Great variety of activities

As missionaries here in New York, we have a great variety of activities. In the course of a week or a month, we wear many hats.

For our P Day earlier in the week, we were able to visit the old Stone House. 

Our tour guide was brother Terry Alexander of the Park Slope family ward.

You can see the number 1699 on the front of the building. That was the year this historic building was constructed. 

This building marks the site of an important battle in the battle of Brooklyn, which occurred in August 1776.

Due to a marvelous foggy weather event, Gen. George Washington was able to ferry his soldiers by small boats over the East River to Manhattan in the dead of night, thus preserving the army so they could fight another day. 

We love visiting these historical sites. 

Brother Alexander also showed us his home nearby which the family acquired about 40 years ago for about $80,000. Is now worth about $3 million, which is typical of real estate in Brooklyn.

We have received a recent assignment to inspect all of the 12 apartments in our zone by the middle of September. We have now completed four inspections.

Some apartments are nice, while others leave something to be desired.

We are there to help the missionaries have a nice living experience and to get them the supplies and furniture they need. They seem to enjoy our visits and our help, and especially the donuts we bring! 

The sister missionaries we visited on my birthday sang happy birthday to me in three different languages. That was fun. 

We enjoy working with these young missionaries. They are the cream of the crop.

We also really enjoy our Fridays in the temple. Yesterday was no exception.

It still amazes us to see a beautiful temple right in the middle of Manhattan, surrounded by many tall buildings.

This building was acquired by the church in the 1970s and used as a chapel for approximate 30 years before it was remodeled to the house the temple.

For the past 10 years it has served as a temple site as well as a site for a full-scale chapel, a public affairs office, family history center, a visitors area and a distribution center.

The temple is accessed by a special elevator serving floors four, five and six.  The baptistry is on the ground floor, however.  The chapel is accessed by special elevator to floors number two and three.

When you're in the temple, you cannot hear any of the street noise from outside. It is a beautiful special place.

On Friday we had a wedding of a Chinese couple and a Hispanic couple. Sr. Tenney was able to babysit a beautiful four-year-old Chinese girl as she waited to be sealed to her parents. I was able to officiate in a session, which is always special. 

This past week was also my birthday. Sr. Tenney provided a cake for our Midwood institute class. We had a little party after class. 

It's been another wonderful missionary week.

Teddy Roosevelt senior missionary activity

For our monthly senior missionary activity we visited the home of Pres. Teddy Roosevelt and his family. His home is called Sagamore Hill. It is located in Oyster Bay Village, a beautiful small village on the north side of Long Island.  The first settlers arrived here in 1653.

The scenery here was green and beautiful, a lot different than the concrete jungle where we live in Brooklyn.

We were pleasantly surprised at how close the green Long Island is to Brooklyn. It is a different world out there.  The Sagamore Hill home of the Roosevelt family was also very beautiful.

We had about a dozen senior missionaries in attendance at the activity. We all enjoy these get-togethers very much.

The main house built by Teddy Roosevelt was currently being remodeled, so we could not tour inside of that house. Instead, we were able to visit the home of Teddy Roosevelt, Junior.

It is called the old orchard home.

It has been well preserved by the National Park Service.

Teddy Roosevelt, although born into privilege, did not lead an idle life. Even though he had asthma, he was very active as a young man and as an adult.

He was a passionate reformer, pushing forward reforms to make working conditions better and to regulate giant businesses. And he fought to root out corruption in government.

His family was one of the leading families of New York.

He gained fame and much acclaim due to his activities in the Spanish-American war in 1898, where he was the leader of the Roughriders.

Posthumously, he was awarded the medal of honor for his activities in the Battle of San Juan Hill. Bucky O'Niel, a famous sheriff of Yavapai County, was killed in that battle.

Teddy Roosevelt believed that we should not be bystanders in life. We should get into the arena and try to make a difference. He lived by that philosophy. We really like that.

So don't be one of those cold and timid souls he spoke about. Make a difference.

It was a beautiful Saturday. The weather was very mild as it has been nearly all summer. We had a great time.

Transfer time

What are the funnest days of each six-week period is transfer day, which was yesterday.  That is the day we receive new missionaries.

That is the day we say goodbye to missionaries who finish their mission and are going home. We enjoyed their farewell musical number at the transfer meeting.

That is the day we load and unload our car with many missionaries suitcases and bags as we take missionaries to and from the office for transfers.

Our van, which is the only car on our district, has come in very handy. We give missionaries rides in the car on a very frequent basis. And we carry their luggage.

We said bye to Sister Franklin who was transferred for the next six months, to the island nation of Bermuda, which is also part of our mission. 

And we said hello to Sister Pieper, who   now joins sister Vazquez in our district. 

But the work goes on as we continue to teach institute classes for nights a week.

And sister Tenney continues to prepare a good spread for the young single adults to come to institute class.

We are busy and happy and grateful to be of service to the Lord in this part of the Vineyard.

Summer break with family

For the past two weeks we have taken a break from institute classes as we completed the summer term. The fall term starts next week.

We were delighted to have the visit of our daughter Juliann, her husband, Berrett Doman, and their four wonderful children.

With the mission presidents approval, we were able to take a short tour for a few days out of our mission area.

We met the Domans in Boston on August 1.

We were able to visit Faneuil Hall and take the walking history tour of old Boston. The first public meetings protesting British heavy handedness occurred in this hall.

National park rangers served as our capable guides.

After Boston, we invited the Doman's to stay with us in New York City for a few days.  They especially enjoyed learning how to ride the subway trains.

We were able to see the Broadway play "Newsies", which will end by the end of August. Being old "paperboys" we really enjoyed this musical.

After our few days in New York City we went to Pennsylvania. We enjoyed visiting Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

It was really neat to be in the same room where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitutional convention was held. The founding fathers were great men, reserved to come forward at a special time to do a special work.

Our guide reminded us of Benjamin Franklin's important words about the Constitutional convention. He wondered if he was viewing a rising sun or a setting sun. With our 225 year history under the Constitution, we now know it has been a rising Sun.

After Philadelphia we went to Gettysburg.  We had a special three hour tour by a guide in our own automobile. He showed us the major battle sites for the battle of Gettysburg. It was sobering to remember that there were more than 50,000 casualties in the three day battle. 

There are many monuments for both the Union and Confederate forces.

After Gettysburg, we said goodbye to the Domans, who went west.

It was sad to see them go, but we had such a good time with them. Remember, you're all invited to visit us in New York!

After Gettysburg we headed southeast to visit our nephew Darren and Becky Timothy and their four wonderful children.

We had a great time with them in the DC area.

Darren served as our special tour guide on Saturday as we went into DC to visit The air and space Museum and the American history Museum. We could have spent days there.

On Monday we were able to visit Mt. Vernon, the home of George and Martha Washington.

That was one of our favorite places on the trip. In addition to being a great military men and great president, George Washington was a great farmer. We were surprised to learn that he grew more than 100 varieties of crops.

After about 10 wonderful days of vacation, we returned to New York City in a great rainstorm but made it safely to our "pad". 

We are now back into the groove of missionary work, which we love.