A beautiful fall

We enjoyed a beautiful fall day last Saturday traveling to West Point, approximate 50 miles north of New York City.  The leaves were changing colors and they were beautiful.

We also enjoyed visiting the stately West Point military Academy.  These stone buildings are approximate 200 years old.

The view of the Hudson river valley was also gorgeous.

The Hudson river has been very strategic river in the history of the United States.

Control of the Hudson river was of vital importance to the colonists in the Revolutionary war.  The British wanted to control the Hudson river to divide the colonies in half. Efforts were made to prevent that, including placing a large chain across the river. The river makes a sharp turn at West Point thus making it the ideal spot to gain control of the river.

Halloween is in the air.

We always enjoy it when people take time to decorate their home or business for the holidays.

We also enjoyed a Halloween party and chili cookoff with the family ward which meets in our building. And it's good to be in church with little kids on occasion. We miss that interaction in our YSA branch.  Most of the members of the family ward are young professionals who have one child.

Sister Tenney took 2nd place in the chili cook off with her mean summer vegetarian chili. It was yummy!'

Happiness is sharing the mission experience with the one you love - your sweetheart. Being missionaries is great fun. And a great experience for both of us. 

More fun visitors and activities

No sooner had Amy and her friends left New York a little over a week ago when we were blessed by the visit of Harold And Kitty from Arizona. 

They arrived by bus from Washington DC.

We all enjoyed a session of the New York City temple in Manhattan. That is always a highlight for people who come to visit us in NYC.  We love the temple.

 

Kitty and Harpld enjoyed riding the subway with us. The subway system is always something unique about New York City.

We also enjoyed the Cinderella Broadway musical together. 

A sobering part of their visit was our visit to the 9/11 memorial site. We were able to observe the reflecting pools which marked the spots where the twin towers once stood.

They were also able to observe the newly constructed one World Trade Center building. 

Harold And Kitty also enjoyed the view from our "10E" apartment. We have a great view of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. 

After we reluctantly said goodbye to Harold And Kitty on Saturday, we took part in another senior activity. The senior missionary couples traveled to the east end of Long Island to Montauk lighthouse.

It was a cold, blustery day, which reminded us that winter is soon on the way. 

We even got to see the Atlantic Ocean, which was pretty cool.

We topped off the week by viewing a special devotional fireside broadcast from the Lincoln Ctr., Chapel in Manhattan featuring Elder L Tom Perry. The occasion was the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Mormon pavilion at the New York City worlds fair in 1964. That pavilion marked the first effort of the church to use media to feature the church. The film "Man's search bfor happiness" was first shown at that world's fair.

In all, it was another busy and eventful week. We taught all of our institute classes during the week, and Harold and Kitty accompanied us for most of the classes. They were able to see the diverse students we work with.  Our students come from different races, countries, cultures, and church backgrounds.  We really enjoy sharing the gospel with all of them.

Senior missionaries and visitors

Senior missionaries and visitors. 

We have had a busy two weeks

One of the fun things we do as senior missionaries is get together each month with other senior missionaries to do a fun P Day activity. Sister Tenney and I hosted the activity in late September.

We first met at the mission office to have some sharing time. We each gave a brief overview of our mission and our lives. It was neat to get to know them better.

We then traveled by subway train to the 9/11 memorial site in Manhattan where we were able to enjoy the 911 memorial garden and a view of the one World Trade Center, which is the largest building in North America. We then spent a few hours in the 911 Memorial Museum, which was recently opened.

Pieces in the building collapse were displayed in the museum.

Keeping the buildings protected from the Hudson river nearby was a big engineering challenge.

We were blessed this past week with the visit of our daughter Amy and four of her friends from Arizona.

We spent a delightful week with us touring New York City. They had a busy and full week and we did our best to keep up with them.

Our cozy little apartment was their home for the week.

They especially enjoyed mastering the New York City subway system, which they did very quickly.

We did the subway rides as well.

We even learned how to do our own selfie photo. 

Linda and I got separated briefly at Central Park, so she found a new boyfriend!

But I quickly ran him off and reclaimed her for myself!

One fun activity during the week was to travel to Sleepy Hollow, New York, the site of the legend of Sleepy Hollow. This cute little town is just north of New York City.  We were also able to tour a Dutch reformed church building on the cemetery property, which was constructed in 1685.  We had a great time with these fine young ladies.

 

We reluctantly said goodbye to Amy and her friends on Saturday.

We really enjoyed Gen. conference weekend with members in two different branches as well as the missionaries.

YSA Conference

We really enjoy our mission assignment working with young adults. They keep us hopping as we try to keep up with them. The Regional YSA Council sponsored a three state singles conference in Manhattan this past weekend, at the Lincoln Square chapel, which is in the same building as the Manhattan Temple.

Over 300 young adults were in attendance. The Lincoln Square chapel is the only Church building in New York able to handle that many participants at one time.

We attended Sunday Sacrament meeting with them. Sr. Elaine Dalton and her husband were guest speakers.

After sacrament meeting we enjoyed a delicious lunch.

They did a good job of feeding so many so quickly. The young people seem to enjoy meeting new friends. We had about 30 members of our YSA branch in attendance.

After lunch we had a concluding fireside devotional. The speakers were two young black sisters who recently joined a church in Utah.

They were funny and inspirational as they told their conversion story. They maintain a blog and a radio talkshow. They have also written a book entitled "Two Mad Black Mormon Women."  The young adults really took to them. There is a great amount of diversity in the Church out here.

Riding the subway train to Church was different but enjoyable. 

We are often entertained in the subway station. Yesterday was no exception.

Occasionally we are able to enjoy a meal in one of New York City's many find restaurants.  On Saturday we ate at the Marco Polo restaurant, an authentic Italian restaurant near our Park Slope chapel.

The weather was great, the food was good, and the company was the best!

We've had a great summer and now we look forward to a beautiful fall in New York City and Long Island.

A day to remember always

September 11 is a very big day in New York City. This year we marked the 13th anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers. The names of the nearly 3000 victims were read by family members again. At night powerful searchlights beamed into the night sky to mark the place with the twin towers once stood. 

This was the view from our apartment. You can see the tallest building which is one World Trade Center and the beam of light to the left. 

The 911 Memorial Museum is now open to the public. We were able to Tour it earlier this month.

Remnants of the old twin towers are housed in the museum.

The demolished fire engine is symbolic of the more than 200 firefighters who lost their lives that day.

New Yorkers and fellow Americans should never forget that day. It was in most vicious attack on our American soil.

During the past two weeks a series of mega zone meetings were held throughout the mission. Along with Pres. and Sr. Calderwood, Sister Tenney and I served lunch to 70 missionaries in the three zones in the Brooklyn Stake on September 3. We are the only senior couple in the Brooklyn Stake. 

Present Calderwood gave an excellent training session teaching missionaries how to be effective and to keep the Spirit.

Our Bushwick zone leaders also gave us excellent training as they taught us how to be fearlesslike a lion, using one of their many cute costumes.

Working with the young missionaries is it part of our mission we had not really anticipated before our mission. We really enjoy this part of the work.

The sisters clothing exchange was fun to watch. 

We enjoy our temple work every Friday.

The subway rides to and from Manhattan are always interesting.

We are getting pretty good at getting around now that we've been here over seven months.