Dear Family and
Friends—
It has happened, finally. Spring is here and it appears that it will
actually stick around. There is a slight
green hue to some of the trees on Ocean Parkway, daffodils are out in force,
the forsythia is yellow, there’s small green leaves on bushes, the magnolia
trees are blooming and there are two “bought from the store” pink azaleas
sitting on each of our living room end tables.
Sigh—it is so wonderful! I took
three walks last week to the park and joined ALL the others. At the park the new ice skating arena has
been changed to let roller skaters do their skating thing.
Let’s see—a week ago Lynn and I were
responsible for FHE. We had a decent
sized group and a few new people showed up which always makes our day. Lynn developed 6 games with balloons, games
that could be played as teams and let me tell you—they were a big hit. It was interesting to see some of the less coordinated
play the games better than the “jocks” out of our athletic missionary
pool. I served strawberry shortcake at
the end using the Butter Recipe cake mix from Duncan Hines, pureed frozen
strawberries, and added small chunks of fresh berries, topped off with whipped
cream. It too, was a big hit.
The next day, at the temple, I got
to be in the baptismal area to help nine young sisters do baptisms for the
dead. Just the thought of getting to be
there makes me want to clap my hands and jump up and down. I restrained myself. : ) I
had one other worker help me so things ran quite smoothly. Seven of the girls were from Bountiful and
were on a dance team, in NY for a dance competition. They weren’t interested in winning a trophy
but just the opportunity to compete to make it to NY was huge for them. They got to dance on the Koch theatre floor
which is the floor the NYC Ballet dances on—very special. They were very sweet young ladies and it was
fun to get to know them and their parents.
Our “going home Wednesday” missionaries were there with Pres. and Sis.
Calderwood, but I had little interaction with them. I was supposed to finish the day as a sealing
patron but there were too many men involved at the baptistery (yep, you can
tell that spring break was happening in the US) so me and a few other ladies
talked for a while (I told them about my super waffle recipe) and then I went
home early.
Lynn stayed because he wanted to go
to St. John the Divine, which is a huge Episcopalian church. They were doing the Passion of St. John by
Bach. It was sung in German. I just simply wasn’t interested—it sounded
too boring. What, Bach
boring---noooo. Well, I thought it might
be. Lynn came home that night and said
he didn’t realize how “heavy” Bach could be.
He struggled to get through it.
He said it was well done but when you don’t recognize any of the music
except one piece and you can’t understand the words (the translation was there
but they turned down the lights so you couldn’t read), let’s just say, he
didn’t enjoy the experience as much as he had hoped he would. I’m glad I stayed home. I did go through Central Park and enjoyed all
the flowers which were out in force.
Wednesday was “get ready for
Institute” day. I carefully went through
Christofferson’s talk, marking up the pages and did some other things,
including one of those walks I talked about.
In the evening, I had the class members share their favorite talk and we
discussed some of the interesting parts of them. Jack gave his presentation too (can’t remember who he chose) but he did make a big
point of saying that he was so impressed with how sincere each person was in
presenting their talks, how committed each was to the topic they gave. I only contributed the fact that I loved
Christofferson’s talk on the resurrection and that we would talk about it next
week—there was no time for me which was perfectly fine. Lynn finished off the evening by showing the
video which shows the growth of the church by stakes to the year 2007—everyone
got a big kick out of that. Because Jack
was there, that also meant missionaries could come and we ended up with four
elders.
After Institute was over and we were
back at the apartment, I noticed I had forgot my jacket and Lynn offered to
return (it doesn’t take long) to the church and retrieve it. He didn’t get back for a long time though and
told an interesting story when he did return.
About four short blocks from our place is a gas station. As Lynn was turning to the side of it he
noticed a man on the street with his bicycle.
He rolled down his window and asked if the man was OK. The reply was “no.” He had fallen on the slippery wet street onto
his knees and he was in a lot of pain.
Lynn put him and his bike in the car and got him back to his apartment. Lynn got his contact information and asked if
he would allow some missionaries to visit him.
(Lynn explained that he was a missionary and told a little about the
church). Saturday afternoon Lynn and two
Spanish elders went to Ricardo Rosales place to talk about the church. The
about 45 year old man from Mexico was polite but not really
interested. However, he did agree to
have the Elders return.
Thursday was “get down and dirty”
day. We were having Kent and Kay
Bradford for dinner Friday evening. They
are new missionaries for our mission—Kent is Lynn’s first cousin and they live
in Pres. Calderwood’s stake. Because I
knew they would be curious about our apartment, I knew I had to do some serious
cleaning, which I did. I also went
through my files (because I had a lot of things sitting on top of them which
needed filing) and did some reorganizing.
I made a sweet little discovery about my chest of drawers: when I was dusting them and applying some
elbow grease to the job, the moldings at the top of the chest moved. I was aghast!
When I went to supposedly put it back properly, it moved again. Curious, I moved the molding and much to my
astonishment it pulled out and revealed a narrow drawer with a fuzzy
bottom. It was a hidden jewelry drawer!! Lynn has an identical chest and we found his
hidden drawer. I went and put my earring
there and a few other small items.
Lynn and I (between Thursday and
Friday) had our place spic and span—ready for company. I fixed a lot of my dinner for the next day
on Thursday and then went for a walk. As
a side note—Lynn got an email from one
of our faithful ward members saying she couldn’t do something because she had
the flu. I got out one of our soupsicles
(turkey/vegetable flavor) and cut up some bread, bagged some veggies and ice
cream sandwiches and Lynn rode his bike to her place. All she did was come to the door to get
them—nothing more. She came to church
Sunday and expressed gratitude.
Friday, shopping in the morning, got
the rest of the dinner under control then we went to Methodist hospital to get
two Sisters. One had a kidney stone and
went to the emergency room in the morning.
(The ASL Elders have a car and took her). Sis. Hamblin was given pain medication and
kept there for a while but then she got sent home with us. Right now she’s doing fine (on pain meds) and
doesn’t really know what’s happening with the stone.
After we got the two sisters tucked in their
apartment we then went to the Botanic Gardens to check out the flowers. The daffodils were spectacular—naturalized
all over the place. The magnolias were
looking pretty good too—they still have a little ways to go. There were other flowering bushes to add to
the beauty. But, the best part was to go
to the Japanese Bonsai greenhouse and see the very small leaves and tiny little
seeds come out on the miniature maple trees—it was simply magic. The other little trees had leaves coming out
too, but the maple---ahhh.
At six o’clock Kent and Kay
came. We did the obligatory pictures
with the view of the Parkway etc. They
did the oohing and aahing over our nice situation and then we ate and talked
till ten in the evening, getting all conservative problems solved to a certain
degree of satisfaction. Well, we solved
the problem that the Demos were running our country into the ground.
The next morning I went shopping
with a specific agenda in mind—refreshment food for Tanya Golikova’s baptism. Got grapes, large bag of tortilla chips,
hummus, and a big box of strawberries—thank you COSTCO. Saturday was a big study day and then I
walked in the beautiful Saturday afternoon warmth of the park for quite a
while.
Sunday—I got the grapes all cut,
everything was assembled ready to go (Lynn had to show a video presentation
after Tanya was baptized). Then we got a
phone call from Lana (Tanya’s mother) asking if we could pick her up to take
cupcakes to the church. Well, Lynn had
PEC, (he rode his bike) so I did the driving.
Lana didn’t really have a good way to get those cupcakes transported,
but we did the best we could, I drove carefully and dropped them off at the one
driveway for the church. We unloaded the
cakes, some people came and helped her get them inside and I went to the
streets to find a place to park.
After the three hour block everyone
assembled downstairs in the “rec” room for the baptism. Boy, Tanya had a lot of people show up to
support her. Elder Joseph (who baptized
her mother two years earlier) was there to have a wish of his fulfilled –he
wanted to baptize Tanya before he went home.
One of our Institute students (who will soon to go on a mission to SLC)
gave a terrific talk on baptism and the Holy Ghost. Tanya was duly baptized and after Lynn’s
video was welcomed “to the church and Primary.”
Then, out came the refreshments—there were no leftovers! So, our little home teachee is now officially
a member of the church—yay!
The Church is true. That is a beautiful fact. Read Elder Christofferson’s talk about the
Resurrection—it is amazing. Hope all of
you have a wonderful Easter this Sunday and reflect on the great gifts our
Savior has given us. I am truly grateful
to Him for so much.
Love to you all, Mom/Kathy
