Dear Family and
Friends—
How are you on this cloudy day? Like so many parts of the country, you can
say about Brooklyn: “if you don’t like
the weather, just wait a bit and it will change.” This past Thursday night and into the morning
we got 6” of powder and in the morning the sun came up, it turned very cold and
it was a beautiful day full of sparkly white.
It was freezing cold Friday and Saturday. This morning, it’s relatively warm; we got a
good drenching of rain, most of the snow is gone, and, well, yeah. That takes care of that part of winter.
It’s been a quieter week. FHE went quite well Monday—the missionaries
brought a man to the activity that found the missionaries and wanted to learn
about the church, actually, late Monday afternoon. He had a discussion upstairs, and then came
to the basement to be with us. We did
see him at church yesterday which is a good sign.
Tuesday was temple day, of
course. It was a very, very busy day for
both of us. To start our very early
morning, we went to Times Square before the crowds arrived. Lynn took a lot of pictures. We saw the stage, the railing that keeps
people in check at night, all the media trucks and police up the yazoo. It was
a lot of fun, without the hassle. At
the temple I was 1st follower for the early session. There were 30 women and 16 men; there are
only 40 chairs in the session rooms so out came the folding chairs. We had a good sized group of senior
missionaries from the Morristown, NJ mission.
We didn’t leave the temple till 4:15 because Lynn had an especially full
afternoon.
We got home and I went to work
making a spinach salad for the ward New Year’s Eve party. Since I knew that mine would be the only
vegetable salad there, it was extra huge.
Put in sugared almonds, sliced strawberries, mushrooms, cut up clementines,
red onions and then Brianna’s strawberry vinaigrette. The party was supposed to start at 8; we got
there at 8:30, the man in charge showed up at 9:30. That is SOP for this ward.
So, when we got there, everyone came
to ME and said asked ME what should be done.
Really? I asked who was in
charge. No one. OK, so I started through the kitchen and
pulled things out of cabinets and drawers to make the party happen. This is where being in charge of FHE helps,
because I am one of the rare people that knows what’s in the cabinets. Fortunately there were plenty of plastic utensils,
found some mis-matched plates and cups and a pile of napkins, plus some plastic
round table cloths that we put over the rectangular tables. We were good to go.
Soletas had their karaoke machine
and the older kids were into dancing to the music, eventually the adults
joined. They were having a great, great
time. It was fairly well attended by the Caribbean members, no new Park Slope
people. (Christmas vacation was taking a
toll and the bishop showed up at 10 by himself). We spent our time talking to the members and
eating—got in one dance. By 10:30 I was
so tired from an already long day, so we decided to go home and let the rest of
the party people clean up afterwards.
Have to admit, I didn’t want to be in charge of that either.
Lynn and I came home, watched the
ball drop at Times Square, drank Sprite and had some dessert. Happy New Year. Because our place is situated wrong, we were
not able to see any fireworks—just watched them on TV.
The next morning I was bound and
determined to watch the Rose Parade, so I watched it on NBC—yuck, such bad
coverage. We can’t get ABC here because
of the media situation Lynn has us in, so missed their coverage. It was a lazy day the rest of the day. Lynn did spend a lot of time on the phone
talking to the senior missionary living in Monticello, NY. Monticello has a prison which housed Doug
Lee. He left that place a year ago, a
free man (well, only physically free) and put a lot of boxes of legal papers in
the local LDS church, with a promise from the guy who picked him up that he
would get Doug the papers to him,
eventually. Well, the man renegaded
on his promise, and the people in Monticello haven’t been willing to really
look into getting the papers to NY. Lynn
and the currant senior missionary worked on a compromise of meeting half-way at
the NYNYN mission office. But, with all
our bad weather, that has not happened yet.
It’s a costly trip since we have to pay tolls. Doug needs the papers so he can get a job
with a law firm, or so he hopes.
Thursday and Friday were financial,
laundry, Institute prep days. Lynn got
notification via email that the Botanic garden orchids were especially nice
right now, so we went there on free Friday through the snow and cold, struggled
to find a parking spot, and found out that “because of weather” the entire
garden was shut down. What!?
So we went home, I got a lot more
coverage on my legs (the wind was cold) and we went to Manhattan to The Morgan,
which is J.P. Morgan’s home (take note you Chase bankers) turned into a great
museum. For six weeks every Christmas
they have the one and only manuscript of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” on display which we
wanted to see. The museum is a mixture
of tasteful modern, enclosing the 19th century. Their free Friday didn’t open till seven so
we ordered some sparkling water, three tapas and listened to a great jazz trio
in their large foyer. I’ve got to try
and learn to cook risotto after having some pumpkin risotto that night that was
so good.
We finally got to go into the
library which houses a large collection of books, rare manuscripts, 2000 BC
antiquities plus many that were “younger”, valuable art pieces, music scores
from famous composers (like Mozart) and three Gutenberg bibles, all in this
dark, quiet (everyone whispered) plush, Harry Potterish library. Then, we went to another part of the museum
to see Da Vinci’s drawings for some of his future paintings and his manuscript
drawings of animals and his ideas on how to take flight—papers from the book he
kept. Yes, it was “wow.”
Next day we did make it to the
Botanic garden and saw the orchids, but really didn’t see many more than
usual. What was fun is they brought in
some new bonsai trees just for the winter.
One pine tree was almost 300 years old!
Someone in NY had acquired it and continued to baby it. Many of the deciduous trees had lost their
leaves and so they were boring, but it was nice to see the branching that was
now uncovered.
When we went to the entry a young
couple asked us questions about the garden and its collections and how were
they supposed to know where to go. We
were all too happy to show them. The man
immediately left me, grabbed Lynn and walked and talked with him. Turns out he saw our tags and was eager to
explain his religious life, didn’t want to hear much about us, but, wanted to
explain his concept of religion. We
listened politely and agreed where we could.
After leaving them, we went to the greenhouses. In the main entry to the greenhouses the
gardens had a lot of amaryllis plants and Christmas decorations . Also, there was a display of very large
plants, all knitted, to be exact duplications of the flowers/plants they were
supposed to be. I have no idea how
anyone could do such a thing, but there they were. Most were made by a Russian immigrant. It was truly amazing.
The rest of the day was continuing
on Institute. Lynn spent a long time
talking to Doug Lee whose life is going from bad to much worse—I don’t have the
time or energy to explain all that’s happened to him, but he is a bitter man
right now.
We had some people come to church
yesterday who normally don’t come because 9 am is just too early for them, so
it was nice to see them at 12:30. The
meetings were very inspiring. But, one
man that changed his mind (that morning) from attending his neighborhood church
and came to ours because he had promised us he would do that, (thank you!) came
and contributed his incorrect doctrine of the church during Sunday School. (He loves to be the center of
attention). Luckily, he didn’t
contribute a lot and he was pretty much kept in control.
The best part of the day was after
the three hour block when we went to the baptism of Normil Romelus, a young man
in his early 20’s. The service was 90%
in French Creole. Now the challenge—how
do you keep a man whose main language is French, in the church? It seems he knows English fairly well and
that’s the bright spot. Our ward has
done a poor job of retaining its mostly French speaking people and that needs
to be seriously addressed. I’m impressed
with Normil and am hopeful for him.
Talked to Bob briefly last night and
read Maureen Goerings family letter this morning, getting more information from
her. Bob and Moira have their hands full
with little Tanner and all the other little ones. Thank heavens!!!! for Ken and Maureen being
there to take care of the kids. Tanner
is too weak to nurse, or swallow for that matter. He has a tiny feeding tube through his
nose. Moira goes mid-morning to try to
teach him to nurse and hopefully get him to swallow milk. She stays there till the midafternoon. She is also pumping milk and the whole thing
is very exhausting. It appears he will be in the hospital for three to four
more weeks, says Bob. Fortunately, the
rest of him is working just as it’s supposed to—just got to learn to suck and
swallow. So, pray for the family please.
The church is true! The Book of Mormon is the word of God; I never
stop being grateful to study that book.
Just got through reading one of Pres. Monson’s Conference talks
yesterday. He and the others are
inspired of God. Sure have gotten an
appreciation of that fact since being here, as many people struggle (within the
framework of the church) with church leadership and modern prophets. Teaching Institute has given me a great
appreciation for those who love the Lord and want to relate His will to us,
through His prophets and leaders. We are
a church of continuing revelation.
Well, end of letter. I want to express my love to all of you and
hope you have a joyous New Year.
Mom/Kathy
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