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. 

Chino Valley choir visitors

We were blessed this week with the visit from some dear friends from Chino Valley.

Thirteen members of the Chino Valley High School select choir were privileged to sing in the Lincoln Center in Manhattan with a large choir of approximately 300 voices plus a large orchestra. 

We were able to view the performance and sit with our good friend, Dee Wilkins, the Chino a High School choir director. 

We were fortunate to have tickets for seats on the very same row in the Avery Fisher Hall, one of four performance halls in the Lincoln Center complex. 

There were two youth from our Chino Valley Del Rio Ward who sang in the choir. Jade Wilkins and Daniel Shepherd. What a choice memory for them! 

Brother Wilkins and his son, Jade, were also able to join us in the Manhattan Temple on Friday afternoon to do some proxy baptisms. We were able to assist them in the baptistry. Tha was a choice experience for all. 

We love visitors from the West, so come see us when you can!  We are having a great time serving The Lord here 

Our dear sweet Aunt Fern passed away this past week at age 87.  She has been a very big part of our life.  Every time we would travel to Levan, Utah over the years of our marriage to see Linda's parents, Aunt Fern and Uncle Marion would visit us and help us in so many ways.  Our kids truly love Aunt Fern.  She is one of a kind.  For over 70 years (that's right, 70 years), she served as ward organist for the Levan Ward. We don't know of anyone who has served in a church calling for that many years.

She was a great cook, had a great sense of humor, and made you feel that you were her favorite person, whether you were a blood relative or married into the family. She took very good care of her widowed brother, Heber Taylor (Linda's father) for the several years he was in an assisted living facility in Levan, visiting him every day.

She and her husband, Marion, farmed and gardened and enjoyed a beautiful, simple life in Levan for the approximately 65 years of their marriage. She passed away in that same facility where she ministered to Heber for so many years.   Life was sweet and simple for them.  Aunt Fern will truly be missed by so many.

We're learning that, even we are away on a mission, life does not stop back home.  Friends get sick, some pass away.  Some go on missions.  Some graduate from school. Some get married.  Some grow up.  Life is like that, you know.  It does not stop.  We are learning to enjoy each day that we have here on earth.  Our time here is precious.  The Good Lord knows our days, and they shall not be numbered less.  Let's make them count for something good.

Visit from Cindy and Amy

We just concluded a wonderful week.

We had a one week spring break from institute classes.

Two of our lovely daughters, Amy and Cindy, paid us a visit for five days this past week. In addition to a temple session, we also took in the Lion King Broadway musical. It was wonderful.

We also got to see many wonderful sites in Manhattan.

Even though it rained a bit, we had a great time. 

One of the most touching things we did was to visit Ground Zero.  We saw the reflecting pools and viewed the names of the nearly 3000 victims of the terriorist attack on September 11, 2001. 

We enjoyed the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn botanical gardens.

The girls seem to enjoy the subway rides and got pretty good at getting around the city. 

All in all, it was a wonderful week. We love it when our family and friends come to visit us. 

Supporting the young missionaries

Before our mission, we did not realize how much time and effort we would spend supporting the young elders and sisters. We are truly like the "Ma and Pa" of the district and the zone. The young missionaries in our area rely on us a lot, and we're glad to help them.

In our district currently we have three elders from Utah, one Elder from Henderson, an elder from Peru, and an Elder from the Virgin Islands. We have a sister from Orem and a sister from Las Vegas.

Our closest relationship currently is with the sister missionaries. They are assigned to work with the young single adult branch, which we also serve. They attend our institute classes in the area every week. They're both wonderful lady missionaries. One is a life time member and the other is a convert of about two years.

We support the young missionaries by attending the weekly district meeting and giving suggestions and help, by feeding them, by giving them rides in our car, and by sharing our testimony and example.

A happily married "grandfather and grandmother" couple is a rarity out here. We serve as an example for not only the missionaries, but also for the members.

An increasing percentage of church members are single, and remain single for much or all of their adult life. The institution of marriage seems to be under some assault or diminished importance in our culture.

We want to do all we can to be good role models for eternal marriage and quality family life.

We are truly enjoying this work.