Forever changing

Our Mission motto is "forever changed", indicating that both missionaries and members are forever changed through their service.

Every six weeks we have transfers in the mission. We have new missionaries in our district every time. 

Sister Vasquez and Sister Franklin are currently serving as sister missionaries here. Sr. Vasquez has been our district for two weeks now. 

We have a trio of Elders serving together as one is preparing to go home in a couple of weeks. Elder Duncan, St. Rose, Loftis.

Our weekly subway ride to the temple is always interesting.

Sometimes we are jammed into the subway and on the subway platform.

At Times Square subway station we always see New York's finest at their posts.

We always enjoy our senior missionary activities, which occur monthly.

We enjoyed our lunch in Central Park.

We ate next to a beautiful small lake in the park.

Our objective was to visit the large metropolitan museum on the east side of the park.

There are lots of statues and ancient paintings and figures. You need more than one day to see all of the museum.

It was a beautiful day, but we still needed some refreshment at the end.

Sister Tenney makes a good-looking missionary, don't you agree?

There were many street vendors selling their wares so we had plenty of food choices.

We are coming to the end of our summer term for institute classes. We are enjoying the students a lot. We have lots of variety on a mission, which we like. 

Music on a mission

Being able to play the piano and lead music really helps a missionary.

Now that a musically talented sister missionary has been transferred out of our district, Sister Tenney has now assumed that responsibility to play hymns for our institute classes.  We are relearning the important lesson that being able to play the piano is a great asset for a missionary. Those of you planning missions please keep that in mind.

We are enjoying our summer in New York. The weather has really not been too bad. It's a bit humid but we're getting used to that. The weather changes very frequently here, and that is the surprising thing for us Arizona kids.

Our summer institute classes are going well. As you might expect, there is a lot of turnover in young adults during the summertime. Our big challenge is to try to keep up with them.

We know almost all of them by name now and we are friends. Is challenging for young adults to navigate around the big city of New York. It is very easy to get lost if you wish to do so. We're trying to identify and connect with as many as we can. This work of the Lord is challenging but enjoyable.

The Brooklyn Bridge

On one of our recent P Days, we had the opportunity to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

We rode the subway train from Brooklyn into Manhattan and begin our walk at City Hall. The walk was actually shorter than we thought it would be. 

East River, which separates the two islands, has always been a busy area of commerce and tourism. The New York Harbor is one of the best harbors and in America. 

This area was settled by the Dutch in 1625. 40 years later New Amsterdam was sold to the British for a small price and the area became known as New York. Otherwise, we would be speaking Dutch!

The view of the Manhattan skyline is pretty impressive from the bridge. 

We look like typical tourists, don't we!

We finished our walking tour seeing some impressive churches and other buildings in the Brooklyn Heights area. 

There are lots of great things to see and do in New York City. But, honestly, we are on a mission, not a vacation!

English and Spanish

We believe the New York mission is ideal for us. We get to use both Spanish (which I like) and English (which Sister Tenney likes) in the same city! We are noticing other branches in the stake when we can encourage attendance at institute classes.

We even got to look inside one ornate Catholic Church.

This past Sunday we attended the Spanish ward on Staten Island. They have a nice new chapel. 

Good attendance at church services. We picked up five new institute students after our visit. That was great. I also had the opportunity to give a fireside in Spanish at the Dyker Heights branch. That was fun.

For our preparation day activities this past week we walked the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. Brooklyn Heights is near the East River. It was a historically significant area in the battle for New York in the Revolutionary war.

There is an excellent view of the Manhattan skyline from the promenade in Brooklyn.

There are many fine churches in Brooklyn Heights. Most we're built after the Civil War.

We even got to look inside one Catholic Church.

A highlight of our week was the opportunity to take 18 missionaries to the Manhattan Temple. 

Sister Tenney looks like a good tourist don't you think? There sure is a lot to see and do here in Brooklyn.

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.