Hi Everybody,
After
a 12 hour Sunday it's nice to take off the Church clothes and put on
pj's! Where did we read somewhere that Sunday was supposed to be a day
of rest? It's all good though and ended up with a YSA Sunday evening at
the BP's home where we helped with dinner and just sat around and
talked during and after. These kids draw the right kind of strength
from each other and it's good to know that wherever you go there is
always a place that feels comfortable and safe and peaceful....well,
sort of peaceful. You put 28 or so young single adults in the same
vicinity and there's not a lot of peace!
We
hear Utah is having April-May weather. No fair! Driving home tonight
it was 12 degrees outside. But again being in the Finger Lakes area,
we shouldn't get the storm that the East coast is going to get tomorrow
that is supposed to be "historic." At least we hope it doesn't get this
far up. In just two more months we'll be a year from the point that we
got here and if the snow stays away between now and then, we'll have it
made!
This
was a good week of Institute and is good to get back into the Book of
Mormon again....wish 3rd Nephi could last until the end of the
semester! We didn't take a long break from our Owego Institute because
there are no students there and that's ok because as we've said before,
we love going to Owego. In fact if you read the February Ensign's
article on Church Service for single adult women, it focuses on all the
people we know. They're awesome. Bishop Knudsen was just released as
Bishop after serving for 6 years. Now he and his wife are going the
second mile. They are the "surrogate parents" to 4 kids in the ward
(oldest is 16 and youngest is 8) whose single Mom is struggling and the
kids need to be out of the home for 4 or 5 months. They're not quite as
old as we are but are grandparent age and they're doing this out of the
generousity of their hearts and because they have some pretty great
Christ-like attributes. And it was good to be back with the Cornell
Institute and have all the kids back. We missed them!! They teach us
more than we teach them! Well, let's just say we teach each other.
And
we got 4 new missionaries in our District....so it's been good getting
to know them, and it shouldn't take them very long to realize that it's
legal to spoil them....we asked President Wirthlin and he said "spoil
away!" We also reported that one of our "duties" was to support one of
our YSA in going to Cornell basketball games and he said "Well somebody
has to do it." He was probably jealous. We'll miss President and
Sister Wirthlin. Anyway, our new missionaries are one with only two
months left, Elder Empey, and a brand new missionary from the MTC,
Elder Pyper, and another new from the MTC who we haven't met yet because
he and his companion are in another town, and Sister Frisby who has
been on her mission for 6 months. We will learn to love them as we have
the ones that left.....who we still miss by the way. We made a trip to
Syracuse this last week to take Sister Lopez to the airport to go back
to Temple Square. It's a good thing we were bringing the Sisters back
or I probably would have put pressure on Dad to go to Destiny Mall which
has a reputation for being huge and a good place to buy all sorts of
things you don't need. Anyway, we walked into the Syracuse airport
which is actually pretty big, and we were practically the only ones in
there. Give me that kind of an airport any day! The morning before, we
had transfer breakfast where the Elders and Sisters in our district
come and eat probably their one and only hot breakfast every 6 weeks,
and then we take lots of pictures and have lots of hard goodbyes.....for
us, not them. We think the missionaries actually are pretty excited
over the thoughts of new adventures in the mission field.
The
night before, we had John, our upstair's neighbor, over for dinner and
it was fun to have some good time to visit and he stayed for nearly 3
hours. He's probably a little younger than us with kids and
grandkids.....did we already tell you this? Anyway it was great to talk
for longer than a few minutes at a time, and we showed him some of our
Bible videos on the Church website since he has a position of
responsibility in his church. And he was profusely grateful for the
food! So making food and lots of it is a daily occurance again. We
just did number 1 of 15 more Friday Forums. Yikes! The students are
pretty appreciative of what we do for them, and we found a good meal
that fit the bill on a cold Friday morning last week and it was a big
hit....chicken and creamy white bean chili and big chunks of bread and
jam and carrots and celery and black forest torte for dessert. How does
that sound?? They "licked the platters clean!"
This
next week promises to be busier than last....how can it be?! But we
seem to have the energy to keep working and our car has whatever it
needs to keep going and we haven't had any flat tires for at least 3
months....knock on wood! We start early in the morning all week next
week and our days won't end until at least 10:00 at night...and to top
it all off, we're even giving up blood at the blood drive next Saturday
morning! We hope Heavenly Father is patient with us if we get a bit
grouchy at the fridge if the shelf falls out yet again! But things are
just things right?? It is a blessing to do what we do!! It's a
blessing to teach Gospel principles and applications and to read
scriptures that we've read hundreds of times and have brand new "ah ha"
moments. It's a blessing to watch "young punks" teach as well as any of
our friends from the university because they teach with humility and
the Spirit. And especially It's a blessing to know that you're being
blessed at home and that you're taking care of each other....not that
you needed us around to take care of you, but we like to think we're
useful now and again:)! We love you a bushel and a peck and a hug
around the neck (if that's a repeat, sorry)
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