September
9, 2013
Dear
Family and Friends—
It’s
a beautiful, cool day in the neighborhood, much better than the heat and
humidity of our recent past. All
holidays are over and the children in New York are returning to school this
week. (Those in private school
started a week or more earlier). I would just like to wish you a belated
“Happy New Year.” Rosh Hashanah was
this past Wednesday and ended Friday evening and Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish
New Year. This is a very happy,
special festive time for the Jews.
We saw groups of young men going around Prospect Park blowing their
Shofars. They blew their rams
horns for any Jews that made the request, and they also blew for the goyims if
they forgot to ask if they were Jews.
I don’t know why they would not blow their horn for non-Jews. Lynn went to the Synagogue on Thursday
for a service. (I was like death in
a dish at that point with a throat that could BBQ a hamburger). When he got there an intelligent
young man about age 12 showed him where to go, got a shawl so he could put it
around his shoulders and gave him a kippah to put on his head (a yamaka). The service lasted a couple of hours,
but it was going on when Lynn got there.
Some man was giving a sermon in Russian, then announcements, then a long
blessing was recited, stress LONG, and at various points in the blessing, they
blew the Shofar which had to be blown 100 times during the
blessing/service. Sometimes the
Shofar was blown 10 times (about), other times it was longer. As you can imagine, Lynn had a
hard time understanding the message that was given. He was glad for the experience but at some point he did get
bored. Lynn said that despite the
fact that this was a major holiday, there were only about 60 men in attendance
for the meeting. I think the room could hold about 400
people. (The women were on the
other side of the room, which was divided by a curtain, and he didn’t see how
many were there).
Apparently
some Jewish restaurant donated large amounts of food to be eaten at the
synagogue and also to take home, so Lynn did eat some there but brought home
some lamb ribs, Challah bread, and other kinds of stuffed bread. I thoroughly enjoyed the good food
offerings.
That
particular day was Savannah Bien-Amis’s birthday. I drugged myself sufficiently, and in the late afternoon we
paid a short visit to see the newly turned 11 year old, with gift in tow. She was quite excited to see us and we
stayed (blessedly, because of the way I felt!) for just a short time. I wish you could know this girl; she
exudes so much excitement and enthusiasm.
Going
back to the beginning of the week—after FHE last week we had a conference call
between the missionaries in the district, and history was made. The ZL announced that starting very
soon the ZL’s were going to be able to use Facebook, Blogs and Skype as part of
their missionary work. Then, in a
month the DL’s can use it, and a month later it will be mission wide. The missionaries are supposed to use
their own Facebook accounts and so by doing this, they will be forced to
“clean-up” their accounts and have them up to church standards. This will enable them to do missionary
work literally all over the world.
It’s an exciting thing. We
talked to one missionary last night at the CES Fireside and he didn’t
completely understand how it was all going to happen, (we certainly don’t know)
but he’s excited about the possibility.
He’s from Texas and the vast majority of his friends on Facebook are non-LDS,
so this way he can contact them and let them know what he’s up to in NY. Just a quick note—Elder Nelson gave a
great talk last night. You ought
to look it up.
Also,
Monday morning, I talked to Claudette Clark on the phone and she wanted to know
if Lynn could come and give her a blessing. Humm. I turned
the phone over to Lynn and she told him that Friday all of a sudden she went
blind in one eye. She took a taxi
to the hospital and was in there Saturday and Sunday. She had recovered her vision but it was still a very scary
situation; the doctors thought she might have had a small stroke. Lynn did a lot of phone calls for other
men to help him but because it was a holiday, they were gone. He finally took the two Spanish Elders
down the hall. Lynn got to
her just before she was going to have a scan done. He said he felt strongly to bless her with a complete
recovery and that she would be able to go on with her mission in life without
problems. She contacted him
Wednesday and said that the doctors could find absolutely nothing wrong with her
eye or anything in the area after looking at the scans, a tender blessing from
God.
Next
day was temple day and it was especially wonderful as Lynn was officiator and I
was 1st follower for the 11 am session. So interesting that at one point in the movie, just as if a
conductor was having everyone come in at the same time, the ladies all (well,
not all) broke down and the Kleenex box had to be passed to quite a few. I had several give me major hugs
before they left. Then, the next
session contained 11 sisters from our mission—eleven! There were some Elders too, but I don’t know how many there
were. So, I got to have a
mini-reunion with some sisters that had served in our Midwood Ward plus others
that I knew. Such fun!
After
we were through for the day, Lynn and I, still celebrating our wedding
anniversary, went to an Italian Restaurant that LaVell Edwards apparently
thought highly of. (He used to be
a PR missionary working out of NY).
The restaurant was only 6 blocks away so we decided to try the Pomodoro
Restaurant. (Pomodoro is tomato in
Italian). It was fantastic and as
you can imagine not crowded at 4:30 pm.
: ) I got the
best chicken Marsala that I’ve ever eaten, actually, the best chicken I’ve ever
eaten.
Then
because we had plenty of time, we decided to walk to Times Square rather than
take the train. This is where you
get to people watch and there were plenty of interesting ones out there,
including one guy that was essentially using the fountain at Columbus circle
for a shower. Times Square was
loaded with tourists and we just walked around there to kill time. Finally it was time to show up to the
Minskoff Theatre to see—ta-da---The Lion King! Lynn had gotten seats on the aisle with a completely
unobstructed view of the most stupendous musical production I could ever
imagine. If you haven’t seen Lion
King, you’ve got to go. We topped
off the glorious evening by going to Ben and Jerry’s for ice cream.
I
woke up the next day with Lynn’s nasty cold/sore throat. Yuk! I spent it getting a little extra sleep and working on next
week’s Institute class. I finally
decided to settle on Elder Clayton’s talk on marriage and since the vast
majority of the people that show up aren’t married and are over 30, I decided
to hone in on the principle of humility that he mentioned and include Pres.
Benson’s talk on Pride. I won’t
spend much time on Bensen’s talk, but he had a few good points to bring
out. Soooo, I have spent mucho
hours getting that talk ready along with a study sheet and have been going back
and studying the lesson for this week.
I
mentioned that Thursday I was death in a dish. Friday I felt better and Lynn suggested getting away from
lesson prep and getting out in the clean air. I decided to walk the 45 minute walk to the Botanic Gardens
and check up on the Mrs. Perry Slocum lotus plant. She had produced just one bloom, but it was a good one. It’s a huge white flower tinged in pink
on the edges. Yay! I was relieved that I loved the
flower. Lynn was on his bike and
met me at the garden, then, I walked home.
Saturday
was spent getting the returning missionary stories mission history ready. I told one missionary, who is from Ecuador
and is on an English speaking mission that I would have to edit his story; he
was happy to know that. I didn’t
rewrite the story, but there was a lot of work put in on it. This young man will make a tremendous
contribution to the church in his country—he’s fantastic. I will attach his story.
So,
there are the interesting things from this past week. I’ve been carefully studying the first chapters of Mosiah
with the help of some study guides.
Reading it slowly and carefully has been a beautiful experience. In my study prep for Institute on
Clayton’s talk, two friends posted some thoughts on Facebook that reinforced
Mosiah and the Conference talk. I
was amazed that they showed up when they did, well, I guess I shouldn’t be
amazed. I will include the two
thoughts also. I know the church
is true. I love the Lord. I love this mission—such a great
experience!
Hope
you have a great week.
Mom/Kathy
