Dear
Family and Friends,
It’s a beautiful day in New
York. It’s been cold enough that the
heat has been going through the heat registers so we have to cool the heat off
sometimes by opening windows, but it’s been working fine that way. There have been a couple of days when I’ve
worn my knit hat.
Been an eventful week. Last Monday the three-some Elders did a great
FHE activity and we had a very good turnout, including one non-member. It’s always such a relief to have a good
experience. The one missionary who came
into the mission field brand new with the last transfer (and is supposed to go
to Brazil) planned and executed the evening.
He is still in our mission with this next transfer, but leaving
Brooklyn. He was the mature one of the
three so we are going to miss him a lot!
Had another nice experience in the
temple—I helped a lady in the baptistery who had just one name, and it was her
sister. She didn’t want to do anymore
baptizing for anyone else, just her sister.
Later in the afternoon she was in the session room with me so I helped
her there also. Gave her a hug and told
her it was a pleasure to be with her on this special day, and it was a
pleasure.
Lynn and I then took the train to
the north end of Central Park and saw the mum display at the Conservatory
Garden. It was beautiful, but the part I
liked best was walking across the park to catch a different train and there
reflected in a small lake we found were colors of red and orange from the trees
on the opposite end of the lake—it truly was breathtaking.
I had Institute to prepare on
Wednesday. Had a great turnout—seven
ward members showed up—I was so pleased with that. I had the class take part of Pres. Uchtdorf’s
Priesthood session talk and take responsibility to “teach” the part they were
assigned. We actually showed the video
of him giving the talk, so there wasn’t enough time to finish everyone’s
part—that will happen in two days. Pres.
Uchtdorf is such a master with words and thoughts!
Wednesday, Lynn took it upon himself
to create a box that children could throw beanbags through, so he got one of
the very large boxes in the spare bedroom, painted one side white, drew a
pumpkin shape and then cut out two eyes, a nose and a wide-toothed mouth. Later on he got some spray paint and painted
the pumpkin part orange, rolled up construction paper and stuck it in the
center so it looked like a stem, and it was the best bean bag pumpkin I’ve ever
seen! This creation was used for the
Halloween Party sponsored by the Primary which I’ll tell about later.
Thursday Lynn and I went off for an
excursion through Long Island, taking some lunch items with us. Leaving in the morning without a lot of
traffic made for a quick trip to River Head, which is at the junction of the
fork on the east end of Long Island.
It’s a fairly good sized community but what surprised us the most was
all the construction going on and that included a lot of stores. I don’t know what’s drawing so many people
out there—doesn’t seem like there were a lot of places to work, but something’s
happening. Maybe the city people are
tired of NYC and going to the country.
We were hoping to see a lot of fall colors along the way but the only
red maples we saw were ones that people planted and they were lovely, but the
regular trees were either green or some were yellow. Nevertheless, going through the country was
refreshing and seeing all the nurseries and road side stands (there were an
overwhelming number of both) was very nice.
After getting to River Head we headed to Montauk which is at the very
end of the southern fork. It has the
oldest light house in the United States (it was commissioned by George
Washington) and it still functions as a light house. Sadly, we didn’t get to go inside the
property because it was closed on Thursday.
But, we did get to go around it on the large rocks that were used as
erosion control along the ocean.
Then we headed west, towards the
north fork and had to cross at two different places on small ferries that had
enough room to hold 12 cars. This area
is so picturesque, with the ocean harbor full of white sailing boats and
such. When we got to the north end, it
was much quieter and we discovered it was a big vineyard area for making
wine. We could have gone to a lot of
places for samples. : ) We ended that part of our journey back in
River Head and went to a Wal-Mart that was there. Ahh, never thought I’d love to go to a Wal-Mart
so much!
We got back to our apartment in the
dark; from the time we got to the borough’s to our apartment it literally took
twice as long as when we started our trip—traffic!
Friday was a normal day with
shopping and such but by the afternoon I was anxious to get out and walk, so I
quickly finished some jobs that needed to get done, grabbed my knit hat and
coat and marched off to the park. I was
almost there when Lynn found me—he was on his bike. I knew that he had gone off earlier and he
told me of his adventures. On the first
part of his trip he was at Wendy’s (which is across the street from the Botanic
Gardens) on the corner when Pres. Obama’s motorcade came by right close to
him. He said he could see the
President. Obama was in Brooklyn to talk
to a school with some innovative educational ideas. Lynn told me that he saw the helicopter
entourage parked at the baseball diamonds in Prospect Park so that is where we
headed—I was excited to see those. We
finally got to the place where the copters were and they were impressive—big
Hueys--looked like each of them just got taken out of their packing boxes! Our local police were there in force and
there was evidence of police horses on the road. We did see 7 horse trailers along the way, so
we knew there would be horses. And
finally, they they were, across the street from the helicopters. Found out they were from Manhattan, a nice
looking group they were too, all buffed and polished and frankly, doing nothing
except standing around.
We walked further through the park
until one officer stopped us and told us the President was on the way and so we
had to go back from where we came from and stand behind the blue police
tape. Well, this was a good thing, so we
and a lot of others stood and waited and waited, watching all the police cars
going back and forth as well as cars for the Secret Service (we think). There was an awful lot of police presence for
just one man! The longer we waited, the
more people came and the colder we got—the wind was blowing and it was hard to
stay warm. Finally up the road we saw
the motorcycles that were part of the entourage—when they got close to us they
played their sirens just like they would if they were in a parade. Finally, the motorcade showed up and there
was the “beast,” the President’s limo.
We saw shadows of people in the car but didn’t recognize anyone. We stuck around till the helicopters flew off
right above our heads—pretty nice show.
That is literally the closest I’ve come to a President of the US, so
whatever I may think of Obama, it was still a very special experience. After the helicopters left, so did the
crowd. There was a LOT of families with
very small children that showed up, the parents will have to write in the kid’s
journals about this special afternoon. I
was just plain excited and thrilled to have experienced this.
Saturday we had the Primary
Halloween Party at the church. It was
supposed to start at four, but typical to everyone being late here, it didn’t
really get going till after five. But,
there were plenty of activities, starting off with a chili, cornbread dinner (I
brought cornbread). There was a good
crowd—a lot more came than was expected and those that arrived very late didn’t
get any food. Up in the Primary room
various people set up games for the children, the most popular being the
cupcake walk. Lynn and I were in the RS
room, away from the rest of the action, which was annoying, but we went and
told others several times to come and do the bean bag toss. I had decorated our spot with crepe paper
streamers so it looked pretty festive.
The Fish Pond was also in the same room.
As it turned out, there was a group of older boys who were good at
throwing bean bags and they did this activity over and over.
Later, they had an indoor
trick-or-treat which for many children was their first experience doing
trick-or-treat. It is just too dangerous
for the kids, even in their own apartment buildings, to do that. So, there were a lot of excited kids getting
more candy at one time than they had ever experienced. I told our Primary President she needed to do
this again, next year, it was a smashing success. She just groaned. : )
She did put the bean bag box in a storage room so it would be available
for next year.
Had some wonderful meetings the next
day. They had sacrament meeting in
French and were supposed to use headsets for the English speaking members but
there were too many headsets and all we heard was static, so they dropped that
idea and just used interpreters. They
had a small choir of ward members and missionaries sing a hymn in French for
the rest song. Lynn and I thought the
meeting was fantastic, and I’m guessing we’ll do a similar thing again.
Went home and made my sticky toffee
pudding cake with sauce and then in the late afternoon we went to Pres.
Calderwood’s home located in western Long Island and had dinner with the Senior
Missionaries. Two couples were leaving
and we wanted to honor them, then the new office couple was there to be
introduced. Sounded like a great excuse
to have a super dinner, to me. Lynn and
I picked up Carol and Wight Jensen at their apartment so we could go
together. Pres. talked a lot about the
new missionary opportunities that were opening up for the younger missionaries
with Facebook and other electronic methods.
The vast majority of the Seniors there did not have Facebook
accounts. They were told they might want
to get one going and have the younger missionaries show them how.
I believe that’s all the news. So grateful to have this opportunity to serve
a mission and, as I read letters from Aaron and Braydon, it’s nice to sort of
share our mission experience with them.
The church is true and that is the beauty of it—we’re doing the Lord’s
work here in New York.
Wish
you all well this week. We’ll be flying
to Portland, OR, this Thursday to see Bob and Moira and kids get sealed as a
family. This is an answer to years of
prayers so we’ll see a lot of you the end of the week!
Love,
Kathy/Mom
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