Dear
Family and Friends—
It’s been an interesting week, but
now I am under the gun to get the mission history done, so I’ll make this as
short as I can (probably won’t be). It’s
a cloudy day today, relatively warm and snow is melting—melting all the
loveliness from Tuesday.
We had a nice group for FHE last
Monday—a little sparse, but a great activity.
Knowing we had a full day the next day, it was nice to get home early.
Tuesday dawned bright and, uh,
snowing. In the morning it was just
light snow so we prepared to go to the mission office for transfers. This was a first—no missionaries leaving from
Midwood I or II districts. We had the
back of the car filled with clothes from missionary apartments that needed to
be gotten rid of and those needed to go to the office. I had a group picture to take of the “going
home” missionaries and notes to take for the transfer meeting. So, off we went at ten. About 20 minutes later I just flat said to
Lynn, “Turn around and go back to the apartment.” He was so very agreeable. : )
The streets were getting impossible plus the thought of going home in
the late afternoon was more than I could stomach.
We got back safely, crawling along
like everyone else. It was very cold
outside so the snow was powder. The wind
was steady about 30 mph down Ocean Parkway and it was interesting to see the
snow accumulate on the well-used road.
We congratulated ourselves all day long that we stayed home. (Found out the next day that mission mom,
Sis. Calderwood, took 3 ½ hours to get from the mission office after transfers,
a drive that’s normally less than a half hour).
I decided this was a good opportunity to do a lot of laundry, so I did
that and did all my financial work. We
had a place by our kitchen window that is not subject to wind and by the
evening, we could tell that we got 10” of snow.
Looking out on the street you would not know that because the wind blew
it around.
The next day I was very much into
doing Institute. I had to make up some
study questions for the next week (to copy and pass out) and go over the lesson
for the evening with a fine tooth comb.
Literally took the entire day to do all that. We only had four show up for Institute but
had a great discussion, great insight.
Why would you work that hard for only 4 people? Well, because you are the beneficiary
Doug Lee called Tuesday and let us
know that the parole board in Albany denied Doug Lee being let off parole and
being a completely free man. He had been
an ideal candidate for this and got the highest recommendation from his parole
officer. “Nope,” said Albany. “You shot your wife and killed her—two more
years on parole and possible one more year after that”. That takes care of his possibility of being
baptized soon. Actually, that was a big
relief for us and Pres. Calderwood.
After Institute, I got some hot
chocolate heated up that I had made earlier in the day and invited all the missionaries
to come after nine and have hot chocolate and toast . Only the missionaries from our building
showed up but that was OK. Those that
came had a grand time together and really enjoyed the HC.
Thursday I made bread, did finances,
did mission history, religious study and just filled up the day.
The next morning bright and quite
early I was at Target shopping, then came home to get Lynn and then went to Midwood
chapel to have an interview with Pres. Calderwood. (All the missionaries in our area had
interviews). We talked about our
responsibilities in the mission and Doug Lee.
It is always so wonderful to meet with Pres. Calderwood—what a great
man! After, we both went shopping to
get some things for a lunch we were having with Ernie and Dorothy Ahlborn who
have been teaching Institute for well over a year in parts of Brooklyn. I took fixings for grilled cheese sandwiches
and a relish tray then Lynn and I traveled about 10 minutes to get to their
place. We had a lovely two hours
together; we’ve worked more closely with them than any other couple missionaries. They are returning to Orem in early February.
After we returned home Lynn helped
me download and categorize pictures from my camera. I think I’m getting the hang of what he’s
trying to teach me. The pressure of
getting this mission history done soon so that it can be turned in is getting
to me—I’ll be so glad when it’s finished.
At 6:30 Lynn and I were on a train
headed to Lincoln Center so we could see “Madama Butterfly” by Giacomo
Puccini—certainly one of his greatest operas.
We had some good seats right on the main level—Lynn made sure I had a
left aisle seat so my right foot would have room. There is literally only one recognizable aria
in that entire opera, so the rest of it is less than interesting, as far as the
music goes. But, and here’s the big but,
this production was arranged in a simple, yet profoundly interesting way, with
some choreography, Japanese puppetry called “Bunraku”, one scene where about 15
dancers had paper cranes on long poles, causing their wings to flap—well there
were a lot of special effects (especially lighting) that carried the
production. The principles were pretty
good—we’ve heard better, but nevertheless, it was well done. You have to come away feeling rather sick at
heart because of the plot of the opera—so extremely sad. Didn’t get to bed till 2 in the morning, so
it was a long day.
Saturday after a very late start was
shopping, cooking and then hitting the mission history. Lynn felt like I had been stuck indoors too
much (so true) so he took me to Green Wood Cemetery to see how pretty it would
be in the snow. Well, there was snow
there, all right, but it wasn’t all that great looking. That didn’t stop us from driving around and
seeing all the dead people, and looking at the art work, and magnificent tombs;
it was nice to get away. We finished up
the day by going to the Baked in Brooklyn bakery and bought a bunch of yummy
bread.
Yesterday we had church per usual
and then went to the Bien Amis to visit them.
Only the two girls were there, with a female relative that literally
didn’t say a word but kept her hands over her face the whole time. There was also a four year old boy there who
was also very quiet. We just made a
short visit and came home. Talked to
Sean and Bob’s family on Skype last night—so good to see them and talk to
them. It was especially wonderful to see
little Tanner. He was asleep the entire
time and it was especially tender to see Joseph carefully holding him. Emily demonstrated how she arranged her dolls
by laying them down next to each other, covering them with a blanket and
declared that they were on a picnic.
Sounds good to me. The twins told
about some nice plays they did playing basketball, which they are both into and
enjoy. Kyle is being bussed to a special
situation to learn more about computer hardware and software, and if he learns
well enough, hopefully pass a test that qualifies him to help others with
computer problems. I ought to get Kyle
to give a more thorough description for what he’s doing. He’s also teaching piano lessons to the
twins-good on ya, Kyle.
Lynn just left to go to the
dentist. He had part of a filling fall
out and is going to get that fixed.
Right now, it’s not a big problem.
Well, love to you all. Grateful for the gospel and the chance to
teach it in Institute—that is truly the best.
Love, Kathy/Mom
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