Dear Family and
Friends—
It’s a lovely cool day today. But Saturday we got to 60 degrees and so
there’s been a major melt of all the glacial ice along the streets! It’s supposed to snow again Wednesday but I
think that it won’t last long. Saturday
sure gave a taste of spring and I’m going to start looking for time to go out
walking.
Been a very busy week. I was quite discouraged with our FHE two
Mondays ago, but last week restored my faith as we had a large group come and
participate. The trio of Sisters did a
great job on their activity and everyone there seemed to have a lot of
fun. One family came back from a morning
trip to Philadelphia and brought three pizzas and some soda with them. That went over well, I promise you. After the evening was through we went to the
car and discovered one of the MW2 members trying to get rid of snow so he could
back his van out of a driveway, so Lynn grabbed a shovel and heaved to. The man was very grateful.
Tuesday was temple day and we were
busier than the previous week, but not by much.
I spent some time in Initiatory being a patron because three workers
showed up and there were no patrons.
Then a strange thing happened—as I sat down to begin the process a
really warm, peaceful perhaps even what can be described as “delicate” feeling
came over me. The longer I stayed the
more peaceful the feeling became. I did
five names, I believe, when a patron did show up. I changed into my regular white clothes and
helped do the ordinance work for the lady who came. She stayed for an hour. And even though a nice feeling remained, it
wasn’t the same as when I was the patron.
Then I got a note from Nancy the next morning saying that she had an unusually
peaceful and quiet day on Tuesday—the best day she’s had in a long while. She reminded me in the note that that was the
2nd anniversary of Cheryl’s death.
Soooo—did Cher have something to do with our very special day?
BTW—Tuesday was also Andralyn’s
twelfth birthday and she is now going into Young Women’s. They do grow up! We love you Andralyn—you are the best!!
Wednesday was Institute prep. I had to finish getting ready for that
night’s lesson and have the next week’s
lesson ready to be handed out. I was
ready to go and actually went to church early to do all the copying and
stapling. We had ten members show up for
class—two were new, so that was great. We
were discussing part of the Lectures on Faith and much to my surprise when I
asked the class how many had even heard of the Lectures on Faith, only one lady
raised her hand. She had been raised in
the church, went inactive, and then came back so she had a very small
acquaintance with the Lectures. Although
there was some good discussion and important information given I didn’t feel
completely comfortable with the lesson and will stick to Ensign or Conference
talks from now on. The best part of the
evening was a BYU professor’s slide presentation on the magnitude of the
universe with written dialogue (very gospel oriented) on some of the
slides. It was a most excellent
presentation. You’ll have to ask Lynn
where he found it.
I was up and going early Thursday
morning because I had a doctor’s appointment at nine. Despite being there on time, I still had to
wait a long time to see the doctor. The
rash is now close to being gone so that part was easy but I reminded her about
a mole-like thing that appeared three months ago. Yes, indeed, that needs to be checked. She pumped the thing up with anesthetic and
sliced off the top so quick and neat—pretty cool to watch. It was a biopsy procedure and if there is
anything wrong I’ll get a phone call about it.
I then fast walked to the nearest
train station, did the train ride, walked to the apartment and did a few things
for a half-hour before having to go to the “F” train to the temple. I got there just in time to be ushered into
the room to be the witness couple with Lynn.
We had thirteen missionaries there to enjoy the experience with. Got to see the newest movie, this time
face-on. I love that new movie! Afterwards we gathered the Elders together,
took them through Central Park and then to a place on 57th which has
a good view of Times Square. There was a
lot of talk then about coming back and really seeing Times Square. We got back to the mission office late and
that caused problems on the way home—took us more than twice as long to get
back because of traffic. But, we did get
home ok and reflected on what a great day it was.
Oh, just a note—the kids in New York
get a one week vacation in February so there were a lot of kids on the
trains. I love that because I like to
interact with the youth and find out what their activity is going to be for the
day. Many of them were with moms who
were taking them to museums. It’s easier for me to talk to kids than adults.
After eating some dinner, Lynn and I
went to visit Carline and Zebb Pierre.
She has been doing better with her financial situation so that was good
news. We will go with her to court on
March 4th to support her as she tries to get money from Zebb’s
father. Lynn has been showing the video about
Joseph Millett who gave flour to a man that was out and was told in answer to
prayer to go to Joseph Millett for flour.
We’ve shown this video to several home teaching families with kids and
the response has been so positive. The
kids were able to answer questions Lynn asked them about the movie and
understood the concept of personal revelation and helping others. We need to use more of the church’s videos, I
can tell.
Went shopping Friday morning then
got back in time so Lynn and I could go to lower Manhattan to eat at the
Delmonico Restaurant. The Delmonico
Restaurant is a very famous high-end restaurant which has been operating
continuously since 1837, I believe. It
was the first restaurant in the United States that was only used as a
restaurant rather than part of some kind of room and board situation. Two of their famous “inventions” are Baked
Alaska and Lobster Newburg. This past
week has been restaurant week in NY and many restaurants have a set menu for
lunch at a reduced rate so people will come out and try their fare. We got there at a good time, before the rush
came in. Most of the customers were
young 20 and 30 somethings who were working in the financial district. We were a little concerned that we might not
receive good service by not ordering wine, but much to our surprise most of the
people that were there didn’t order wine—just had water like us. I had their one pound Delmonico steak ( I
think I finished ¼ of it) and Lynn had the Lobster Newburg. I’m glad I got the steak—like it better than
the lobster. I did try their version of
Baked Alaska and was very disappointed since I didn’t care for the flavor of
ice cream that came in the middle. But,
that was the only thing that was a disappointment. The place sure is elegant inside and we DID
get excellent service. They had a cook
book for half price which has the recipes for some of their exotic dishes—more
of a coffee table kind of thing than a practical thing for me, but ½ price was
too much to resist so a copy went home with me.
On Saturday afternoon we had the
Tenney’s over for lunch. They are
replacing the Ahlborn’s as CES teacher for the Young Single Adult groups in our
stake. She’s not taught in the church
system and he has taught in seminary, so dealing with the older group is going
to be a challenge for them. They
mentioned that the Staten Island group has dwindled down to just two people and
they can’t justify the cost of going on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge for just
two people. If things don’t change they
wanted to know if they could teach our Midwood group. It is a tempting thought, but I like teaching
my class.
Church was fairly normal with the
exception that one former evangelical turned Mormon feels that we are making a
big mistake studying the Old Testament in S.S. class, and was more than happy
to make a big deal out of it. I had to
talk to him afterwards about what he was trying to say since it's hard to
understand his accent. I did stay afterwards
for ward choir, or actually, ward female quartet. But, we’re singing a wonderful arrangement of
two hymns and I enjoyed the experience.
In the afternoon we went to see Tanya and her mother, Lana. Lana believes strongly in feeding her company
so we had some delicious Russian dumplings—one with chicken inside, the other
with sour cherries. We also had cheese,
oranges and dark chocolate, an interesting combination for sure. We showed Tanya the video I talked about and
she was really good at catching on to what was happening. We had a great experience with them.
Talked with Bob and Moira and their
cute family last night. I’m guessing
most of you know that Emily decided to play hairdresser on herself. Moira took her a beauty salon so she could finish
up what was started and the results are very cute looking bob. We were Skyping on Moira’s new computer, so
yay! Moira. New toys are always such
fun.
Also as many of you know, Margie’s
mother has been having some serious problems with one of her eyes. We’re waiting to see exactly what the problem
is. Margie has requested prayers for her
mom.
The Church is true. I’m grateful for the scriptures, especially
the Book of Mormon. I’m going to be
speaking in church in a few weeks about the Articles of Faith and decided to
just get it done last night. Reviewing
our church doctrine is such a satisfying experience. I just
wish I could let everyone experience what I experienced in the temple this past
Tuesday— and just like Joseph Millett, I am glad to know that God knows who I
am too. I often wonder who hovers around
when I’m at the temple.
Love to you
all—Kathy/Mom
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