week late. The Spanish
ward had their party the previous Saturday. We got there about 6 pm when it was supposed to start. Very few people were there, just the
ones setting up. But, by seven,
most people that were going to come, came. And despite being late, they brought food with them. There was a continuous turn-over in
food--such a fascinating thing. We
had people bring large amounts of food clear up to 8 pm. A lot of that was given to the starving
missionaries. One of the members
of the ward had a karaoke set up and we had fun with that, eating and just
talking with each other. At 8,
tables were cleared away, chairs set up on the side and the line dancing
began. I'd never seen the dances
everyone was doing but there were plenty of adults that knew the dances. They said they learned them by going to
the youth activities. The
missionaries could get involved with this kind of dancing and they did. Lynn and I did our own version of
dancing. We stayed to the very end
and beyond to help clean up. The
Spanish may have their parties but our ward knows how to throw a great party
too.
Well,
think that is the news. The church
is true, I testify that it is. I'm
grateful for that knowledge.
Grateful for the Spirit which guides my life. We just got back from visiting a couple in our ward (Lynn is
their home teacher) and it was fascinating to hear the stories about the Jews
in our area. I just came away
grateful I wasn't an Orthodox Jew.
Much easier to live Christ's rules. What I heard today made me understand that Christ's burden
really is light and one I cheerfully accept.
Love to you
all---Mom/Kathy
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