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.
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