Traveling home

The Trip Home

We concluded our New York missionary service this week and started our trip back to the west. 

On Sunday, July 19 I was released as a counselor in the Park Slope YSA branch presidency in Brooklyn and two new counselors were called. It will be good for the branch to have a full branch presidency going forward. We have enjoyed serving with these sharp young adults. 

After church the branch members surprised us with a party and a "linger longer" meal. It was really a nice gesture. 

They gave us a pair of nice Brooklyn T-shirts and personal notes of thanks. 

We were touched by it all. It is so true that you come to love those you serve. We will leave a part of our heart in Brooklyn.

We left Brooklyn after church and traveled three hours into Pennsylvania for Sunday night. Our goal was to make it to Nauvoo, Illinois by Tuesday so we could enjoy the church history sites and the Nauvoo pageant.

 

We did spend some time visiting historic Nauvoo. This picture shows Linda and a senior missionary guide at the boot shop, one of the many shops in Nauvoo. 

The Seventies hall served effectively as the first missionary training center of the church. Some young people open their missionary call in this building.

We walked along Parley Street, the trail hope. The above writing of Bathsheba Smith is typical of what we saw.

In the evening before the pageant, we enjoyed a variety show put on by the senior missionaries and the young missionaries serving in this area. There was also an excellent brass band performing. 

The pageant was wonderful as you can expect. The actors actually build a façade of the Nauvoo temple during the performance as they told the story of the Church in Nauvoo. 

A special treat for us was to be able to visit after the show with our good Brooklyn friend, Ashley Bryant. She was playing a leading part in the pageant, that of Jane Gooding, the sister who walked 800 miles from Connecticut to Nauvoo in the early 1840s to be with the saints and then lived with the family of Joseph Smith for a time. 

 

As we traveled further west we were able to visit the Mormon trail visitor center in Florence,Nebraska, also known as winter quarters.

We appreciated anew the efforts of some of our ancestors who spent time in this area and performed valuable service building log cabins for the Saints in 1846. 

We were able to view the inside of a replica of these log cabins. It makes us appreciate more what we have today.

When we arrived in Colorado to see her first family, some of our grandkids were anxiously awaiting our arrival. Our grandson, Jacob, was on rollar blades at the corner waiting for us.

Christine was running to catch up with us. 

It is good to see family again and to know that we will be able to be closer to them in the next chapter of our lives.

After a family reunion in Utah this next weekend, we are heading to Arizona to report our mission at 1 pm on Sunday, August 9 in the Del Rio Ward in Chino Valley. After that we have plans to build a home in Hooper, Utah where we can be closer to family.

We have enjoyed preparing this blog to share highlights of our mission in New York. This mission is been a great experience for us and we hope a blessing for our family.

Thank you for following your blog. We love you all.

Final post from Brooklyn

The   

Well, this is our last week in New York. After church on Sunday we plan to head to Pennsylvania for the first night on our return trip. I plan to attend another pageant on Tuesday and then return to be with family starting Thursday night. We will report on our mission in Chino Valley on Sunday, August 9 at 1 PM. 

This was a week of goodbyes. The Staten Island students gave us a nice farewell card. 

Staten Island group. 

Bushwick class. 

The Midwood Wednesday class. 

Our Park Slope class. 

We were able to go to the temple one last time to be with the missionaries departing in July. 

We purchased a hearty lunch at one of the many food carts in the city. 

Linda coaxing a little bird in the eating area across the street from the temple. 

We boarded the R train for for the last time to return to our apartment in Brooklyn. 

We enjoyed singing with the Park Slope missionaries at our last district meeting. 

Friday and Saturday were spent packing our car to the hilt. Since we have sold our home and our furniture, most of our earthly possessions were contained in that car. So the car is really packed. 

Now, for a safe trip home. Hope to see you all soon!

Saying goodbye

One of the toughest parts of a mission is to say goodbye to the many wonderful people we have worked with over the past 18 months. 

Our Staten Island institute class, for example, used to be one of our smallest classes and now is one of our largest classes. 

These faithful Hispanic youth come to class every Sunday night and really brighten our week. They seem to really enjoy studying the gospel and associating with each other.

Two of them, Augustin and Melinda, got married a few months ago. They're both wonderful young people who met each other through a stake dance and later connected over Facebook. We had known them both in separate institute classes, and we love them both. We went to a restaurant in Brooklyn Friday night with them to celebrate their marriage and our friendship.

We continue to teach institute classes right to the end of our mission. We are studying the last chapter of the Book of Mormon this final week.

We are starting to box things up as we prepare to pack our van full in preparation for our trip back to the west in about a week. 

One of the tough parts of the week was to say goodbye to our fellow temple workers on Friday, which was our last day to work in the Manhattan Temple. Working one day a week in the temple has been an unexpected joy for us as we have fulfilled our mission here in New York City.

We ended the week by preparing another missionary meal after our weekly trip to the two story Costco store in Brooklyn. It's pretty unique to have to go upstairs to get food. 

We have used space in our little apartment well as we have fed missionaries and family members throughout our mission.

We have been with Elders Davis and McCann and sisters Nevitt and Skinner since early May. We are very close to this group as we know each other so well. Sister Nevitt is the niece of Monte and Julie Nevitt, old Prescott friends. 

Like everyone else who visits us, the missionaries enjoyed the spectacular night view from our balcony.

We will miss working with them and the other young missionaries we have associated with during our mission. Being closely connected with the young missionaries has been another unexpected joy of our mission. 

Mo Tab and Fireworks

The past week has been eventful. A time of change.

A highlight of the week was the opportunity to visit Carnegie Hall for the first time to hear the MormonTabernacle choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square. 

This magnificent structure has been the site of great music for over 100 years. 

The hall is impressive. The people in the balconies appear to be very close to the orchestra and the stage.

  The choir was just as magnificent as you would expect it to be. Many non-members were in attendance, and they seem to thoroughly enjoy the performance.

We know we really enjoyed the evening and we are grateful for the opportunity we had to visit Carnegie Hall and many other wonderful venues in New York City.

This past week we welcomed a new mission president and his wife to our mission. President and Sister Gary Reynolds and Barbara Reynolds are from Draper Utah. We attended a missionwide conference July 2 to get to know them better. They have already won the hearts of the missionaries as they bring a great spirit with them. Present Reynolds begin immediately to interview the missionaries upon his arrival.

We were invited to the Reynolds mission home On Saturday July 4 to celebrate Independence Day with President and Sister Reynolds and other senior missionary couples.

The Reynolds will be a great addition to the mission. 

We enjoyed a delicious potluck meal in the beautiful backyard of the Mission home. 

There was plenty to eat, and we thoroughly enjoyed being with the senior missionary couples one last time. We have developed some good friendships on our mission, which is an added blessing of serving as missionaries.

 It was hard to say goodbye to our good friends.

We returned to Brooklyn in time to enjoy the annual fireworks show from our balcony.

From our balcony we have a great view of the Manhattan skyline, parts of New Jersey and the Statue of Liberty in the Hudson Bay. All of the missionaries want to move into our apartment! The senior couple in charge of apartments has decided to move into our apartment for the last five months of their mission, until such time as our replacement CES couple arrives. We are not sure who will come when they will arrive, but we do understand that a replacement couple has been identified. There are more needs for senior missionaries around the world then there are available senior missionary couples, so we'll just have to wait. 

It has been a great and wonderful week in New York.

Transitions

As our mission winds down, we are going through a period of transitions. 

We took the opportunity this past week on one of our last preparation days to take a trip out east on Long Island. We drove to the city of Riverhead, which is the east most part of our mission here in Long Island.

We spent a few hours with Elder and Sister Holgate, the missionary couple assigned to Riverhead.

The Holgates took us on a tour of the Vineyard areas.

Eastern Long Island is known to be good wine country. They grow lots of vegetables out there too.

The Holgates live in a home next door to the Riverhead chapel with a beautiful large lawn between and surrounding the two buildings. That is a lot different living experience than our living experience here in Brooklyn. Living and working in the city is much different for the missionaries than living and working in the country (The Long Island area). Long Island is a beautiful place.  

We always enjoy watching the weather change as we look out our balcony. Being close to the ocean, the weather changes a lot for us Arizona kids, and we can see the clouds come and go from our apartment.

 One night recently when we were saying our prayers, we heard a pop pop noise outside. We looked out the window and noticed that they were shooting fireworks at the Statue of Liberty. We get fireworks periodically and we are able to enjoy them from our balcony.

This past week was also a sad occasion as we had an unexpected death in the family. Linda's brother Brent's wife Vicky unexpectedly passed away last Sunday. She was just 69 years old.

We flew to Salt Lake City for the funeral. There was a large gathering of family and friends in West Valley City.

Brent And Vicky three lovely daughters will be a great support to him. The funeral was wonderful. We are so grateful for our knowledge of God's eternal plan of happiness.

Linda got to see all of her siblings at the funeral, which was also special.

When we arrived home late Saturday night and we were surprised with vakentinex taped to our front door. These valentines were made and placed by our district missionaries. The missionaries are amused that the Tenneys live in apartment "10E". That was a sweet welcome.

I will likely be released from the Park Slope young adult branch presidency this coming week. I have served as a counselor to Branch President Mark Butler for the past 18 months. He is a native of Provo Utah who has worked in New York City as an attorney for the past 35 years. He is a cousin to Max McInnis of Prescott. 

We have a big week ahead as we will get a new mission president July 1. We are glad we'll get to meet him and his wife before we leave in a few weeks.