Dear
Family and Friends—
How’s everyone this cool, cloudy
day? We got a ½” of snow overnight and
it’s in the twenties this morning. This
last week the temperatures have been really cold clear up till the weekend when
they finally got to 60 one day. It’s
back to cold now. This snow won’t be
sticking around for very long.
I have been quite sick with allergic
reactions in the back of my throat and my ears are itchy/burny. I got this way this past Saturday, but I’ve
really been sick ever since the apartment management turned on the heat in
October. What really bothers me is all
the allergic reactions I’ve been getting which has been constant—my throat swells
and itches, my ears are the same. It’s
weird and annoying. I had Lynn and two Elders
give me a blessing this morning and I’m waiting for a ward member to call back
so she can give me a name of a doctor that can hopefully help me out.
Well—let’s see. A week ago Lynn and I were responsible for
FHE. Lynn made up a Jeopardy Game on his
computer and some sensible rules so that the missionaries wouldn’t be the only
ones to answer the questions. The
questions all had to do with identifying the pictures of members of our ward. Whoever was up at the front to “answer” the
question had to give the first and second name of the ward member they
saw. If they couldn’t answer, then the
team could help them out. It was an eye
opening experience to see how few people the ward members knew by name. I had grapes, clementine tangerines, bricks
of cream cheese with mild and medium jalapeno jelly and one just a plain brick
for those that didn’t like the heat and I had a LOT of Ritz crackers. It went over really well—nothing was
left. We did have a pretty good turn out
that night so I was quite pleased.
Sad part of Monday—got notification
from Denny Martin that Gayle (a very good friend of mine) died on Monday
afternoon. She had brain cancer—from
diagnosis to death was just six months.
It’s just going to be so hard to return to Provo and not be able to
return to where I left off with her.
Either she has been my visiting teacher, or I’ve been hers for what
seems like forever.
Tuesday was temple day. The missionaries that are going home this
transfer (this Wednesday) were there with Pres. and Sis. Calderwood. I was in the session with them, but Lynn was
not. Got to see the new movie again and
reconfirmed that I still love it. :
)
On Wednesday I had a lot of laundry
to do and Institute to prepare for.
Actually I was getting a lesson ready for the next week so that I could
make copies of the article and some questions to go with that night. As it turned out, the machine was not
cooperating and I only got a few copies made.
We had nine come to class and had a pretty good discussion on the first
two pages of Sr. Burton’s talk on covenants that she gave in the RS
meeting. I had assigned the entire class
one of the pages to read and study and created some questions for them to think
about and then they became the teachers.
Those that I normally can count on did a great job, and the others,
well, we had enough prepared that the class went well anyway. I really want the class to be responsible for
learning the material and this is a good way to do it.
Thursday was a big day which started
fairly early. We were on our way to the
UN for a very special meeting where the church arm of charity (LDS Charities)
was being recognized by the UN as an NGO.
Lynn and I took a train to Rockefeller Center then tried to get a bus to
take us to the UN building. The bus was
taking too long so we just walked the very, very cold six long blocks. We got there at 10:15 am and saw with dismay
that there was a very long line which we joined. It didn’t take long before a few of our ward
members joined us and we had a nice chat with them—also saw a lot of other
people that we knew. The hang-up was the
very tight security in the small building that we went to first—I was dismayed
that there were only two lines of security (when four more were available) and
also interested in knowing that my knee set off the alarm.
We got to the conference room about
11:05 so we were not there for the opening salvo. But, there were still a few empty desks that
we could sit at. Each desk had a mike,
an ear piece, volume controls and a way to get the dialogue in different
languages—a really slick set-up. We also
got a very comfortable seat to sit in.
When we arrived they were showing a video about the church and LDS
Charities—what it is and what it does.
Then we were introduced to four people who made up a panel of experts
(all LDS) to explain about the charity and the work that it does. At the end of the presentation they allowed
questions to be addressed. Now the vast
majority of the people there were LDS but it was obvious from the questions
that non-members were there also.
Although all the questions were respectful, there was no mistaking the
feeling of anti-Mormonism that existed in many of the questions. We were there for one and half hours in the
meeting (which was called “Discovering Mormonism and Its Role in Humanitarian
Assistance”), but we also stuck around for quite a while taking pictures and
talking to friends. Later, we went
through some halls and a couple of rooms just looking around. There was a lot of art work in the
hallways. We wanted to join a tour group
but we were supposed to have booked that via the Internet.
After that, we walked to a train
station that was bound for Houston Street (pronounced “house-ton”) so we could
go to the Katz deli, which is a very famous Jewish deli that has been there
since the late 1800’s. This deli was
located in a not-so-very great part of lower Manhattan and the way of ordering
food was either sit at a table and wait for a waitress, or go to the very long
counter with so many signs up there you
couldn’t believe it. After a few
miss-steps we figured out what was going on and ordered a pastrami Reuben
sandwich and I got an egg cream (think chocolate drink with seltzer and milk). I loved my sandwich, but Lynn wished he had gotten
corned beef instead. The egg cream was
divine. After eating and pictures we
made our way to the train and went home.
The next day was shopping for me,
but in the afternoon we went to AJ Johnson’s apartment. He had invited all the missionaries in our
area to his place for lunch/dinner. The
missionaries actually did most of the food preparation. We had an eclectic menu—pan fried chicken
legs, boiled eggs, a cheese plate with crackers, homemade lemonade of which
there was not nearly enough, two kinds of pasta with not so great sauce, a
lettuce salad with small tomatoes and mini-carrots thrown in, a relish tray
with carrot and celery sticks and a small piece of pound cake topped with
strawberry ice cream. The place made me
and the other sister missionaries uncomfortable because good housekeeping was
not on the menu. But, we did thoroughly
enjoy the food and most especially, the company. Some of us got to sit at the table; the
others did the best they could by standing up.
The occasion for this meal was that AJ was going to move to Scottsdale,
AZ, so his mother could have a new job with the hotel company she was working
for. AJ is nineteen but is autistic so
he’ll have to go with her. He thinks he
can get more work and try to stay in NY because he doesn’t want to leave, but I
think he’ll have a problem trying to survive on his own. He’s still trying to decide if he wants to be
baptized.
It was toward the end of the lunch
that I knew I was in trouble. We had to
be polite and stay as long as possible, but I could feel my throat and ears
swelling up really bad. We got back to
the apartment; I took Benadryl and went to bed.
I have been feeling really lousy ever since. Yesterday Lynn gave the Sunday School lesson
on Abraham and Isaac, and he did a magnificent job which included a video of
Abraham taking Isaac to Mt. Moriah to be sacrificed and I wanted to stay for
that, but right after I told him I needed to go back home. I took more medication and went to bed for
several hours, had dinner and then watched Sis. Burton speak at the CES
fireside. We finished off the evening by
talking to Ken and Sean’s families.
Oh, you’ll be interested in knowing
that we had a young lady (probably mid-twenties) come to our ward yesterday from
another ward in the stake. She was
dressed in a fancy white dress that looked like a tent with ruffles. It was obvious she wasn’t completely
there. She got up and bore her testimony
and then talked about how much she loved her step-brother and because she
couldn’t marry the step-brother at the temple, (he had died) she proceeded to
say her marriage vows to him at the pulpit, finishing it off with a song. Just a little color in good old Brooklyn.
Despite not feeling all that great
after Friday afternoon, this really has been an enjoyable week. What a privilege to be here in NY and have
these experiences and get to know the people that we do. The Church is true and Jesus Christ is our
Savior and Redeemer. Love the Book of
Mormon! Studying that book is a
joy.
Hope you have a wonderful week—Love, Kathy/Mom
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