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.

Great variety of activities

As missionaries here in New York, we have a great variety of activities. In the course of a week or a month, we wear many hats.

For our P Day earlier in the week, we were able to visit the old Stone House. 

Our tour guide was brother Terry Alexander of the Park Slope family ward.

You can see the number 1699 on the front of the building. That was the year this historic building was constructed. 

This building marks the site of an important battle in the battle of Brooklyn, which occurred in August 1776.

Due to a marvelous foggy weather event, Gen. George Washington was able to ferry his soldiers by small boats over the East River to Manhattan in the dead of night, thus preserving the army so they could fight another day. 

We love visiting these historical sites. 

Brother Alexander also showed us his home nearby which the family acquired about 40 years ago for about $80,000. Is now worth about $3 million, which is typical of real estate in Brooklyn.

We have received a recent assignment to inspect all of the 12 apartments in our zone by the middle of September. We have now completed four inspections.

Some apartments are nice, while others leave something to be desired.

We are there to help the missionaries have a nice living experience and to get them the supplies and furniture they need. They seem to enjoy our visits and our help, and especially the donuts we bring! 

The sister missionaries we visited on my birthday sang happy birthday to me in three different languages. That was fun. 

We enjoy working with these young missionaries. They are the cream of the crop.

We also really enjoy our Fridays in the temple. Yesterday was no exception.

It still amazes us to see a beautiful temple right in the middle of Manhattan, surrounded by many tall buildings.

This building was acquired by the church in the 1970s and used as a chapel for approximate 30 years before it was remodeled to the house the temple.

For the past 10 years it has served as a temple site as well as a site for a full-scale chapel, a public affairs office, family history center, a visitors area and a distribution center.

The temple is accessed by a special elevator serving floors four, five and six.  The baptistry is on the ground floor, however.  The chapel is accessed by special elevator to floors number two and three.

When you're in the temple, you cannot hear any of the street noise from outside. It is a beautiful special place.

On Friday we had a wedding of a Chinese couple and a Hispanic couple. Sr. Tenney was able to babysit a beautiful four-year-old Chinese girl as she waited to be sealed to her parents. I was able to officiate in a session, which is always special. 

This past week was also my birthday. Sr. Tenney provided a cake for our Midwood institute class. We had a little party after class. 

It's been another wonderful missionary week.

Teddy Roosevelt senior missionary activity

For our monthly senior missionary activity we visited the home of Pres. Teddy Roosevelt and his family. His home is called Sagamore Hill. It is located in Oyster Bay Village, a beautiful small village on the north side of Long Island.  The first settlers arrived here in 1653.

The scenery here was green and beautiful, a lot different than the concrete jungle where we live in Brooklyn.

We were pleasantly surprised at how close the green Long Island is to Brooklyn. It is a different world out there.  The Sagamore Hill home of the Roosevelt family was also very beautiful.

We had about a dozen senior missionaries in attendance at the activity. We all enjoy these get-togethers very much.

The main house built by Teddy Roosevelt was currently being remodeled, so we could not tour inside of that house. Instead, we were able to visit the home of Teddy Roosevelt, Junior.

It is called the old orchard home.

It has been well preserved by the National Park Service.

Teddy Roosevelt, although born into privilege, did not lead an idle life. Even though he had asthma, he was very active as a young man and as an adult.

He was a passionate reformer, pushing forward reforms to make working conditions better and to regulate giant businesses. And he fought to root out corruption in government.

His family was one of the leading families of New York.

He gained fame and much acclaim due to his activities in the Spanish-American war in 1898, where he was the leader of the Roughriders.

Posthumously, he was awarded the medal of honor for his activities in the Battle of San Juan Hill. Bucky O'Niel, a famous sheriff of Yavapai County, was killed in that battle.

Teddy Roosevelt believed that we should not be bystanders in life. We should get into the arena and try to make a difference. He lived by that philosophy. We really like that.

So don't be one of those cold and timid souls he spoke about. Make a difference.

It was a beautiful Saturday. The weather was very mild as it has been nearly all summer. We had a great time.

Transfer time

What are the funnest days of each six-week period is transfer day, which was yesterday.  That is the day we receive new missionaries.

That is the day we say goodbye to missionaries who finish their mission and are going home. We enjoyed their farewell musical number at the transfer meeting.

That is the day we load and unload our car with many missionaries suitcases and bags as we take missionaries to and from the office for transfers.

Our van, which is the only car on our district, has come in very handy. We give missionaries rides in the car on a very frequent basis. And we carry their luggage.

We said bye to Sister Franklin who was transferred for the next six months, to the island nation of Bermuda, which is also part of our mission. 

And we said hello to Sister Pieper, who   now joins sister Vazquez in our district. 

But the work goes on as we continue to teach institute classes for nights a week.

And sister Tenney continues to prepare a good spread for the young single adults to come to institute class.

We are busy and happy and grateful to be of service to the Lord in this part of the Vineyard.

Summer break with family

For the past two weeks we have taken a break from institute classes as we completed the summer term. The fall term starts next week.

We were delighted to have the visit of our daughter Juliann, her husband, Berrett Doman, and their four wonderful children.

With the mission presidents approval, we were able to take a short tour for a few days out of our mission area.

We met the Domans in Boston on August 1.

We were able to visit Faneuil Hall and take the walking history tour of old Boston. The first public meetings protesting British heavy handedness occurred in this hall.

National park rangers served as our capable guides.

After Boston, we invited the Doman's to stay with us in New York City for a few days.  They especially enjoyed learning how to ride the subway trains.

We were able to see the Broadway play "Newsies", which will end by the end of August. Being old "paperboys" we really enjoyed this musical.

After our few days in New York City we went to Pennsylvania. We enjoyed visiting Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

It was really neat to be in the same room where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitutional convention was held. The founding fathers were great men, reserved to come forward at a special time to do a special work.

Our guide reminded us of Benjamin Franklin's important words about the Constitutional convention. He wondered if he was viewing a rising sun or a setting sun. With our 225 year history under the Constitution, we now know it has been a rising Sun.

After Philadelphia we went to Gettysburg.  We had a special three hour tour by a guide in our own automobile. He showed us the major battle sites for the battle of Gettysburg. It was sobering to remember that there were more than 50,000 casualties in the three day battle. 

There are many monuments for both the Union and Confederate forces.

After Gettysburg, we said goodbye to the Domans, who went west.

It was sad to see them go, but we had such a good time with them. Remember, you're all invited to visit us in New York!

After Gettysburg we headed southeast to visit our nephew Darren and Becky Timothy and their four wonderful children.

We had a great time with them in the DC area.

Darren served as our special tour guide on Saturday as we went into DC to visit The air and space Museum and the American history Museum. We could have spent days there.

On Monday we were able to visit Mt. Vernon, the home of George and Martha Washington.

That was one of our favorite places on the trip. In addition to being a great military men and great president, George Washington was a great farmer. We were surprised to learn that he grew more than 100 varieties of crops.

After about 10 wonderful days of vacation, we returned to New York City in a great rainstorm but made it safely to our "pad". 

We are now back into the groove of missionary work, which we love.