Here's the Lucy Mack Smith
quote at the frame home which had such a profound effect on us this
morning as we came out of the Grove. This is for any of you who have to
leave home for a little while ....Carlee and Cade especially except
that you're not in your "old age!" And for Taylor who really is moving
away from home (for real TJ!! Living at Grandpa's and Grandma's is NOT
living away from home!) and for Zac who will soon go and for Jordon who
gets to start a new home (at Grandpa and Grandma's house hah!) and for
Connor and Cameron and J and Aaron who will be missionaries before we
know it and then Billie and Emma and Mason and Hannah and before we know
it, Grandpa and Grandma will be 80 and that will be awful!!!!
P.S.
Big kids (as in our kids) make sure the little kids (as in Jordon on
down) read this!! And anybody else else who may on some remote chance
read this and think you may wonder if you should serve a mission !)
Hugs!!!!!
"See what a comfortable home we have had here
and what pains every child that we have has taken to provide for us
everything necessary to make our old age comfortable, and long life
desirable....I now give this up for the sake of Christ and salvation and
I pray God to help me to do so without one murmur or a tear....I will
not cast one longing look upon anything which I leave behind me." -- Lucy Mack Smith
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Whew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi Everybody,
We're trying to decide whether or not to write this e-mail or go to bed (it's 7:02 p.m.)! We've had an insane week and even insaner (is that a word?) weekend. But it's all good and we were blessed to have the physical energy and good humor to do it all with a smile on our faces all (most?) of the time. How about that!! But first, it's almost time to come home for a few days for Jordon and Jen's wedding and we're excited about it all. We have to be careful not to be excited in front of the Elders though because they're missing out on important family events and can't come home. But as we said before President Wirthlin encouraged us to come. He and his wife are amazing people and the missionaries love them....and especially a cool picture of them at some function in their little fake sports car and sun glasses. The mission office is loosing their two office couples this summer....missions finished....and only have one couple coming to take their place....and they're busy nonstop as it is. So if you know of any old people who need a great experience............. My word, before we know it, Carlee and Cade will be missionaries too!! It blows our minds to think about it. If you know of anybody else who are "old" and want to serve in The Dakotas or Minnesota tell them to go! Or anywhere else. We love our young missionaries and they make us better people and motivate us to work harder.
Although we don't think we could work any harder than we have these last few days! Last week we visited Seminaries to promote Institute. That meant getting up at 4:00 a.m. so we could be on the road by 5:00 so we could be to the places we needed to be by 6:15 or 6:30. Then we'd come home and do our regular daily activities. Luckily we had our great Institute president go with us....Kristy Parkinson....who kept us awake and told us where to go when our GPA didn't know where IT was going. And who suggested we go out for breakfast after Seminary each morning!! We'll miss Kristy at the end of the summer as she is finished with her graduate degree here and on to bigger and better things. As an aside , we saw Kristie last as a little girl back when her brother, Dula, ran CC at MVHS with some of you. Tomorrow she's taking the YSA (and us by extension) on a cemetery tour for Memorial Day. We have old cemeteries here that have the graves of soldiers from the Revolutionary War resting next to some who've died recently in the Middle East....side by side. So this coming up week, we finish up our Seminary visits. These kids that go to early morning seminary are GREAT!! Although some of them don't wake up until half way through class. We had our Goth young man, Brian, come back to our Institute class in Owego and he was engaged in the lesson and participated and everybody was so kind to him and we sent him home (a homeless shelter I think) with all the left over treats. of which I make way too many. And this week we learned an awesome way to make s'mores. from the YSA. You take long skinny bread and slice it and toast one side and then put your toasted marshmallow on it with the chocolate square and a sliced strawberry. Delish!!!!
But the highlight of our week was the weekend. We spent it in Palmyra helping with a multi-region YSA Conference. What a wonderfully exhausting experience!! We went down (oops up) Friday morning so we could do a temple session at the beautiful Palmyra Temple. It's small but absolutely beautiful and overlooks the Sacred Grove. In fact, there's a special window as you walk passed the recommend desk in sort of a little alcove where the glass is clear and you can actually look out on the Grove. So we walked in and the first people we met were Dwayne and Dahnelle Smith! We had to stop and think for a second "wait! where are we?!" They've been there for a month serving a temple mission and it was so great to see faces from "home." We were asked to be the witness couple which was a special experience. Then after that we changed our clothes and started to WORK!! The Conference was held at the Church History sites there by the Temple and at the Stake Center near the temple and the Smith property and at Zion's Camp at Hill Cumorah. We along with two couples and three other sets of senior missionaries and the CES supervisors prepared and served food and cleaned up and chaperoned around 200 young people from the participating regions including a large group from Canada. It included an amazing 7:00 a.m. morning devotional in the Sacred Grove which is incredibly beautiful and green at this time of the year, workshops (which we didn't go to because we were doing food) a evening fireside, keynote speaker ( a man who teaches politicians and anybody else who needs his help how to communicate....and who also was a YSA branch president and a bishop in the ward in Washington who had Senator Reid and Orrin Hatch at the same time!) which we did go to, a talent show, service projects, a dance(which we helped chaperone and finished cleaning up after at nearly 1:00 a.m.) and this morning a 2 hour sacrament meeting where the mission president of the Rochester Mission spoke and some of the young adults gave testimonies. There was some free time too and we spent most of it just walking around the Sacred Grove and at Hill Cumorah. We wished you all could have been there with us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then on the way home, we stopped at the Peter Whitmer farm and had a wonderful tour by a Sister Missionary who was sooo good and who we discovered,at the end of our tour, is Mike and Rebecca Pinegar's niece. It's always a small world in the Church. The other CES coordinator is Brother Gammon....a nephew of the Gammons in Vineyard and a grandchild of the Rowleys in Orem. While in Palmyra we stayed at a wonderful little place called the Palmyra Inn which is within walking distance of the Grove and the Stake Center and the Temple and the Smith Family farm sites. So....we booked a night in July to stay there the night we go to the Hill Cumorah Pageant. So.....everybody decide when you want to come next summer and see the Pageant and we'll get a couple of family suites and stay over night and see all the other sites (Smile! We'll take whoever we can get!). They start taking reservations on February 1st of next year.
So....we're home now and Dad's asleep on the couch! We're thinking that this is the last week of school and everybody is doing the last programs and concerts and we'll miss graduation and dang!! But when we were in Palmyra we walked early this morning (had the Grove to ourselves) and as we came out you walk up to the Smith farm house and you look at this wonderful 2 story frame home that Alvin Smith built for his parents and brothers and sisters so they could move out of the little teeny tiny cabin they'd been living in and then read that they only got to live in the house for a few months and then they lost the farm and had to move back to the little cabin and there's a plaque explaining all this and then a quote from Lucy Mack Smith which I have to find it so we can tell you the exact wording where she says that she just doesn't look back....and we know we're where Heavenly Father wants us to be at this time in our lives. We love you all and are so glad that you're making such good choices that will let us be together forever and ever!!
XO Dad and Mom/Grandpa and Grandma
P.S. We'll send pictures of the Grove
We're trying to decide whether or not to write this e-mail or go to bed (it's 7:02 p.m.)! We've had an insane week and even insaner (is that a word?) weekend. But it's all good and we were blessed to have the physical energy and good humor to do it all with a smile on our faces all (most?) of the time. How about that!! But first, it's almost time to come home for a few days for Jordon and Jen's wedding and we're excited about it all. We have to be careful not to be excited in front of the Elders though because they're missing out on important family events and can't come home. But as we said before President Wirthlin encouraged us to come. He and his wife are amazing people and the missionaries love them....and especially a cool picture of them at some function in their little fake sports car and sun glasses. The mission office is loosing their two office couples this summer....missions finished....and only have one couple coming to take their place....and they're busy nonstop as it is. So if you know of any old people who need a great experience............. My word, before we know it, Carlee and Cade will be missionaries too!! It blows our minds to think about it. If you know of anybody else who are "old" and want to serve in The Dakotas or Minnesota tell them to go! Or anywhere else. We love our young missionaries and they make us better people and motivate us to work harder.
Although we don't think we could work any harder than we have these last few days! Last week we visited Seminaries to promote Institute. That meant getting up at 4:00 a.m. so we could be on the road by 5:00 so we could be to the places we needed to be by 6:15 or 6:30. Then we'd come home and do our regular daily activities. Luckily we had our great Institute president go with us....Kristy Parkinson....who kept us awake and told us where to go when our GPA didn't know where IT was going. And who suggested we go out for breakfast after Seminary each morning!! We'll miss Kristy at the end of the summer as she is finished with her graduate degree here and on to bigger and better things. As an aside , we saw Kristie last as a little girl back when her brother, Dula, ran CC at MVHS with some of you. Tomorrow she's taking the YSA (and us by extension) on a cemetery tour for Memorial Day. We have old cemeteries here that have the graves of soldiers from the Revolutionary War resting next to some who've died recently in the Middle East....side by side. So this coming up week, we finish up our Seminary visits. These kids that go to early morning seminary are GREAT!! Although some of them don't wake up until half way through class. We had our Goth young man, Brian, come back to our Institute class in Owego and he was engaged in the lesson and participated and everybody was so kind to him and we sent him home (a homeless shelter I think) with all the left over treats. of which I make way too many. And this week we learned an awesome way to make s'mores. from the YSA. You take long skinny bread and slice it and toast one side and then put your toasted marshmallow on it with the chocolate square and a sliced strawberry. Delish!!!!
But the highlight of our week was the weekend. We spent it in Palmyra helping with a multi-region YSA Conference. What a wonderfully exhausting experience!! We went down (oops up) Friday morning so we could do a temple session at the beautiful Palmyra Temple. It's small but absolutely beautiful and overlooks the Sacred Grove. In fact, there's a special window as you walk passed the recommend desk in sort of a little alcove where the glass is clear and you can actually look out on the Grove. So we walked in and the first people we met were Dwayne and Dahnelle Smith! We had to stop and think for a second "wait! where are we?!" They've been there for a month serving a temple mission and it was so great to see faces from "home." We were asked to be the witness couple which was a special experience. Then after that we changed our clothes and started to WORK!! The Conference was held at the Church History sites there by the Temple and at the Stake Center near the temple and the Smith property and at Zion's Camp at Hill Cumorah. We along with two couples and three other sets of senior missionaries and the CES supervisors prepared and served food and cleaned up and chaperoned around 200 young people from the participating regions including a large group from Canada. It included an amazing 7:00 a.m. morning devotional in the Sacred Grove which is incredibly beautiful and green at this time of the year, workshops (which we didn't go to because we were doing food) a evening fireside, keynote speaker ( a man who teaches politicians and anybody else who needs his help how to communicate....and who also was a YSA branch president and a bishop in the ward in Washington who had Senator Reid and Orrin Hatch at the same time!) which we did go to, a talent show, service projects, a dance(which we helped chaperone and finished cleaning up after at nearly 1:00 a.m.) and this morning a 2 hour sacrament meeting where the mission president of the Rochester Mission spoke and some of the young adults gave testimonies. There was some free time too and we spent most of it just walking around the Sacred Grove and at Hill Cumorah. We wished you all could have been there with us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then on the way home, we stopped at the Peter Whitmer farm and had a wonderful tour by a Sister Missionary who was sooo good and who we discovered,at the end of our tour, is Mike and Rebecca Pinegar's niece. It's always a small world in the Church. The other CES coordinator is Brother Gammon....a nephew of the Gammons in Vineyard and a grandchild of the Rowleys in Orem. While in Palmyra we stayed at a wonderful little place called the Palmyra Inn which is within walking distance of the Grove and the Stake Center and the Temple and the Smith Family farm sites. So....we booked a night in July to stay there the night we go to the Hill Cumorah Pageant. So.....everybody decide when you want to come next summer and see the Pageant and we'll get a couple of family suites and stay over night and see all the other sites (Smile! We'll take whoever we can get!). They start taking reservations on February 1st of next year.
So....we're home now and Dad's asleep on the couch! We're thinking that this is the last week of school and everybody is doing the last programs and concerts and we'll miss graduation and dang!! But when we were in Palmyra we walked early this morning (had the Grove to ourselves) and as we came out you walk up to the Smith farm house and you look at this wonderful 2 story frame home that Alvin Smith built for his parents and brothers and sisters so they could move out of the little teeny tiny cabin they'd been living in and then read that they only got to live in the house for a few months and then they lost the farm and had to move back to the little cabin and there's a plaque explaining all this and then a quote from Lucy Mack Smith which I have to find it so we can tell you the exact wording where she says that she just doesn't look back....and we know we're where Heavenly Father wants us to be at this time in our lives. We love you all and are so glad that you're making such good choices that will let us be together forever and ever!!
XO Dad and Mom/Grandpa and Grandma
P.S. We'll send pictures of the Grove
Sunday, May 18, 2014
A Quiet Sunday Afternoon
Hello Everybody,
So this quiet Sunday afternoon began by trying to get Dad on Facebook. He wants to have Facebook be so that only the notifications come up that he wants to read and not anything else. Hah! So here's a question. Since all the Brethren are on Facebook is everything they say the mind and will of the Lord? Just wondering. My second wondering is if they have a Facebook secretary? We're going to dinner tonight at one of Dad's old student's homes. He was an undergraduate at BYU many years ago (yes many) and is now on the faculty at Cornell. It's nice to go somewhere to eat when I don't have to do the cooking!
We love the pictures and the e-mails and snail mails that come our way! We promise to write Cade and Carlee EVERY WEEK while they're on their missions!! Something usually comes on a day that we're feeling sorry for ourselves because we're missing concerts and games and track meets and dance recitals and especially the temple and anything and everything else that's happening and will happen while we're gone. Just one thing about the weather and then we won't give you any more weather reports in these e-mails. Wednesday we had 87 degree temperatures and Friday night we had to turn on the furnace! We had an amazing storm that dumped more rain than we've seen at one time since our Iowa days when the window wells filled up and water ran in the house. We had our own waterfall right in front of our bedroom window. The rain gutter was either plugged or unattached and it was literally a waterfall....a big waterfall. But boy is it green here....so green we almost have to wear our sunglasses.
For not supposing to be a busy week, it was a busy week. Monday night the YSA crammed into our little apartment to watch Elder Ballard's CES talk. It was great and we cooked and they ate 80 scones!! We're killing the healthy eating lifestyles of these kids! The last one of these great young single adults went home at 12:45 a.m.!! All of our undergraduates have left for the summer and we'll miss them. They're good kids. We also had training this week with our CES supervisor and all the seminary teachers in our stake which happens once a month. They're preparing for Seminary graduation which will unfortunately take place while we're back in Utah for Jordon's wedding. Bet you can't guess which one we'd rather go to! But we're going to visit all the early morning seminary classes these next 2 weeks and put in a plug for Institute wherever the high school seniors will be (Several are going to BYU). With the exception of the Seminary right here in Ithaca, the rest of them are an hour or longer away and they start at 6:30 a.m. so we'll have some very early mornings. Ugh!! We said goodbye to 2 missionaries finishing their missions and 2 getting transferred and that was hard. They're great young men. The area in Owego will only have 2 sisters now because there aren't enough missionaries so one of their areas had to be temporarily closed. Will be glad when the numbers come up again. We got a brand new fresh from the MTC missionary and he's awesome and awesomely homesick but he knows he's out doing the Lord's work and so he works on.. He'll get to be part of the 4 baptisms coming up from this area in just a few weeks. Dad's gone out with the Elders a few times but I don't go because it would be too many people to overwhelm the teachee. Darn! Then the one time I was invited along the woman cancelled just as we were getting to her home so that was a little disappointing. The ideal is for the ward or branch members to go with the missionaries so people will have a friend that's going to be around for awhile. We did spend some time this week doing the bulletin boards in the office and at the Church. That was fun and I had a valid excuse to go to Hobby Lobby again! One of the highlights of the week was helping with and attending a pasta dinner sponsored by the Congregational Church but held at our building to raise money for the Feed My Children initiative. We had just sat down to eat and a nice couple about our age came to sit by us. We visited during the meal about our families and where we all lived and liked to do and then the man happened to mention that he had been to BYU several times as a consultant to the group that fund raises for the University. So we discovered that this modest, unassuming man was a retired big shot from Cornell who has traveled all over teaching universities the best way to get the wealthy to cough up the big bucks for the schools. He knew Bruce Snow who was the director of BYU and the Church's Philanthropy Office....and who I went to elementary school with and Dad played basketball against in high school. Anyway as we were leaving the dinner, he asked to exchange business cards and he gave us his card and Dad couldn't find the ones he usually carries in his wallet and all he had to write on was a pass-along-card so he wrote his info on that card.....wasn't by design but maybe by divine providence??
Well....this is short this week. We think of all sorts of things we want to tell you during the week and then they leave our old brains by the time Sunday comes and this is one of those days. Maybe we'll tack on a PS tonight or something.
Love and XOXOXOXOXO Dad, Mom, Grandpa, Grandma, ect.
So this quiet Sunday afternoon began by trying to get Dad on Facebook. He wants to have Facebook be so that only the notifications come up that he wants to read and not anything else. Hah! So here's a question. Since all the Brethren are on Facebook is everything they say the mind and will of the Lord? Just wondering. My second wondering is if they have a Facebook secretary? We're going to dinner tonight at one of Dad's old student's homes. He was an undergraduate at BYU many years ago (yes many) and is now on the faculty at Cornell. It's nice to go somewhere to eat when I don't have to do the cooking!
We love the pictures and the e-mails and snail mails that come our way! We promise to write Cade and Carlee EVERY WEEK while they're on their missions!! Something usually comes on a day that we're feeling sorry for ourselves because we're missing concerts and games and track meets and dance recitals and especially the temple and anything and everything else that's happening and will happen while we're gone. Just one thing about the weather and then we won't give you any more weather reports in these e-mails. Wednesday we had 87 degree temperatures and Friday night we had to turn on the furnace! We had an amazing storm that dumped more rain than we've seen at one time since our Iowa days when the window wells filled up and water ran in the house. We had our own waterfall right in front of our bedroom window. The rain gutter was either plugged or unattached and it was literally a waterfall....a big waterfall. But boy is it green here....so green we almost have to wear our sunglasses.
For not supposing to be a busy week, it was a busy week. Monday night the YSA crammed into our little apartment to watch Elder Ballard's CES talk. It was great and we cooked and they ate 80 scones!! We're killing the healthy eating lifestyles of these kids! The last one of these great young single adults went home at 12:45 a.m.!! All of our undergraduates have left for the summer and we'll miss them. They're good kids. We also had training this week with our CES supervisor and all the seminary teachers in our stake which happens once a month. They're preparing for Seminary graduation which will unfortunately take place while we're back in Utah for Jordon's wedding. Bet you can't guess which one we'd rather go to! But we're going to visit all the early morning seminary classes these next 2 weeks and put in a plug for Institute wherever the high school seniors will be (Several are going to BYU). With the exception of the Seminary right here in Ithaca, the rest of them are an hour or longer away and they start at 6:30 a.m. so we'll have some very early mornings. Ugh!! We said goodbye to 2 missionaries finishing their missions and 2 getting transferred and that was hard. They're great young men. The area in Owego will only have 2 sisters now because there aren't enough missionaries so one of their areas had to be temporarily closed. Will be glad when the numbers come up again. We got a brand new fresh from the MTC missionary and he's awesome and awesomely homesick but he knows he's out doing the Lord's work and so he works on.. He'll get to be part of the 4 baptisms coming up from this area in just a few weeks. Dad's gone out with the Elders a few times but I don't go because it would be too many people to overwhelm the teachee. Darn! Then the one time I was invited along the woman cancelled just as we were getting to her home so that was a little disappointing. The ideal is for the ward or branch members to go with the missionaries so people will have a friend that's going to be around for awhile. We did spend some time this week doing the bulletin boards in the office and at the Church. That was fun and I had a valid excuse to go to Hobby Lobby again! One of the highlights of the week was helping with and attending a pasta dinner sponsored by the Congregational Church but held at our building to raise money for the Feed My Children initiative. We had just sat down to eat and a nice couple about our age came to sit by us. We visited during the meal about our families and where we all lived and liked to do and then the man happened to mention that he had been to BYU several times as a consultant to the group that fund raises for the University. So we discovered that this modest, unassuming man was a retired big shot from Cornell who has traveled all over teaching universities the best way to get the wealthy to cough up the big bucks for the schools. He knew Bruce Snow who was the director of BYU and the Church's Philanthropy Office....and who I went to elementary school with and Dad played basketball against in high school. Anyway as we were leaving the dinner, he asked to exchange business cards and he gave us his card and Dad couldn't find the ones he usually carries in his wallet and all he had to write on was a pass-along-card so he wrote his info on that card.....wasn't by design but maybe by divine providence??
Well....this is short this week. We think of all sorts of things we want to tell you during the week and then they leave our old brains by the time Sunday comes and this is one of those days. Maybe we'll tack on a PS tonight or something.
Love and XOXOXOXOXO Dad, Mom, Grandpa, Grandma, ect.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Happy Mothers Day!
Hello Everybody...
It was really strange today to not be sitting on the sofa watching Dad and all the boys make Mother's Day dinner.....but I have to say that he does a great job with Friday Forum leftovers! We've been picking up a woman and her young adult son for Church the last few weeks since we've been here and when we gave her a little mother's day gift this morning she was sooooo appreciative. This is the woman who works washing dishes in a food place 70-80 hours a week with no overtime, We think it's probably because she's illegal and the business is totally taking advantage of her. She's an awesome mother and they're up and ready for Church by 8:30 when we come to get them. Out here the times for the ward and the branch will flip flop on June 1 and they'll start going to the ward (which is where they live anyway) and someone else will start driving them so we'll miss them a lot and need to stay in touch with them. Anyway.....mother's day was good and we're loving our Moms who are watching over us and for Grandma Pat and for all of you women in our family who should still just be raising babies and not teenagers.
Spring has finally come to Ithaca unlike Idaho which sounds like it had a blast of winter yesterday. You know who told us about that? Our waiter when we went to dinner in Applebees last night! He knew more about Idaho than we did. Now that it's getting really green here it makes us realize how much we live in a desert in the west. But we had a pretty awesome thunderstorm last week in the middle of the night. And we were just drawing to a close of our YSA bonfire Friday night when it started raining too. Enough of the weather. We had a really great experience last week at the inter-faith round-table at Cornell. Several faith groups were represented and Dad and I split up and were at separate tables with some of our young adults and other young people from the Hindu faith and the Baha-i faith and one a non-denominational Christian and the American Orthodox Church. It was so interesting to tell each other about what we believed and find that we have much more in common than we have that is different, They're all such good young people from all these faiths and I just wanted to tell them that they could find the answers they're looking for to their questions if they would talk to the missionaries.....but I didn't. But one of the young adults on Dad's table told them about the Book of Mormon and they wanted to see it so Dad ran upstairs to the office and brought down some copies and one of the girls actually kept one. I wonder if she'll read it. Today at Church the missionaries brought a young man who has been to Church a couple of times with the missionaries and his sister and father. They all 3 really liked our little branch which always has 75% of the congregation come in late but are so warm and friendly and loving. The sister is a student at Harvard Diviinity School. We also had our last meeting with the Cornell United Religious Work people until this fall. Things really close down here in the summer but we met a couple of new people there who we had a great conversation with.....one of the assistant directors of the Jewish Youth group and the pastor for the Korean Church on campus whose wife's best friend is married to a Mormon. This week coming up is transfer week in the mission and we're glad we don't have to go through the stress of that. We're loosing 2 of our missionaries.....one whose mission has finished and one who is going to another place. It's interesting how attached to these missionaries we get just after 6 weeks. Institute went well in both places.....I love our Owego Institute and we're now getting some more young adults. We had a really interesting young man show up last week there. He is Goth through and through.....black nail polish and eye sockets completely blacked out and black hair and clothes and he brought his "writings" which were so dark. But he reached out to the Church and the Sister Missionaries talked him into coming to Institute and he seemed to like it so we'll see if he comes next week. Heavenly Father and Jesus love him no matter what he looks like! Our Cornell Institute will shrink for the summer as some of the students will go home and come back in the fall. Anabel Taylor Hall closes at 5:00 at night so we'll have summer institute at the Church and will be teaching The Gospel and the Productive Life which we're pretty excited about. The kids are coming over tomorrow night for FHE and scones and to watch the CES Devotional that was last week. In all of the talks we've heard Elder Ballard give, that was one of the best! Everybody but especially the teenagers and young adults need to see it......can be accessed on lds.org....if you haven't.
This week we're starting the "finding" since we'll have a little more time. I suspect we'll be knocking on unanswered doors a lot of the time....that's the hard thing about having our nights pretty full. But we'll see what we can do with technology to make it all work.
Some un-missionary things we've learned this week:
1. We need to become birdwatchers.....probably 90% of the people we meet when we walk at Sapsucker Woods have binoculars around their necks. We actually looked at a pair in Dick's Sporting Goods yesterday but the anticipated use probably doesn't justify the cost. Some of these wonderful "birders" look like they just stepped out of a 1950's movie.
2. In regards to the e-mail we forwarded you about Slope Day.....it was all that and then some. One of our YSA had to help make sure everybody stayed hydrated as part of an assignment for the Ecology house she lives in and she said it was REALLY bad. Many were drunk before they even got to the "festivities."
3. It costs twice as much to wash clothes at the laundromat when you put the quarters in the dryer that has somebody else's clothes in it! I miss my washer and dryer!!
4. 27 people at Friday Forum lunch have no problem eating 72 chocolate chip cookies!
5..Missionaries will eat anything! And they're so grateful for whatever it is.
We love you all! We're happy to be on a mission....we're happy to be members of the Church....we're happy to be in New York....we're happy the sun is shining.....we're happy for face time....we're happy our friendly squirrel is back (he's becoming my new best friend)....we're happy you're happy and good and school is almost out for you and that Carlee and Taylor haven't burned down the house yet!! And we're happy that we're senior missionaries and can check facebook in a free minute or two and look up soccer scores and track times on the internet and that pictures can be sent on our phones and that we can actually figure out how to send them back. We know we're doing Heavenly Father's work because He loves His children and we need to help them know that.
XOXOXOXOXOXO Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma etc etc.
It was really strange today to not be sitting on the sofa watching Dad and all the boys make Mother's Day dinner.....but I have to say that he does a great job with Friday Forum leftovers! We've been picking up a woman and her young adult son for Church the last few weeks since we've been here and when we gave her a little mother's day gift this morning she was sooooo appreciative. This is the woman who works washing dishes in a food place 70-80 hours a week with no overtime, We think it's probably because she's illegal and the business is totally taking advantage of her. She's an awesome mother and they're up and ready for Church by 8:30 when we come to get them. Out here the times for the ward and the branch will flip flop on June 1 and they'll start going to the ward (which is where they live anyway) and someone else will start driving them so we'll miss them a lot and need to stay in touch with them. Anyway.....mother's day was good and we're loving our Moms who are watching over us and for Grandma Pat and for all of you women in our family who should still just be raising babies and not teenagers.
Spring has finally come to Ithaca unlike Idaho which sounds like it had a blast of winter yesterday. You know who told us about that? Our waiter when we went to dinner in Applebees last night! He knew more about Idaho than we did. Now that it's getting really green here it makes us realize how much we live in a desert in the west. But we had a pretty awesome thunderstorm last week in the middle of the night. And we were just drawing to a close of our YSA bonfire Friday night when it started raining too. Enough of the weather. We had a really great experience last week at the inter-faith round-table at Cornell. Several faith groups were represented and Dad and I split up and were at separate tables with some of our young adults and other young people from the Hindu faith and the Baha-i faith and one a non-denominational Christian and the American Orthodox Church. It was so interesting to tell each other about what we believed and find that we have much more in common than we have that is different, They're all such good young people from all these faiths and I just wanted to tell them that they could find the answers they're looking for to their questions if they would talk to the missionaries.....but I didn't. But one of the young adults on Dad's table told them about the Book of Mormon and they wanted to see it so Dad ran upstairs to the office and brought down some copies and one of the girls actually kept one. I wonder if she'll read it. Today at Church the missionaries brought a young man who has been to Church a couple of times with the missionaries and his sister and father. They all 3 really liked our little branch which always has 75% of the congregation come in late but are so warm and friendly and loving. The sister is a student at Harvard Diviinity School. We also had our last meeting with the Cornell United Religious Work people until this fall. Things really close down here in the summer but we met a couple of new people there who we had a great conversation with.....one of the assistant directors of the Jewish Youth group and the pastor for the Korean Church on campus whose wife's best friend is married to a Mormon. This week coming up is transfer week in the mission and we're glad we don't have to go through the stress of that. We're loosing 2 of our missionaries.....one whose mission has finished and one who is going to another place. It's interesting how attached to these missionaries we get just after 6 weeks. Institute went well in both places.....I love our Owego Institute and we're now getting some more young adults. We had a really interesting young man show up last week there. He is Goth through and through.....black nail polish and eye sockets completely blacked out and black hair and clothes and he brought his "writings" which were so dark. But he reached out to the Church and the Sister Missionaries talked him into coming to Institute and he seemed to like it so we'll see if he comes next week. Heavenly Father and Jesus love him no matter what he looks like! Our Cornell Institute will shrink for the summer as some of the students will go home and come back in the fall. Anabel Taylor Hall closes at 5:00 at night so we'll have summer institute at the Church and will be teaching The Gospel and the Productive Life which we're pretty excited about. The kids are coming over tomorrow night for FHE and scones and to watch the CES Devotional that was last week. In all of the talks we've heard Elder Ballard give, that was one of the best! Everybody but especially the teenagers and young adults need to see it......can be accessed on lds.org....if you haven't.
This week we're starting the "finding" since we'll have a little more time. I suspect we'll be knocking on unanswered doors a lot of the time....that's the hard thing about having our nights pretty full. But we'll see what we can do with technology to make it all work.
Some un-missionary things we've learned this week:
1. We need to become birdwatchers.....probably 90% of the people we meet when we walk at Sapsucker Woods have binoculars around their necks. We actually looked at a pair in Dick's Sporting Goods yesterday but the anticipated use probably doesn't justify the cost. Some of these wonderful "birders" look like they just stepped out of a 1950's movie.
2. In regards to the e-mail we forwarded you about Slope Day.....it was all that and then some. One of our YSA had to help make sure everybody stayed hydrated as part of an assignment for the Ecology house she lives in and she said it was REALLY bad. Many were drunk before they even got to the "festivities."
3. It costs twice as much to wash clothes at the laundromat when you put the quarters in the dryer that has somebody else's clothes in it! I miss my washer and dryer!!
4. 27 people at Friday Forum lunch have no problem eating 72 chocolate chip cookies!
5..Missionaries will eat anything! And they're so grateful for whatever it is.
We love you all! We're happy to be on a mission....we're happy to be members of the Church....we're happy to be in New York....we're happy the sun is shining.....we're happy for face time....we're happy our friendly squirrel is back (he's becoming my new best friend)....we're happy you're happy and good and school is almost out for you and that Carlee and Taylor haven't burned down the house yet!! And we're happy that we're senior missionaries and can check facebook in a free minute or two and look up soccer scores and track times on the internet and that pictures can be sent on our phones and that we can actually figure out how to send them back. We know we're doing Heavenly Father's work because He loves His children and we need to help them know that.
XOXOXOXOXOXO Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma etc etc.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Happy May!
Hello Everybody,
It doesn't look like May here, it doesn't feel like May here,but the calendar tells us it is. We're missing our sit-outside-at-soccer game-track-meet tans! Honestly, we hate to start this e-mail with complaining about the weather here....so we won't. But the interesting thing about being on the Cornell campus is that when the temperature hits 50 degrees (even if there's a 40 mile an hour wind) the kids all break out the shorts and tank tops. It must all be relative when you've had a winter where most of the days are minus degrees. School ends here at the University in a couple of weeks and then our lives won't be quite so crazy because we won't have quite so many scheduled activities. We'll still have Institute but it will be moved to the Church for the summer months. In fact our Branch will become a "twig" for the summer. All of the underclassmen go home to work (or play) and some of the graduate students will be headed off to internships for the summer and back in the fall. Several strong members are graduating and leaving and so if you know of anybody who knows of anybody who is coming or thinking of coming to Cornell, let us know. We want to nab them as soon as they get to Ithaca. Our branch is composed of young adults, either single or married, that don't have kids or have kids under sunbeam age (then the ward gets them because we don't have primary). There's a great atmosphere in the Branch even though we're pretty small. Family home evening this last week was a "flour fight." The YSA's make little balls out of old nylons and flour and then throw them at each other. Even us old guys got pretty hammered and should have taken a picture but didn't. It was pretty cool. Dad went out teaching with the missionaries one morning this week and he says they're good. I didn't go (overkill) and there was too much to do here to get things ready for the food for Friday forum. If anybody has any ideas of things that are cheap and easy to fix for a crowd and that can be transported from our house to the campus without getting cold and that can be stretched if 20 extra people show up and (as of last week) can accommodate the dietary restrictions of vegetarians, let me know. PLEASE!!!!!! Dad is also going to be serving this next 12 months on the Chaplains Council. This is with the group we meet with on Wednesdays....the interfaith group on campus....and they have like an executive committee of 6 members who kind of steer the activities of the group which he'll be part of. We discovered something that says that the LDS Church was one of the original members of this group dating back to the 1930's. Don't know what our presence has been since then. It's interesting that we're a body of religious members and don't start any of our meetings with a prayer so after a while he might suggest that we add prayer to our agenda. Maybe when we get brave! They're such a good group of men and women who care for and work hard with with the young students with their faith groups. Tonight we're going to an interfaith round-table discussion where the students will gather in groups and learn about what each other believes. We just get to go to it and the LDS students do all the work as far as what is presented. Unfortunately it's at the same time as CES Fireside but we've been counseled to support the interfaith roundtable and show Elder Ballard next week (which of course includes food.....yikes I'm feeling like the food nanny these days).
New paragraph! So I was really missing being home because it was BYU Women's Conference week and I wasn't there. But the Owego Stake which we're part of had a women's conference on Saturday and it was AWESOME. Our keynote speaker was one of our Owego institute members (former counselor in the stake pres.) and he had a wonderful analogy with a "shofer" horn and the idea that it takes time to polish us in our conversions. I went to 3 classes, one by the counselor in the Palmyra Temple Presidency and his wife, another on the scriptures by a convert to the Church, and another by our CES supervisor on the temple in Christ's time and how it compares in physicality and doctrine to our temples and the plan of salvation and to the women of the Church. Dad stayed home and cleaned house and scrubbed floors, etc. etc.....Nice!! On Memorial Day weekend, Brother Baker, our CES supervisor, has invited us to come and help with a 3 day activity over the Memorial Day weekend called Gathering in the Grove. It's a big Conference sponsored by the Rochester YSA;s and will take place mostly around and in the Sacred Grove. Our job with the other senior missionaries will be mostly grunt work but we'll still get to feel the spirit of the conference. We're hosting one here in March of next year and our keynote speakers will be Terrell and Fiona Givens (The God Who Weeps). We're hoping to include the general Cornell community in some of the activities. I shouldn't say "we." The young people do all the work and we just do what they ask/tell us to do. Our Chinese family came to eat with us last night....a real American meal of fried chicken, potatoes and gravy, corn, jello, and rolls which they loved every bit of it. The one thing they weren't too hot on was the ice cream and chocolate chip cookies for dessert (too sweet), but their little girl loved that part and the Tom and Jerry cartoons on our DVD player the best. This family needs to be members of the Church but they just don't know it yet. We've got a year left with them before the dad finishes his post-doc and they move back to China so we'll see what happens. Our one group of Elders had 5 investigators at Church today which was amazing. Three are scheduled for baptism in July.
Well, you'll appreciate this short e-mail this week. Anyway, it feels short to us. We'll stop with a thought on missionary work from the book "The Power of Everyday Missionaries."
"We succeed as member missionaries when we invite people to learn and accept the truth even if they use their agency to say no. "
If that's true, we can all be successful member missionaries.....just have to open our mouths.
Love you all.....we Love, Love, Love the e-mails and the pictures on Facebook and on our phones and so missing Mason's baptism wasn't quite so hard as it could have been....but it was still hard. But we know we're doing Heavenly Father's work (even Cooking Every Second).
XOXOXOXO Dad and Mom, etc, etc, etc.
It doesn't look like May here, it doesn't feel like May here,but the calendar tells us it is. We're missing our sit-outside-at-soccer game-track-meet tans! Honestly, we hate to start this e-mail with complaining about the weather here....so we won't. But the interesting thing about being on the Cornell campus is that when the temperature hits 50 degrees (even if there's a 40 mile an hour wind) the kids all break out the shorts and tank tops. It must all be relative when you've had a winter where most of the days are minus degrees. School ends here at the University in a couple of weeks and then our lives won't be quite so crazy because we won't have quite so many scheduled activities. We'll still have Institute but it will be moved to the Church for the summer months. In fact our Branch will become a "twig" for the summer. All of the underclassmen go home to work (or play) and some of the graduate students will be headed off to internships for the summer and back in the fall. Several strong members are graduating and leaving and so if you know of anybody who knows of anybody who is coming or thinking of coming to Cornell, let us know. We want to nab them as soon as they get to Ithaca. Our branch is composed of young adults, either single or married, that don't have kids or have kids under sunbeam age (then the ward gets them because we don't have primary). There's a great atmosphere in the Branch even though we're pretty small. Family home evening this last week was a "flour fight." The YSA's make little balls out of old nylons and flour and then throw them at each other. Even us old guys got pretty hammered and should have taken a picture but didn't. It was pretty cool. Dad went out teaching with the missionaries one morning this week and he says they're good. I didn't go (overkill) and there was too much to do here to get things ready for the food for Friday forum. If anybody has any ideas of things that are cheap and easy to fix for a crowd and that can be transported from our house to the campus without getting cold and that can be stretched if 20 extra people show up and (as of last week) can accommodate the dietary restrictions of vegetarians, let me know. PLEASE!!!!!! Dad is also going to be serving this next 12 months on the Chaplains Council. This is with the group we meet with on Wednesdays....the interfaith group on campus....and they have like an executive committee of 6 members who kind of steer the activities of the group which he'll be part of. We discovered something that says that the LDS Church was one of the original members of this group dating back to the 1930's. Don't know what our presence has been since then. It's interesting that we're a body of religious members and don't start any of our meetings with a prayer so after a while he might suggest that we add prayer to our agenda. Maybe when we get brave! They're such a good group of men and women who care for and work hard with with the young students with their faith groups. Tonight we're going to an interfaith round-table discussion where the students will gather in groups and learn about what each other believes. We just get to go to it and the LDS students do all the work as far as what is presented. Unfortunately it's at the same time as CES Fireside but we've been counseled to support the interfaith roundtable and show Elder Ballard next week (which of course includes food.....yikes I'm feeling like the food nanny these days).
New paragraph! So I was really missing being home because it was BYU Women's Conference week and I wasn't there. But the Owego Stake which we're part of had a women's conference on Saturday and it was AWESOME. Our keynote speaker was one of our Owego institute members (former counselor in the stake pres.) and he had a wonderful analogy with a "shofer" horn and the idea that it takes time to polish us in our conversions. I went to 3 classes, one by the counselor in the Palmyra Temple Presidency and his wife, another on the scriptures by a convert to the Church, and another by our CES supervisor on the temple in Christ's time and how it compares in physicality and doctrine to our temples and the plan of salvation and to the women of the Church. Dad stayed home and cleaned house and scrubbed floors, etc. etc.....Nice!! On Memorial Day weekend, Brother Baker, our CES supervisor, has invited us to come and help with a 3 day activity over the Memorial Day weekend called Gathering in the Grove. It's a big Conference sponsored by the Rochester YSA;s and will take place mostly around and in the Sacred Grove. Our job with the other senior missionaries will be mostly grunt work but we'll still get to feel the spirit of the conference. We're hosting one here in March of next year and our keynote speakers will be Terrell and Fiona Givens (The God Who Weeps). We're hoping to include the general Cornell community in some of the activities. I shouldn't say "we." The young people do all the work and we just do what they ask/tell us to do. Our Chinese family came to eat with us last night....a real American meal of fried chicken, potatoes and gravy, corn, jello, and rolls which they loved every bit of it. The one thing they weren't too hot on was the ice cream and chocolate chip cookies for dessert (too sweet), but their little girl loved that part and the Tom and Jerry cartoons on our DVD player the best. This family needs to be members of the Church but they just don't know it yet. We've got a year left with them before the dad finishes his post-doc and they move back to China so we'll see what happens. Our one group of Elders had 5 investigators at Church today which was amazing. Three are scheduled for baptism in July.
Well, you'll appreciate this short e-mail this week. Anyway, it feels short to us. We'll stop with a thought on missionary work from the book "The Power of Everyday Missionaries."
"We succeed as member missionaries when we invite people to learn and accept the truth even if they use their agency to say no. "
If that's true, we can all be successful member missionaries.....just have to open our mouths.
Love you all.....we Love, Love, Love the e-mails and the pictures on Facebook and on our phones and so missing Mason's baptism wasn't quite so hard as it could have been....but it was still hard. But we know we're doing Heavenly Father's work (even Cooking Every Second).
XOXOXOXO Dad and Mom, etc, etc, etc.
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