Dear Family and
Friends—
First things first: Happy Birthday Muffin! You are our favorite (and only)
grand-dog. We love you Muffie!
Next—it was so cold out there this
morning when I went to COSTCO. I am
ready for spring to actually come and stay.
At five pm this past Saturday, I went walking for the first time since
last fall to Prospect Park. It was a
windy, yet warm day, so going this morning with temps in the low 20’s was a
downer. I loved my Saturday walk, and so
did all the others that joined me—there were a lot of people out there as well
as a lot of geese, ducks and three swans.
Last Monday when it was time to
start FHE I think we had most of the missionaries and five members. The two missionaries that did the activity were
quite disappointed. However in the next
few minutes people kept trickling in until we ended up with 30 people, which
tied our record for attendance if I remember correctly. It was so great to have a crowd and a good
time was had by all.
The next day was warm enough that we
went through Central Park both going to and coming back from the temple. On our way over I was noticing patches of
green and white under stands of large trees.
Upon closer examination we discovered the white was flowers—they were obviously
naturalized bulbs. I told Lynn I thought
they were snowdrops and when we got back to the apartment in the evening I
looked them up and indeed they were, snowdrops.
So, Google snowdrops, y’all.
Another surprise waited till just before we left the park—a large flock
of robins were in the grass, the first we have seen since fall. Had a nice quiet day in the temple—Lynn made
sure that the family file cards that Meriden had sent had the initiatory done
for the male cards so that meant we were all set to go with the endowment part
on Friday—will write about that in a bit. But, the best part of the day was
seeing three of our ward members and one former ward member at the temple doing
endowment work. Considering all the
members in the NY area, to have four people I knew well in one day was nothing
short of remarkable.
Wednesday was a red-letter day: Two men from our local cable company came and
installed cable in our apartment.
Yay!! I told Lynn it should have
happened a long time ago, but I have enjoyed having more TV options now. After all, I appreciate it more now. ; )
One glorious side benefit from the cable is an extremely fast
computer—it is so fast, love it!! For
me, the rest of the day was working on some mission history and a lot of housekeeping
chores.
We only had four show up for
Institute in the evening, but they are the best four of our group and we had a
great lesson and a great time together.
The lesson was taken from Elder Hamilton’s talk called “Continually
Holding Fast” which is about staying strong in the church and particularly
about coming to church every Sunday. I
read the article “On Sunday We Attend Church” (in the Jan. 2014 Ensign) to the
class and then tearfully told the very true story of what it took for me and
Cher (then later, Nancy) to get to church every Sunday. It was a story of difficult persistence on
the part of mom to get us to church every Sunday. Ask me about the story sometime.
Thursday morning bright and early, I
went to my dermatologist for a final check.
The eczema is now gone, the “mole” that was biopsied turned out to be a
spot of Lichen Planus-like Keratosis.
Hah! So what is that? It’s an autoimmune thing that your body
produces which is harmless. I was there
for a short time and will not be going back.
The rest of the day was getting ready for Institute for this Wednesday
and rethinking and re-doing the mission history binder. Lynn, true to his nature, has been constantly
thinking of changes that he thinks ought to be made. Actually, we are very close to being
done. Let’s see, I think I said that
last week. : )
Lynn has bought tickets so we can go
to Bermuda on May 7 and return on the 11th. Yay!
Friday was a busy day. We started off in plenty of time to get to
the mission office so we could accompany missionaries to the temple. But, when we were going on the road by the
park it was terribly congested; eventually we saw large numbers of flashing
lights, evidence of a major car accident, traffic being rerouted—ugh. We turned around, and went backwards to find
a different route to go forwards. When I
got to the Primary room for the pre-temple meeting, I was surprised to find a
very large group of missionaries there, way too many for a temple trip, and
asked where the pre-temple meeting was being held. I was told it was across the hall. Checked it out, no one there and was
completely confused till an Elder came and told me they were just kiddin’ that
indeed the group was in the Primary room.
I took it in stride, but was irritated.
Anyway, there were twenty missionaries going with us, quite likely the
largest group going to the temple.
After we got everyone dressed, I
passed out family name cards to my little sisters and Lynn got all but one of
the male name cards passed out, then we came close to filling up the room. Afterwards I took the sisters to 6th
level to see the Grand Hallway then went outside to take pictures. There was a couple in our session that helped
take the pictures. The wife was
obviously pregnant and she said her due date is this Wednesday—I thought that
was a bit risky, but she made it through the session. We went through the park, let the
missionaries see Times Square from a distance, hopped on a train and got back
to Rego Park by 4. Took Lynn and me
twice as long to get home as it did to go in the morning, even with the
detour!!
As soon as we got back we went into
“let’s get ready for the missionaries to come to our place for breakfast”
mode. Lynn vacuumed, dusted, set the
tables and other eating spots; I created the wet and the dry parts for the
pancakes (to be made in the morning) and got the cookie sheet prepared with the
bacon so I could start those early in the morning. I was very ready to crash and burn that
night. Lynn informed me that he was
coming down with a cold, so he was also feeling the effect of that.
I got up bright and early and by
nine, we were pretty much ready for company.
There were 16 of us, and three of the missionaries were completely new
to me. (They were in the Spanish
Ward). We had the pancakes, fixed 5
recipes of buttermilk syrup, had two pans of baked bacon, scrambled and cooked
46 eggs, and had Tropicana OJ and milk.
A good time was had by all. Some
of the most responsible missionaries took it upon themselves to help clean up
including hand washing a lot of pans—so I appreciated their good work and work
ethic. After everyone left I went and
slept for an hour and a half. Lynn, the
one who wasn’t feeling so good slept three hours in the afternoon—an unheard of
thing for him.
He got up and we went to Staples to
buy binder dividers and a brand new binder with a plastic cover that would let
us put a cover sheet in for our mission history. Then we came home—Lynn went on a bike ride. It was a beautiful, warm yet windy day, and
I was antsy to walk, so I grabbed a light jacket, my Yankees baseball hat and
marched to the park. So much fun to be
out with the mobs and hoards also enjoying the lovely evening. What was so much fun to see was all the
little kids with their scooters, helmets on heads, and parents in tow going
around the paths in the park; don’t recall that I’ve seen that many before.
Lynn was actually late getting off
on his bike ride. He was talking to his
cousin’s wife, Kay Bradford, that lives in Vienna, VA (Sean, Bob and Ken
remember living close to there). Kay and
Kent are arriving here in NY today, to begin their mission service in Freeport,
Long Island. The Bradford’s and the Calderwood’s
were good friends when the Calderwood’s lived in Virginia so the Bradford’s
were persuaded to be part of the senior missionaries. We are very glad to have them aboard.
Yesterday was church as usual. But I came home, fixed some fruit I had
bought for dinner and sliced up some of my homemade bread and we went off to
Lana and Tanya’s place for dinner and a lesson on baptism for Tanya. Lynn had spent a long time preparing an
outstanding baptism lesson for this eight year old putting it all on his
computer, a master piece of PowerPoint work.
Lana had some borsch waiting for us so we sat down to a most delicious
meal. I asked Lana if there were as many
recipes for borsch as there were Russian women who made it and she said “yes.” What we had came from a local Russian food
market. After dinner we had the lesson
for Tanya. With a little encouragement
we helped her understand what she was doing when she got baptized which ought
to be within two weeks.
After that, we went to the Nielson’s
and Lynn re-showed his presentation to Robert (10, and baptized, and Aaron,
6). These are two smart young men and
obviously knew about most everything they saw and learned—just love that
family!
Lynn and I came home and got a bite
to eat. Then the phone rang. Lynn picked it up and started talking, then I
watched him as he just listened, and listened and listened—quite un-Lynny
like. He was on the phone for close to a
half hour, said a few things to finish up the conversation, asked the person if
he could tell me what was going on and immediately peaked my interest. It was Doug Lee telling Lynn that the lady in
the ward he was hoping to be married to had told him the whole thing was
off. Doug had spent a lot of time doing
the legal work so the woman he wanted to marry could be divorced from her husband
who happened to be in a mental facility for alcoholics. She told him she wasn’t going to get divorced
and wasn’t going to marry Doug.
Obviously she does not want to stay married to an alcoholic but it turns
out he’s a convenient excuse not to be married at all. I think this woman FINALLY, FINALLY figured
out that Doug is no great marriage partner either. Doug is angry and hurt. He keeps experiencing big reality checks
now—he was sure he was going to get married.
He was also sure that he would be hired on by a big law firm in Manhattan. He was sure he would be off parole in
February. All things have fizzled. He
now has no wife, job and won’t get off parole for three years.
Oh, BTW, it is officially
official—we will be officially released from our mission on June 16. But, we’ll be doing some traveling before
getting back to Utah. Don’t have a Utah
arrival date yet, but that info will be coming.
I have gone through about 10 Kleenex’s
as I’ve been doing this letter—it’s for real that I now have Lynn’s cold. Grrr.
But, I also love the guy—we do share
and share alike! This has been a busy
and great week. What an opportunity to
serve the Lord by serving others. Oh, forgot
to mention—when I was on the train with the young missionaries going to the
temple, I talked to the lady next to me that was speaking a foreign language
with another woman. Turns out she was
from Nepal. I was so glad to tell her I
had been to Nepal and we got into a conversation about the church. She promised that her son would help her go
to LDS.Org that was on the pass-a-long card I gave her. Even if that doesn’t happen, I was glad I had
the courage to talk with her. Nice
feeling.
Hope all is well with you. Of course we are so excited for Brett getting
married this week. What a great day that
will be. Congrats! to Brett and Vibeke.
Love, Kathy/Mom
