March 24, 2013
Dear Family and
Friends,
It’s
been a bit warmer lately although too many times we’ve been outside and the
wind just freezes you. That
happened Friday night--Lynn came home from a bike ride and told me that the
crocus were out in bloom at the botanical garden. We got things together and went back in the late
afternoon. It was too late though
because the crocus were there alright but closed up tight and it was cold! However, there were masses of color in
places where they had been naturalizing.
There was one place in the park where a new “statue” was going up. It was actually done from wood, and included
a platform that you could see from.
It was meant to be a hurricane Sandy commemoration. Right by it was a
large tree and Lynn showed me a knot in the tree that was open. Peeking inside there was breathing
fur! It was a raccoon waiting for
the night so it could be out and about.
Pretty cool!
FYI—Lynn
has made flight reservations for the end of April. We will be in Utah late on April 28th and will
leave to go to San Diego May 2nd. We’ll leave about the same time J.D. has his flight to
Europe.
Lynn
and I were responsible for FHE this past Monday night. I made two cakes, took out part of the
batter and colored it green, then put the batter back in dabs and ran a knife
through it and the white batter. I
colored the icing green, put on green sprinkles and using a crude pastry tip,
outlined the sides of the cake. I
went to the store hoping to find metal tips and didn’t but Betty Crocker had
plastic ones. I made pastry bags
out of parchment paper—not as good as plastic but better than nothing. My St. Patrick Day cakes looked good,
tasted even better and were well received that night.
Lynn
spent the day producing questions for a game of Hollywood Squares, Mormon
style. He sure put in the time and
had lots of questions. It was sad
that only 4 ward members showed up that night, the fewest we’ve had for quite a
while. The game proved to be a
challenge but I believe it turned out quite well. Thank goodness for the missionaries hamming it up and
providing comic relief!
Tuesday
was temple day. We both did some
new things but the best part was the end of the day when Lynn was the 1st
follower in a session where I was the patron. This meant he was at the prayer circle and did that for the
first time. I was so impressed, he
did so well. He does look
positively angelic in his white suit with all that white hair! When it came time for me to go to the
veil, he was on the other side. I
got to kiss the ordinance worker.
: ) Yesterday Lynn and I
went to the temple for some video instruction. We should have gone a while ago, but better late than
never. Turns out we were the
“oldest” temple workers in the group in more ways than one and took a couple of
newer ones on a practice session because we knew what we were doing. That’s a nice feeling for a
change! That experience took up
our afternoon and evening, but what a great way to do it.
On
Tuesday, after our day at the temple, we decided to walk through Central Park
to get to the train station rather than use the one across the street from the
temple. It was a very nice
afternoon and we took some paths we didn’t know, did a little exploring. We saw groups getting tours and finally
came across a young man named Michael.
He was a hired tour guide for the park but didn’t have many customers
that day and was handing out maps.
Maps!! Lynn’s favorite thing.
So we stopped and got one and asked Michael if he could tell us about
the park which he was very excited to do (good practice for the summer crowds).
Michael was Mr. Enthusiasm. We asked him a lot of questions and he told us a
lot of information; spent about a half hour with him. Then, we went across the street to the swanky hotels and stopped
in the Fairmount Hotel and discovered that the cheapest rooms are over $600 a
night. Yikes! But we also discovered they have “tea”
from 4 to 6 in the afternoon so we may have to try that sometime. It was such a delightful afternoon in
beautiful downtown Manhattan.
The
next day was a blessed, quiet day for me.
Lynn and I drove to Methodist Hospital to have my second, follow-up
endoscopy to see how the ulcer was doing.
I had a nurse who did my check-in and put in my IV line tell me all
about her 5th grade daughter’s play. It was a Passion Play at her Catholic school. Her daughter was part of the crowd when
a crowd was needed. She explained
in rather funny detail about the reactions of the girls to the crucifixion of
Christ (he was played by a tall 5th grade boy) and we laughed
together. I explained that I was a
Mormon and was well acquainted with 5th grade girls and how they
could be drama queens. Well,
anyway. She made the time rather
pleasant since I had to do a lot of waiting before I had the endoscopy. Lynn went to COSTCO to buy food and
supplies for Thursday which was a good way for him to spend his time. I finally got to the operating room and
chatted with the people there, they put the sleeping medicine in and said it
would burn a little—heck, it burned a lot, but time-wise I wasn’t experiencing
much pain when all of a sudden I was waking up in recovery. I was there for quite a while; Lynn
finally showed up, then went to get the car and we went home together. The news was the absolute best—there I
was staring at a picture of a completely healed ulcer. I didn’t even need a follow-up
visit! I told Lynn that this ulcer
must have been coming on for quite a while because my stomach hasn’t felt so
good in many years. Now if I
could just get my left ear to feel good too—it’s been a real problem since I
bit down on some hard food a month ago.
(Still have a sore jaw from that situation). The nurse in recovery told me to say down and “take a chill”
the rest of the day, which I was more than happy to do.
Lynn
went to Institute that night and I worked on my talk for this Sunday, just
spending my time looking at a lot of scriptures and discovering interesting
things. Did you know that there is
exactly one reference to a “war in heaven” in all the scriptures and it is in
the Book of Revelation 12:7?
Thursday
came and Lynn and I left early to go to the mission office but before we got
there we went to the nearby COSTCO and bought 5 gallons of vanilla ice
cream. We were responsible for
dessert and used the COSTCO brownie bites, the ice cream, chocolate syrup and
whip cream for brownie sundaes. We
did have left overs, but not much.
We fed 120 people. Two men
from the missionary department out of Salt Lake came to give instruction to the
missionaries and after talking to Sis. Ahlborn, (who is Midwood’s CES teacher
and went to the instruction meeting), we found out it was an incredible,
intense experience. We were there
until midafternoon doing nothing except get food ready, serve it, and clean-up—didn’t
get to do anything else. Thank
goodness for the senior missionaries doing all that service!
Friday
I went shopping and when I got back ready to start dinner for the company we
were going to have, Lynn said that Carol Jensen was sick and they wouldn’t be
coming that night, but would come next week. Well, I used my gift of time by writing part of my
talk.
And,
I told Lynn I really needed some new tennis shoes so we left in the afternoon,
first to the botanical garden that I mentioned at the beginning of the letter,
and then headed to King’s Plaza which is a fairly good sized shopping mall. We had never been inside the mall before
but had been to some other stores around it. What a surprise—98% of the shoppers were black. They had all the normal stores there
and the place was in great condition except several stores escalators were not
working. It was hard to find the
kind of shoes I wanted because I guess white leather walking shoes are not the
norm here. But, I did get one
pair, yet may not keep them.
We
came home and waited for a young lady named Carolina Rosario to show up at our
place for a home teaching visit—yes, at our place. She felt her place was way too noisy and crowded. She’s the only active member of the
church in her family. She was a
delight to talk to, didn’t know what home teaching was, never had a home
teacher. She’s been a member about
a year and seems like a faithful little soul. She works with the Young Women as a councilor and has
enjoyed that a lot. I gave her a
loaf of fresh homemade bread and we drove her home. She happened to come across the missionaries on her way over
to our place and so walked to our place with them. We will home teach at our place from now on—a real different
situation.
Yesterday
Lynn and I went to Dr. Doug Lee’s apartment to pick him up and bring him back
to the church to meet with the missionaries. He lives in a rough part of town and when we got close to
his place we noticed a LOT of police.
Doug told us that the police were there because of the shooting of a 16
year old boy, which we knew about.
There had been a lot of demonstrations by the people in the neighborhood
(black immigrants) who feel that the police were being oppressive. The funeral for the kid was being held
that day, thus the overwhelming police presence.
Got
Doug to church and the missionaries went over the kind of questions that he
needed to know to pass a baptism interview. We talked a lot about repentance. He feels he has felt remorse for shooting his wife and has
repented of that but in my opinion he still comes across as very arrogant. Turns out if interviews with the
mission president go ok, he would only need 3-4 months time before his case
would be reviewed by a member of the 1st presidency. He still feels like he can force the
issue and he talks like a well-seasoned lawyer (which he is). I felt better toward him than before
however and it will be interesting to see how everything evolves.
Just
regular church today with large attendance, which included
some visitors and new comers. Lynn
put up blinds in our living room windows this afternoon and it is so nice to
see them instead of a sheet in front of the windows!
The
church is true, a most comforting truth.
When Lynn and I were coming back on the train yesterday, from the
temple, there was a young family across from us with a darling baby girl in a
stroller. I told Lynn I thought
the couple were from Guatemala and when we asked where they were from, they
were from Guatemala! She gave me
the baby to hold for the duration of the trip. I tried to help her understand we had been to the temple and
we had been to the Guatemala City temple this past summer. Unfortunately she just smiled and
really didn’t understand what I was talking about. I’m going to grab some Spanish pass-along cards to
keep in my coat pocket. Wish I had
J.D. with me so we could communicate about the church. I would have liked to discuss it with
her. I showed her my name tag on
my coat and that was my introduction to her about the church. We did get their email address so they
could send us a picture of me holding their daughter, maybe we can get contact
that way.
Well,
that’s the news for this week. Love to you all—mom/Kathy
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