March 3, 2013
Dear Family,
(Just a note--this is a long letter, but read till the end, it's worth while. : )
It's been such a busy week especially since we had one major responsibility put into our laps. It has been nice in one respect, the weather has warmed up a bit. Inside of biting cold wind, it's just been cold. : )
Last Sunday, one of the councilor's in the stake presidency asked us to do early morning seminary at our church. Gulp. We didn't have to worry about Monday because that got cancelled, but we got the rest of the week. Tuesday was a concern since we were supposed to leave about 8:30 to go to the temple. Having FHE the night before meant not getting to bed early. The end result was when we went home, we slept through two train stops past the one we were supposed to get off! We were lucky I woke up just enough that we didn't go to the end of the line. : )
Lynn gave the seminary lesson on Tuesday and Wednesday and did a great job. We had 4 kids show up, they sure were quiet, but they're good kids and anyone who gets up on a regular basis to be to church by 6 deserves a medal. Just four come--amazing they're so faithful. I did Thursday and I think it turned out quite well--got the kids talking and that's good. Friday they were supposed to do scripture mastery but the father of one of the kids wasn't feeling too well and he had major commitments that night, and he said he wasn't bringing his daughter or the boy he normally brings. We went anyway, and waited about 20 minutes to see if anyone would show up and no one did, so we packed up and went home. Much to our sad surprise, Lynn found out that night that two boys decided to take a bus and showed up anyway. We must have just barely missed them. Anyone that teaches early morning seminary deserves major medals (Meriden!) because every night you have to prepare a lesson. It's like teaching a Sunday School lesson every day!
The temple experience went well. Lynn is still experimenting on which train route to take to get there, we've done a different one every time. It just depends on how much walking you want to do and how much transferring. Right now, the experimenting is still on going. That's what you get for having a massive subway system with lots of options.
I still had problems figuring out what room to start off with for the prayer meeting, wandering around for about 7 minutes until I took a chance and opened one door. There everyone was. So frustrating. However, the upshot of that was that sweet, gentle, kind to the very core of his being Pres. Garff told me he wanted to get my picture taken up in his office but after the picture he took out a book that had the outlay of all the rooms and went over everything so that I could know what was what. He was sorry that this hadn't happened sooner. I still was having the same problem--no one was really with me to help out, but by the end of this past Tuesday, I feel I've got it down. Lynn still has had a member of the temple presidency go with him pretty much all the time to help him learn the ropes. While I was waiting to do sealings, one of the sisters and I did a little explore down the main corridor to the sealing rooms. There's some beautiful art work, some newly hung during the cleaning, and she was anxious to show me some of the rooms most people don't see. One great thing was that I had a lot of time to study the temple ceremonies. Of course, initiatory is the most involved and I think I've got that down 90% now. I did get "passed off" to work at the veil.
Lynn had a discussion with some of the workers while he was eating lunch and got the low-down on how to get cheap tickets to the opera. You have to be in a certain line at the opera house by at least 4 pm. The tickets only cost $20 and you never know what kind of seats you'll get, but they only hand out 50-60 tickets at that price. We're going to try that this Tuesday. Lynn said he'd wait in line; I could take in the 4 pm session and then meet up with him after. The opera house is right across the street from the temple.
Monday night was very exciting--we had 21 people show up for FHE! Of course, 8 of those were missionaries, but that still meant a good size group that were members of the ward, or investigators. This is the most we've ever seen come. Elder Johnson, our DL, who has a J.D. type of sense of humor, what I would refer to as subtly funny, and is quite bright, did FHE. He had a game that he invented that had us all laughing our heads off. We divided into two teams, one person from a team getting up at a time who had to answer a question or do a task. If you failed to properly answer the question or do the task there was a penalty. One penalty was that a person from each team had to go off in a corner and play chess. The player who won, won points for his team, and we did have two guys that did know the game and played.
On Wednesday afternoon we went to the ward building in Park Slope for a zone conference. The Ahlborns who teach Institute at our ward on Wednesday, knowing the kind of constraints and extra responsibilities that Lynn and I had said they would do all the food for the meeting. They bought bread and sandwich fixings from COSTCO and made up a large batch of vegetarian chili. Br. Ahlborn said he did the chili--good for him. Lynn and I made it to the meeting by 11 and then the four of us cut up vegetables for a relish tray, fixed vegs to put on the sub sandwiches, helped set the tables and by the time we were finished, it was time for the missionaries to have lunch. Worked out nicely. Lynn and I stayed as long as possible to clean up then we had to be on our way for a doctor's appointment.
So, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons were taken over by doctor appointments. Wednesday was to the doctor, who is a pulmanologist, who was responsible to make sure I got admitted to the hospital for the endoscopy and who I only saw one time during my stay at the hospital. He wanted to see me for a follow-up. So, Lynn and I got in the car, drove around till we finally found the place and then waited for two hours, in a very, very small reception area loaded with patients being very patient. We were with the doctor for about 5 minutes. He did no exam, just asked me questions about my health, how I was feeling and said the doctor I would see the next day would be very thorough. He apologized for the long wait, and then we were through. Geez. He still wants to see me in four months to find out "how I am doing"! I told Lynn he must be making a fortune with all the patients he had, yet his office was small and very, very plain.
The next day we decided to take the train to Methodist Hospital where the office of the doctor that actually did the endoscopy was located. Unfortunately the train was having problems. We had to go backward one stop, cross over to the other side of the track to get the train in the middle track. It was confusing for everyone, believe me. So, we got to my appointment a little late. It shouldn't have been a problem because we waited an hour and a half! Finally, a handsome resident brought us to an exam room. He asked a lot of questions about my medical history and got them all typed up on the computer in the room. He was extremely fast, reminded me of how fast Ken can type. It was nice to sit down and explain a lot of past history to him, ask a lot of questions and have him take lots of time to answer. He also did a hands-on exam on my abdomen asking about any pain at given points of pushing down. He explained that my ulcer most likely did not come from Percocet or Lortab but rather from Ibuprophen. So, I'm off Ibuprophen and other NSAIDS and can just have Tylenol or Percocet or Lortab for pain. Interesting.
I got to see the in-a-hurry but very nice doctor who did the endoscopy (he is one of the teaching doctors) and we talked about medication with him and set up an appointment for another endoscopy on March 20. He told me that the ulcer should heal with no scaring and the area should look as good as new. I was quite surprised at that. Lynn and I were with him for about 5 minutes--thank goodness for residents who have more time.
Before we went back to the apartment, I told Lynn I wanted to get a hamburger from Five Guys because it was close and I've never had one of their burgers. So we stopped and got one, then got on a train for a short ride and got off at a Walgreen's pharmacy that Lynn got prescriptions from before. Then, we walked 15 minutes back to apartment and I had half of my huge hamburger. It was magnificent. Told Lynn there was only one hamburger that I like better, but this was in 2nd or 3rd place. First place? No question--Crown burger in Salt Lake.
Lynn and I went to visit two of his families that he has for home teaching--the Millers who basically ARE the Midwood ward and another inactive family. It's great visiting with the Millers because they have so many interesting things to say. They told about their Orthodox Jewish neighbors who are so hung up on not working on the Sabbath that they call the Millers to turn off lights, close doors, turn off other things that need to be turned off etc. in their homes. The Millers can do this for them because the Millers are Goyim, I think that's how it's spelled. But, it means they are gentiles.
Concerning the inactive family--they are Haitian and thank goodness Lynn can understand them sort of. The inactive mother has had cancer and was recouping. Lynn said she looked much better the other night than when he saw her a month ago.
Friday I went shopping then Lynn and I had a district meeting for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Lynn went in the evening with one of the men from our ward that he's been working with to get a Boy Scout program going for the boys in our ward, went with them to another ward where the program was working and met with the people there. Two boys from our ward also went. Lynn felt positive about the experience. The kids in this area have YM/YW on Friday night. Doing it any other time wouldn't work because of time and distance problems.
Then, Lynn got a message that all the missionaries were going to the Rockaways to be in a St. Patrick's Day parade, of all things, and the people in charge wanted the missionaries to be part of the parade. (The Rockaways is an island and was terribly damaged by Sandy. The missionaries did a LOT of clean up there). They were to be dressed up in missionary suits and then wear the "Helping Hands" vests over the top. Lynn decided he wanted to go and take pictures. I was upset because I had set this day apart to have Lynn help me get going on my mission history stuff and the new ward directory, with pictures, that I'm responsible for. But, he wanted to go, tried to help me figure out how to download pictures and identify them, but I just couldn't catch on. I stayed here and did many other organizing things that have been put off because of a lack of time.
Lynn got back about 6 in the evening and told me about his interesting experience. First, the missionaries in this area met at our chapel. They didn't leave for a while so it gave Lynn and the missionaries from our district to practice "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" which was being sung in church. Then they piled into cars and went to the parade area. Apparently there are so many St. Patrick Day parades in the New York area, that the community decided not to compete with the others and decided to have an early one instead.
Lynn said the parade didn't start till 1 pm and so everyone was standing around for a long time waiting for their turn to be part of the parade. Too many of the missionaries did not realize how cold it would be and weren't dressed for the weather. Lynn said by the time the parade was over, there was a lot of serious pain going on from the cold and all the walking. But, at the beginning, before they marched, one man opened up his house to the missionaries, had built a fire in the gutted basement and made his two bathrooms available. There were some missionaries there that had actually worked on this house in the recovery effort. The man was extremely grateful to them. Once the parade started everything was really wonderful and Lynn said the people clapped and cheered and said "thank you", "God bless the Mormons" etc. He said it was a very heartwarming and tender experience. But, the parade was not well organized and there were fitful starts and stops and it took twice as long to get through the route than it should have. Like I mentioned, he said by the end it was "torturous". He was very grateful about half way through the route that I had decided not to come. Just listening to his description made me glad. My left ear would not have handled the cold. When the parade was over, everyone had to walk back a couple of miles to get to the cars.
Lynn got a ride home with some sisters who had car privileges, but the sister who was driving got lost, even with a GPS system, so he got home an hour later than he should have. I fixed a nice hot dinner since he hadn't eaten since breakfast.
Lynn did keep coming back to the fact that despite the awful cold, the reception of the people was heart warming. Lynn said that someone told him there was only one other type of church on the island besides the Catholic church, so there must be a lot of Irish Catholics on the Rockaways!
Lynn told in me this morning some things about his experience with the people along the parade route that he forgot to tell me yesterday. Because of the fitful stops and starts, there were stops! That gave him a chance to go into the crowds and talk to the people along the route. They told him some interesting stories. First off, this is a Catholic community and people said that the Catholic church did not have organized relief for them, but the Mormons did. Some Jews said, their church did not send any relief, but the Mormons did. Some said that after a period of time, others either joined the Church's effort to clean up, or were inspired to create their own clean-up/relief efforts. In other words, the good example created the action.
One man told Lynn that after the storm came through his entire crawl space underneath his home was filled with filthy debris and while he was complemplating what on earth he was going to do to get rid of the mess, which was overwhelming for him, some young people stopped by and within a couple of hours had his crawl space completely cleaned out, leaving him speechless and deeply grateful.
A woman said that she had a garage full of stuff completely ruined by the storm surge. She simply didn't know what to do, how to begin to deal with the mess and get rid of it plus emotionally she was exhausted. Then some young people came by and a couple of hours later, everything was emptied out of the garage and put on the curb. She was deeply grateful and it lifted her spirits, gave her a lot of hope.
Now these are just a very small sampling of stories from these people. Just think what Lynn could have told me if he had had more time to talk and ask questions. Something to think about.
Well, it's a long letter but hope you appreciate the stories.
The gospel is true and I am grateful for that knowledge. It's been an honor and a privilege to be here on this mission. So many blessings.
Love to you all--Kathy/Mom
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