Family visitors

This past week we took a one week break from teaching institute classes and welcomed several family members visiting from Utah and Arizona. Our oldest daughter Cindy and three of her boys, Bryce, Spencer and Braden, as well as our youngest daughter Amy paid us a visit. It was a great week. 

We started the week by taking a two day trip to Palmyra New York, a six hour drive from New York City, to visit church history sites.

Our first stop was the visitor center at the Hill Cumorah. 

We admired the statue of the angel Moroni on the top of the hill.

In the visitor center we saw a map of Palmyra area, which helped us get oriented as to the location of the Hill Cumorah and the Joseph Smith family farm.

We also saw an aerial view of the temple, the farm and the Sacred Grove. 

We were able to visit the upstairs bedroom in the old log house of the Smith family. This is the room where the angel Moroni appeared to be young boy Joseph Smith three times in one night. This is not the original log cabin, but a restored version made to look exactly like the original. 

Being able to spend some time in the Sacred Grove was a very special experience.

We then visited the Grandon book store in downtown Palmyra where the first 5000 copies of the book were actually printed. We appreciated the work of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to bring this precious work forward. 

The sister missionaries gave wonderful tours at each church history site. 

We also visited the Peter Whitmer farmhouse whete the church was organized in 1830. 

We saw the actual room where part of the Book of Mormon translation work took place.

After visiting the Palmyra Temple, we returned to New York City.

Big city life always involves riding the subway trains. 

We were able to visit the Manhattan temple and do baptisms for over 50 family names. Our grandsons did the baptizing. That was a special event.

We were able to take in Aladdin, an excellent Broadway play.

We finished the week by touring Manhattan by bus and by ferry. 

We saw the new one World Trade Center building, which is the highest building in the Americas. 

A visit to the reflecting pools where the twin towers once stood was a sobering event. 

All in all, we had a wonderful week.

Service

As missionaries, as church members, and as parents, our main focus is to give service. That is what missions are all about. As missionaries we have the opportunity to give service to the members, to the young missionaries and others. We also stay in close communication with our family, and hopefully we give service and a good example for them. One grandson (Taylor) just received his mission call, and another grandson (Jacson) is in the process of submitting his missionary papers. A third grandson (Tyson), is currently serving, so we are amply blessed as a family. 

Cooking is a big part of what we do. We are serving food to others at least three times a week. It has been said that a CES mission means "cooking every second ( CES)". And that is just about right!

Subway riding continues to be a big part of our weekly routine. Sometimes sister Tenney and I get separated on the subway by the mass of people! It is always an adventure to ride subway trains. 

We always invite our district missionaries to our "pad" near the end of the transfer period for a farewell meal, which we did this past Saturday.  We are losing the elders, but the sisters stay in Park slope for this next missionary transfer. Good deal. We will get two new elders later this week. It is sad to let them go, but we look forward to getting to know new missionaries.

We love our families and hope that many of them will be able to share the joy of missionary service.

We are glad to be the Lord servants in this little part of New York City.

Have a spring, everyone!

Service

As missionaries, as church members, and as parents, our main focus is to give service. That is what missions are all about. As missionaries we have the opportunity to give service to the members, to the young missionaries and others. We also stay in close communication with our family, and hopefully we give service and a good example for them. One grandson (Taylor) just received his mission call, and another grandson (Jacson) is in the process of submitting his missionary papers. A third grandson (Tyson), is currently serving, so we are amply blessed as a family. 

Cooking is a big part of what we do. We are serving food to others at least three times a week. It has been said that a CES mission means "cooking every second ( CES)". And that is just about right!

Subway riding continues to be a big part of our weekly routine. Sometimes sister Tenney and I get separated on the subway by the mass of people! It is always an adventure to ride subway trains. 

We always invite our district missionaries to our "pad" near the end of the transfer period for a farewell meal, which we did this past Saturday.  We are losing the elders, but the sisters stay in Park slope for this next missionary transfer. Good deal. We will get two new elders later this week. It is sad to let them go, but we look forward to getting to know new missionaries.

We love our families and hope that many of them will be able to share the joy of missionary service.

We are glad to be the Lord servants in this little part of New York City.

Have a spring, everyone!

Visiting the City

One of the joys of serving in New York City is that we have family and friends who want to visit us. There's a lot to see and do in New York. 

We were very happy to welcome her sister Diane visiting us from Phoenix for four days. We took a bus tour of Manhattan and saw some wonderful things.

And, of course, riding the subway trains is always a novelty for someone visiting New York City.

During the week we were able to visit the Manhattan Temple and do temple work for family members. We really enjoy searching for family members needing temple ordinances using the family tree program. It gives special meaning to temple work when you can do proxy work for one of your cousins.

Another highlight of the week was the opportunity to attend the Spring spectacular show of the Rockettes at radio city music Hall. 

Radio City Music Hall is set in a busy part of the theater district in Manhattan.

We all enjoyed the production very much.

Another highlight of this past week was our semiannual stake conference for the Brooklyn stake. We do not have a stake center large enough to hold the congregation. Instead, we meet in the Marriott Hotel in downtown Brooklyn, near the Brooklyn Bridge. We have a very diverse steak. There are as many Spanish-speaking members as there are English-speaking members. There is also a large group and Chinese-speaking members. There are also many single adult members and single parents with children.

We enjoyed very much serving with the members in Brooklyn. We enjoy working with Hispanic members too. Hey good number of our students are Hispanic young adults living at home and Brooklyn with their parents. They are very faithful and have good spirits.

The arrival of spring

Spring officially began on Friday, March 20. It takes a little while for that message to get through to New York City, though.  We are still experiencing some wintry weather, but it is getting better.

A couple weeks ago we had the opportunity to take about 18 missionaries to the Manhattan Temple. They are allowed to visit the temple every six months, with a senior missionary couple as chaperones. We always enjoy that duty.

A few days before each transfer meeting we invite our district missionaries over to our apartment for a district  meal.  At this transfer two of our missionaries finished their mission and went home. They were good elders who will be missed. Due to a slight decrease in the overall missionary force, two of the elders were not replaced in our district, thus our district was reduced by two missionaries.

We had a delightful senior missionary activity at the Mission home in the middle of March.

This was our one chance on our mission to see the Mission home. 

All 10 senior missionary couples serving on Long Island were able to attend the event. Pres. and Sr. Calderwood are on the left. In addition to a wonderful potluck meal, we had sharing time. It's missing a couple was able to share something about their family as well as highlights of their mission. It was a great day. Is a privilege to serve with such fine people

We continue to enjoy our institute classes. This is a photo of the Staten Island group, mostly young Hispanic's. They are very faithful. We often sing and pray in Spanish, which we really enjoy. 

We attended a transfer meeting this past week. We recieved only 8 new missionaries, the smallest group since we arrived in New York. We sent home about 18.

We really enjoy mixing with the young elders and sisters, especially transfer meeting. They help keep us young! Sister Bowman, one of our favorites, took this selfie photo.

We were able to check one item off our bucket list this past Saturday as we went to the Empire State building, you see the view from the 86th floor with a group of young adults from our stake.

It was a cold and windy night, but we enjoyed the view and the company.

With this view we can see Lower Manhattan and the one world trade center building and the Statue of Liberty in the distance off to the right.

All in all, a busy couple of weeks. We really enjoy the variety of activities we have as missionaries here in New York City. Missions are great!

The end of winter

Looks like winter is finally coming to an end. 

Cleaning the sidewalks is a constant challenge. This lovely lady is a native of Brooklyn, so she is used to this work.

Missionaries keep up their appointed rounds no matter what the weather is.

This past week we had a series of mega zone conferences. 

One highlight is the testimonies offered by departing missionaries.  This is Elder Bey, our district leader. He is returning to Goodyear, Arizona next week. He has been very good to work with.

As part of the mega zone conferences, we were asked to give a series of workshops on using family tree as a missionary tool.  That was an enjoyable experience for us, as it caused us to get involved in family history work. That can be very enjoyable and fruitful work. We have been able to find and take to the temple several names in the past month.

One recent nice recent experience was to host the sister missionaries in our apartment as they gave a Skype missionary lessons to a young Chinese girl. She is planning to be baptized.

We have three functions in the next five days for which we are required to provide a meal. That always keeps us hopping.  Sr. Tenney has a great reputation as a good cook.

We are enjoying our work. The time is passing too quickly.