Dear
Family and Friends—
We’ve had cold, wet weather for the
last few days, but we’re hoping that everything clears off this afternoon
because we are scheduled to go with some temple missionaries on a Mormon
History walk this afternoon, seeing places in NY that have significance to our
church. I’m glad for the extensive rain
since we have needed the streets and the sidewalks to be cleaned off of winter
salt and dirt. But it is cold and the
month has been so cold prompting one sister in our ward to mention right off
the bat when giving her testimony yesterday that she was depressed from such a
cold spring. Everyone in the audience
was nodding in agreement. Apparently
this has been the coldest March since 1940.
There are no daffodils, forsythia, or any other flowering thing, (in
Brooklyn) absolutely no tiny leaves on anything. I’ve decided that something’s got to give
sometime.
We had a pretty good FHE last
Monday. Two Elders were responsible and
assigned four groups to act out a story from the Book of Mormon, each group
getting a different story. It took us
awhile to read through all our material, but our group was given the story in
Alma 47 about Amalickiah gaining kingship and all that that entails. I believe our group of four did the best
job—no prejudice here. ; ) Normally we
would have simple refreshments, but one family in our ward said they would be
responsible for refreshments and they brought a big pot of chicken broth with
rice, ginger strips and a small amount of chicken, a recipe from their native Philippines. Because it took so long to dish up the hot
soup we didn’t get finished till much later in the evening. Normally that’s not a problem but I had
planned to spend some time getting some food ready for Wednesday. So, that didn’t happen—we had to be up early
for temple work the next day.
Temple work was lovely—two stints in
initiatory and being a child(ren) in the sealing room were part of the
service. There was no walking through
the park that day as we tried to get home as fast as possible. When we got back it was food prep time for
Wednesday. Also I tried to collect as
many things as I could from my kitchen to take with me. The church kitchens in NY are so poorly
stocked, if you want something, you had better take your own. Lynn and I grabbed our blue painters tape and
put some on everything that was ours—wanted to make sure everything came back
too. Lynn took a large amount of items
down to the car that night so we wouldn’t have to waste morning time to do that. Before we went to bed we cut up a number of
items for a relish tray and I made a cream of chicken soup, sour cream sauce
for the chicken.
I woke up at 5:30 and got the
partially frozen chicken covered with the sauce into the oven to bake at a low
temp, and then back to bed. When I got
up for reals, it was time for all hands on deck. We loaded up the car and made it to the
Bensonhurst chapel earlier than expected, so that was nice. We set the round tables which the Elders had
put up, made up the relish tray and put that in the middle along with a plate
of rolls. I took a large pot and put water
in it to boil for Minute Rice, enough for 37 servings. I had three 1 gallon pots that had boiling
water for broccoli. There was butter for
the tables and cold water in the frig for the cups on the table and cut
brownies on the serving table. Finally
at noon, the broccoli went in and we were ready to go right at 12:15. The sad part was that making up one large box
of Minute Rice was a bad idea because too much rice ended up being mushy. Well, if you like Japanese sticky rice, this
stuff was for you! As it turned out the
missionaries loved the creamed chicken over rice and came back for seconds and
thirds. Whew. We also had ice cream sandwiches to go with
the brownies. We ended up feeding 25
people.
Lynn brought the binder with the
mission history for the missionaries to see.
Pres. Calderwood was extremely pleased and impressed with the work we
had done and said he wanted his own copy.
No problem (well, sort of no problem).
We intend to have our own copy to bring back to Utah. The church also requires a copy so they are
getting an electronic copy which they can convert to hard copy if they
wish. Lynn has worked very, very, very,
very, VERY long and hard on getting pictures etc. converted to PDF so he could
send it to the church. He’s been
frustrated because something, somehow has kept him from getting some things to
PDF. However, by this morning, all
problems have been ironed out and he just barely got back from the mission
office after taking the mission history binder there for Pres. Calderwood. The church requires all histories for 2013 to
be turned in TODAY.
April
2, 2014
Ran out of time before we went to
Manhattan (Monday afternoon) to meet with a knowledgeable, cheerful Br. Nelson
who happens to be a ghost writer for non-fiction writers. Someone said he’s written 4 best sellers but
we will never know what the books are.
We went to the place where Martin Harris met with Prof. Anthon in his home
(home no longer there); went to the launching point of the Brooklyn (small plaque
there); went to a place where Joseph Smith stayed with Newel K. Whitney (while
Whitney shopped for supplies, Joseph did sightseeing) and three other places,
all very interesting. It was just a
great walking tour. The rest of the group
was temple missionaries/workers. We got
home and had a bite to eat then off to FHE.
Back to March: After coming home from missionary lunch we
cleaned up as much as possible and both of us took naps—very unusual for
Lynn.
In the evening we were off for
Institute. We had a pretty good group
because we had two full-time missionaries with their investigator, a supposed
orthodox Jew named Jack that did not look orthodox and said he had an “open
mind.” I really felt good about the
lesson which was on Elder Vinson’s talk “Drawing Closer to God.” At one point Vinson talks about returning
Christ’s love for us by us giving him our heart. That reminded me of the Christmas song “In
the Bleak Midwinter” a song sung in the Anglican/Episcopalian church. So, I had Lynn show a YouTube rendition of
the song by the Gloucester Cathedral Choir.
Much to my happy surprise Jack was the only one who recognized the
song—happy because it gave him an opportunity to contribute to the class. He is planning on coming to tonight’s class.
Thursday was a day of restoration
for both of us. Lynn took two bike
rides, one short, one long. I wrote a
lot in my neglected journal, and did my neglected finances. In the evening Lynn and I took advantage of a
feature of our new cable service—pay for view of relatively new movies so we
watched “Frozen.” Enjoyed it a lot,
especially loved the music, but we thought the story line was not all that
wonderful. Anyone else feel the same? Well, I feel better now that I can be
included in all those who have seen the movie.
: )
On Friday I did my usual
shopping. In the afternoon Lynn and I
went back to Dr. Orkin’s office. My left
ear still felt plugged up, like there was water in the middle ear. I also had a lot of discharge from my nose—I
just wasn’t feeling completely better from the time I got the antibiotic a
month earlier. One thing he did was
irrigate my left ear and out popped two globs of ear wax. When he relooked at the ear drum it was
reddish and the ear canal look irritated (his words). So, I have been putting special drops in the
ear and using a steroid nose spray. My
ear still feels plugged up sometimes—very annoying.
Saturday Lynn and I joined some
other senior missionary couples and went to the New York Botanical Gardens in
the Bronx. It was a cold, rainy day but
the orchid show we saw was indoors. We
met at the mission office and this was the first chance to see Kay and Kent
Bradford, the newest senior missionary couple.
Of course Kent is Lynn’s cousin and when we had them stand side by side
it was obvious to all that these two peas in a pod were related. We enjoyed the orchid show and by coincidence
happened to listen to a lady giving an explanation about the orchids to a few
people so we just tagged along most of the way.
The displays of the many, many varieties of orchids were just beautiful;
it’s always the best in NYC! We were
there for several hours and then went back to the mission office for not so
great pizza, but really great cheesecake and apple pie for dessert. We were supposed to go to a very nice popular
restaurant but the day before the restaurant called and said they couldn’t
handle our group at the time we wanted to come.
Big disappointment, but that’s the way it is.
On Sunday it was church as usual,
the 3rd hour was used to give some information on the church’s
website for the neophytes in the group.
It really was an excellent presentation.
Then we went downstairs to be part of the baptismal services for
Victoria Washington, a 27 year old woman with a ten year old daughter. She bore a beautiful and sincere testimony
after her baptism and it appears that her daughter will join the church sometime
and maybe a cousin. It helps to have
family join since they support each other.
Right after that, Lynn and I went
unannounced to the Claude family, which always makes me nervous. But, they let us in and surprise!! it turned
out that 15 year old Judens actually came to church but we didn’t see him. (Also turns out he didn’t come into the
chapel but stayed in the hall till SS and priesthood. Well, at least he was there). But, the next surprise was that Sis. Claude’s
non-member father happened to be with the family when we came. He came and sat on the couch across from us
and said he was raised in the Catholic Church and had questions about some of
the doctrine about the Catholic Church that he disagreed with. Well, we answered his questions spending most
of our time talking about the false doctrine of original sin and baptizing
babies. He liked what we had to
say. Hopefully we can get together with
him another time.
After that we went to the Bien-Amis
but they were not home. We left a note
in a bag of books that we had for the girls mentioning that we had stopped
by.
Monday the church history tour and
FHE in the evening. The two missionaries
had a great game and everyone got into
it—lots of fun.
Yesterday we decided to walk through
the park in the morning to go to the temple.
It was pretty chill and we noticed daffodils with swollen heads, and
tiny, tiny buds on some of the bushes, plus the snowdrops. It was a very nice day, ending especially nice
since at the 2 pm session Lynn was the officiator and I was the first follower
for a group of four men and four women who knew what they were doing. One of the men is in our ward and is part of
our Institute class. He was doing his
great-grandfather’s work that day. When
Lynn and I walked back through Central Park on the way home the temps were
warm, the “baby” (that’s what we called them) daffodils burst open, the tiny
buds on the bushes came out into tuffs of fuzz, the crocus were blooming—what a
total contrast from the morning. We took
an especially long walk through the park ending up at a re-gilded General
Sherman statue—he looked rather grand in gold.
Well, got to get going on finishing
up Institute prep for tonight. Can you
smell the bread in my kitchen?
I am really looking forward to
Conference this Sunday, as I am sure you are too. The Church is true, that I know. Pres. Monson is God’s prophet. As we have served this mission, this critical
fact becomes more and more critical. We
are very fortunate to be here on a mission and grateful for the
opportunity.
Love to you all—Kathy/Mom
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