Hi Everybody!
This
will be a Thanksgiving that will be more different than any we've had
since our Iowa days! We actually don't remember that long ago but we're
sure we survived being away from home and family. But wait! We're
headed out to NYC tomorrow afternoon to meet Jan and George and
Connor.....that is if we don't get hijacked on the way or get on the
wrong train and end up in who knows where. So.....we get to be with a
real live part of our family and we'll get the rest of you on the phone
at sometime during the day or the day after. So needless to say, we're
excited!! The missionaries here love Thanksgiving because they usually
end up going to more than one dinner.....that sounds a little filling!
The branch and the ward are so good to make sure everybody has somewhere
to be and we're glad we get to be in NYC. We're hoping for a good day
for Sister Jacklin and Elder Jolley....and that they don't get
transferred the day before....but that may happen and then it's off to
new adventures. We like the life of senior missionaries!!!
So this week has been a whirlwind of a ton of different kinds of activities:
1. Our car has been in the shop for 2 days and so the young elders and
sisters hauled us around! What goes around comes around.....and we
were so appreciative of their willingness to help. It was nothing
serious....well, nothing that couldn't be fixed for some major bucks,
and we were thrilled when the mechanic said it was good for another
hundred thousand miles. Yay Toyota!!
2. Family Home Evening (HEG as it is affectionately called here) was
something called human fusbal. It consists of standing in your spot on
the gym floor and having someone kick the ball at you as hard as they
can. They let us be the "mechanism" that puts the ball into play! And
they ate 72 chocolate chip cookies.....what would I do without frozen
cookie dough!
3. Elder Katcher, 2nd Quorum of the Seventy, visited our mission and
spent several hours with our missionaries in our zone and then a stake
wide fireside which was so good. It reminded us of the days when we
were at the MTC and how we loved it when the Apostles came but that also
some of the most memorable talks were from General Authorities that we
could hardly remember their names (or hardly had heard of them). And of
course it's always so uplifting to hear President and Sister Wirthlin
speak.
4. No Institute in Owego this week because it was the same time as
Elder Katcher's fireside and we missed seeing our class! But we were
glad to see some of them at the fireside and especially Grandma Bonnie
and her Granddaughter Keely who is going to be baptized on December
5th. Keely has asked Dad to baptize her (she's 20 years old) and I will
give the talk on the Holy Ghost. That will be an exciting event for
all of us. But we did have Institute at Cornell and we love teaching
3rd Nephi. These kids know so much! And their insights into Gospel
doctrines are profound...most of the time:). We sense a strengthening
of their testimonies and more of a willingness to trust in Heavenly
Father and His promises. We still worry about a lot of our Freshmen who
are afraid that if they miss a minute of studying they'll somehow not
pass their classes.....so they tend to fall out of Church activity.
That was a huge topic of discussion at our CURW (Cornell United
Religious Work) weekly meeting. So many of the faith groups on campus
are loosing their kids to even Sunday worship services because the
University puts so much pressure on them 7 days a week.
5. P.S. to Institute night. The YSA all went after class to the 10:00
p.m. showing of Mockingjay part 1 and since it's within the
"definition" of our calling and responsibilities, and they begged really
hard, we went with them....two old people out past their bedtime in a
sold out theatre of teenagers and young adults. It was a blast and the
movie was senior missionary appropriate.....and Dad didn't even fall
asleep once. It was a bit hard to get up the next morning but we did
anyway! We were wondering if we could use the 3 non-members and 1 less
active who came to the movie on our key indicators for reporting! Just
kidding!
6. Oh and we went to a Cornell men's basketball game this week because
one of our YSA is on the team. They are 3-0 and have already tripled
their wins from last year. With 5 minutes in the first half, "we" were
down by 20 or so points....I think all the team scored was 8 points in
the first 15 minutes. Then they went on a bit of a run and were only
down by 15 at the end of the half. Long story short, they kept plugging
away and ended up winning in the last 2 minutes by a couple of points.
We were glad for two reasons, first that Kyle is on the team and
second, when he got here this fall new off his mission and approached
the coach about not playing or practicing on Sunday, the coach respected
his desire to be true to his belief that the Sabbath is sacred, and
didn't tell him to go fly a kite. Kyle is a great example of wanting to
please God more than man (our institute topic this week).
7. The ending to the week was the best with a trip to the Palmyra
Temple where we took Angela and Jun (the two convert baptisms since
we've been here) to do baptisms again. Several other young adults went
and some did baptisms and some of us did endowments and then we all went
for pizza after and then home for a branch mission correlation
meeting. And we were glad that the roads were good all the way! We've
lucked out on weather here. It's been really cold and windy but only a
skiff of snow.....nothing like the Buffalo area. But everybody tells us
to just wait....our turn is coming!
So
that was our week and we're looking forward to a few days of not
Cooking Every Second. Oh my word! No cooking or washing dishes from
tomorrow to until Friday! Actually the work isn't that bad....it's the
deciding what to have and shopping and wondering if there will be enough
that's stressful. Good thing that is offset by studying the scriptures
for Institute and planning lessons....except for when Word eats 4 hours
worth of lesson plans. We've discovered we have ups and downs just
like the young missionaries! And.....everything is finally resolved
with our stolen credit card number from somebody in Maryland. And we
discovered we lucked out because before the little charges started
showing up on our statement, whoever got the number had tried some
pretty big things and the card was denied. The funny one was the $50
charge at the liquor store....the man at the credit union got a laugh
out of having that bill on our account!
We
finished the day today with an Inter-Faith Thanksgiving Service at the
Jewish Synagog here in Ithaca. We took the Elders and Sisters and after
the wonderful program, they had "refreshments" in the basement that
consisted of at least 25 different kinds of sweet treats and fruit and
nuts and cheese and crackers and everything. Puts our treats to shame!
The message of the program was good as well and several references were
made to the Church and the willingness of the members to serve in
inter-faith activities.
Well.....goodnight.
We'll be thinking of you all especially this week. We'll miss
left-overs and Black Friday and putting up the tree and decorating the
house and especially being with everybody, but we can't help but count
our Blessings a million times over and we're so grateful to "name them
one by one." We love you all and we love what you do and who you are
and how you love and serve each other. And we love that you still sing
Happy Birthday just as bad as ever!!! That made our week by the way!
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