Senior missionaries

One of the enjoyable things we get to do as senior missionaries is to get to know other senior missionaries serving here in New York. 

We have gotten to know one couple quite well who are serving nearby. 

Elder Lynn and Sister Kathrine McKell have been teaching Institute in the Midwood area nearby.

We hosted a party for them last Wednesday tonight, as we are replacing them as institute teachers in that area. 

They have developed a good class, which we will enjoy teaching.

We also enjoy monthly "P Day" activities with senior couples in the mission. This past weekend we toured Governors Island which lies near Brooklyn and Manhattan.

A member of the church is a good artist who does caraciture face paintings.

We also got a caraciture painting of us.

Do you like it?

Looks just like us don't you think!

We were also able to tour the Brooklyn Heights area of Brooklyn.

This is a historic well-kept area.

But we enjoyed most Governors Island with its rich military history. 

We are having way too much fun on our mission, and enjoying it immensely.

Hastening the work

It was a busy week as we made efforts to become better known in the Brooklyn Stake. We are taking the opportunity when we can to visit other wards and branches in the stake and introduce ourselves as institute teachers. We invite members to attend the institute class held in their ward building. This past Sunday we visited the Bushwick area.

In the Bushwick area the Church has rented a part of a large Jewish building. We meet on the second floor.

We especially enjoyed attending church in the Bushwick Spanish branch. It reminded me of my days as a missionary in Chile approximately 50 years ago. The Hispanic Saints are very warm and welcoming. Listening to and sharing the gospel in Spanish brings a warm spot to our hearts. It is also nice to know that I have not forgotten all of my Spanish!

We especially enjoyed the well-prepared Sunday school lesson.

This week has also been special in our mission because of the visit this week by Elder Gifford Nielsen of the Seventy. He was accompanied on his three-day tour of the mission by his wife, Wendy. They held three mega zone conferences in three areas of the mission. 

In addition to the Nielsens, we were inspired by talks given by Pres. and Sister Calderwood. 

We have great missionaries and mission leaders here. We so enjoy being part of this great work.

Along with three other senior couples, we prepared and served the lunch meal for over 90 missionaries who attended the conference in Brooklyn. It was a lot of work, but fun. These young missionaries keep us hopping!

Seminary graduation

Last night we attended and participated in similar graduation for the Brooklyn Stake. 

There were five graduates for the stake in attendance. We were there to give a little talk and to welcome them to Institute. 

We also give them a little candy treat.

 We hope they will come and join us!

 We continue to be surprised at how few fully LDS Families there are in the stake, with a father and mother and children all living in the home and all active in the church. We met a few such families last night, and that was good. The area where we met had two wards, one a Spanish Ward  and the other a Chinese Ward. There are no English-speaking larger branches in that area.

In our talk, we spoke both English and Spanish, and that was fun.  We were hoping for a foreign mission, and boy are we getting it here in New York!  This is truly the melting pot of the world.

The continual challenge here in the mission field is for young people to find other strong Latter Day Saints they can date and marry. There are lots of young people here in our area, but so few of them are active members. 

Be grateful that in your area the church is strong and your children have many good dating opportunities. At least we hope that is the case.