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.