Transitions

As our mission winds down, we are going through a period of transitions. 

We took the opportunity this past week on one of our last preparation days to take a trip out east on Long Island. We drove to the city of Riverhead, which is the east most part of our mission here in Long Island.

We spent a few hours with Elder and Sister Holgate, the missionary couple assigned to Riverhead.

The Holgates took us on a tour of the Vineyard areas.

Eastern Long Island is known to be good wine country. They grow lots of vegetables out there too.

The Holgates live in a home next door to the Riverhead chapel with a beautiful large lawn between and surrounding the two buildings. That is a lot different living experience than our living experience here in Brooklyn. Living and working in the city is much different for the missionaries than living and working in the country (The Long Island area). Long Island is a beautiful place.  

We always enjoy watching the weather change as we look out our balcony. Being close to the ocean, the weather changes a lot for us Arizona kids, and we can see the clouds come and go from our apartment.

 One night recently when we were saying our prayers, we heard a pop pop noise outside. We looked out the window and noticed that they were shooting fireworks at the Statue of Liberty. We get fireworks periodically and we are able to enjoy them from our balcony.

This past week was also a sad occasion as we had an unexpected death in the family. Linda's brother Brent's wife Vicky unexpectedly passed away last Sunday. She was just 69 years old.

We flew to Salt Lake City for the funeral. There was a large gathering of family and friends in West Valley City.

Brent And Vicky three lovely daughters will be a great support to him. The funeral was wonderful. We are so grateful for our knowledge of God's eternal plan of happiness.

Linda got to see all of her siblings at the funeral, which was also special.

When we arrived home late Saturday night and we were surprised with vakentinex taped to our front door. These valentines were made and placed by our district missionaries. The missionaries are amused that the Tenneys live in apartment "10E". That was a sweet welcome.

I will likely be released from the Park Slope young adult branch presidency this coming week. I have served as a counselor to Branch President Mark Butler for the past 18 months. He is a native of Provo Utah who has worked in New York City as an attorney for the past 35 years. He is a cousin to Max McInnis of Prescott. 

We have a big week ahead as we will get a new mission president July 1. We are glad we'll get to meet him and his wife before we leave in a few weeks.

Some last events

Now that we are just a few weeks from finishing our mission, we are experiencing events for the last time.

On June 9 we participated in our last transfer meeting. These are always wonderful events.

This is our last photo of departing missionaries singing at transfer meeting. We completed our responsibilities as mission historians at that transfer meeting and turned that responsibility over to another missionary couple.

There's always good musical talent on display at the transfer meetings. This is a photo of Sister Slaugh, who plays a wonderful viola. We really enjoyed serving with her for six months at the beginning of our mission.

Transfers always involve lots of luggage, and we always get drafted into using our van to haul luggage and missionaries. Our van has been mighty handy on our mission.

At transfer time the parking lot is jammed full of cars. It's always a trick to get out of the parking lot.

There's even a row of cars parked on the sidewalk!

The evening of transfer meeting as departing missionaries we enjoyed a cookout at the Mission home with President and Sister Calderwood.

We were privileged to be included in the departing missionary group even though we don't leave our mission until the middle of July. We had a wonderful testimony meeting and enjoyed a video presentation featuring the departing missionaries and some of their mission experiences.

To provide food for our many institute classes and district missionary meals, we go shopping 2 to 3 times per week. The local grocery stores is one of our favorite places!

On July 13 we participated in a senior missionary activity on the Lower East side of Manhattan.

This is the area known as Chinatown. It has a large Chinese population.

The 14 senior missionaries first met at a small restaurant to enjoy a lunch before we visited the tenament museum.

We had a guided tour of the living quarters of immigrant families trying to make a living in New York City approximately 100 years ago. Living conditions and working conditions were pretty tough, but for the most part, they were happy to be in America. Their main job in this neighborhood was to prepare and sell clothing articles.

On Sunday, June 14 we were able to break away from our Park Slope young single adult branch and attend church in Staten Island, at the Spanish ward. It was great to attend Sacrament meeting in Spanish. And also to go to church in a building that looks like a chapel and actually has a parking lot! We do not have such buildings or parking lots in the city of Brooklyn.

We are always treated very well by that Latinos. We really enjoy having a number of them in our institute classes.

It is always interesting to see how they use space efficiently here in Brooklyn.  Here we have a subway train line built above a city street.

In good weather a group of older men gather together every day at a little park over the freeway to play dominoes. That is amusing. 

We also attended our last zone meeting this week. In this photo a sister missionary is giving instructions about proper use of the Internet in missionary work because our missionaries have iPads and access to Facebook. We continue to be impressed by the spiritual preparation of the young missionaries. They're bright, talented and beautiful. Serving a mission is a wonderful opportunity for any young man or young women who will prepare themselves. 

We have been very privileged to serve with these young people.

And finally, we shared ice cream cones at an outdoor eating area after a wonderful day in the temple on Friday.

We have really enjoyed our mission here in New York City!

Last family visitors and departing missionaries

Every six weeks President and Sister Calderwood host the departing missionaries at a temple endowment session and a meal afterwards.

We were privileged to be included with the departing missionaries at the June 2 trip, as we are scheduled to finish our mission in the middle of July. The Calderwood's have been wonderful to serve with. They will be truly missed as they conclude their three-year mission at the end of this month.

We were surprised at the temple to once again see Elder Isaac Turley and his family from Gilbert Arizona. Elder Turley finished his mission approximately three months ago. He returned with his family to show them his mission field and the attractions of New York City. He was a great missionary.

After the temple session we all went to the "burger joint", where the Calderwoods treated us to a meal. I saw the basketball star, Dwayne Wade, at the burger joint. Lots of celebrities hang out in the city.

Eating lunch while sitting on a bench in the middle of Broadway is also an interesting experience.

One of our more interesting shopping experiences occurs in a grocery store known as Fairway market.

It looks like a warehouse and has a great selection of vegetables, meat, cheese, bagels, etc. it is also right at water's edge and provides an excellent view of the Statue of Liberty from the parking lot. 

We once again were invited to sit on the stand and speak at the annual seminary graduation for the Brooklyn Stake. Early morning seminary classes are offered in five chapels around Brooklyn.

This past weekend we were privileged to host one more family, this time our nephew Matthew Tenney and his wife Robin visiting from Salt Lake City. We enjoyed very much spending this past weekend with them. 

As a highlight of the weekend, we attended a Broadway musical, an American in Paris. The singing and dancing were excellent and the play was cute.

Everyone seemed to have a good time.

After the play we got into a "people jam" as we slowly walked down seventh Avenue in Times Square. The building in this photo is the place where the New Year's Eve ball drops every December 31.

We concluded a great weekend by hosting a "linger longer" after church on Sunday as we broke our fast after church with the young single adults.

We provided potatoes for a potato bar as we served more than 55 people. 

It was a good day and a very great weekend. We enjoy being missionaries. 

Timothy family visit

We were blessed over the memorial day weekend to have another family visit us here in New York City.

My nephew Darren, his wife Becky, and their four children visited us this past weekend. 

I finally felt confident enough to drive the car in Manhattan, so we went on a driving tour of the city. We drove by the temple, around Central Park,and even through Times Square. We also drove by an aircraft carrier along the Hudson river and we also went past the one World Trade Center building. That is presently the tallest building in the Americas.

As we travel by subway train we always enjoy the entertainment in the subway stations. The time square and 42nd St. station is a particularly popular spot. On this we enjoyed the singing of Amish young people.

Later in the day we appreciated the music of a promising violinist.

One of the highlights of their visit was the opportunity to take in a Broadway musical, Les Miserables. We had wanted to see that play before the end of our mission, so their visit give us a good excuse to go on Saturday night.

The musical was performed in the Imperial Theatre, which I believe is about 100 years old.

It was a great production.

Housing found me of six in our small apartment is always tricky. But everyone was flexible and cooperative as we turned our kitchen into a bedroom each night.

The kids seem to have a lot of energy, and we hope they enjoyed their visit.

During this month of May we also had our last zone conference with President and sister Calderwood, who finish their mission at the end of June. Each of the 10 zones was invited on separate days to the Mission home for a zone conference. We were instructed by the president, his twi assistants and President and Sister Calderwoid's son who recently returned from his mission to Russia. 

The instruction was excellent. We have thoroughly enjoyed our time with young missionaries in the district and zone meetings. 

We enjoy singing and studying the gospel together. 

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.