Hi Everybody,
So
it's Sunday night and we just got back from sitting up on a "park"
bench at the Cornell Plantation's Overlook for the last couple of hours.
It was awesome! But we had to do it this afternoon because starting
tomorrow we're going to have a week of rainy, cold weather which is
coming probably courtesy of the storm that all of you had. But it was
absolutely perfect in Palmyra yesterday to go to the temple and then
wander around the grounds after before taking our carload of YSA to eat
pizza. We think that when the Prophet Joseph says it was "the morning
of a beautiful spring day" it looked just like it looked
yesterday.....not green and lush like the paintings or movies show but
just like it was yesterday with a bit of green and the tree buds trying
to break out and about a million birds which is an amazing chorus like
you've never heard before. We love going to the Palmyra Temple and have
been there often in the last couple of months with various assignments.
This coming weekend we'll be there again for the wedding of a couple
that met in Institute last summer. Alishia was here on rotations for
her medical degree (she's from somewhere on the east coast) and Tim is
from Texas but is a BYUI student that was here last summer for a Cornell
internship. They came about the same time and by the end of the summer
were in love, unofficially engaged and are getting married this
weekend.....a pretty cool story.
This has been
quite the week with hardly a minute to take a deep breath until tonight
but it's all good. We started out with our traditional Monday morning
transfer breakfast because we were loosing two missionaries from our
district....one completing his mission and the other one finally getting
his visa to go to Belgium. We will miss them both but are happy for
them both as well. They (6 missionaries) ate two two loaves of fake
Kneaders french toast and a couple of pounds of sausage and almost a
gallon of orange juice. They're really not starving....they just eat a
lot! We love it!! Then Tuesday we got to drive missionaries to Utica to
the mission office for missionary transfers and the coming of brand new
to the mission field missionaries and the going home of the ones
completing their missions. It's so fun! We especially like the new
ones coming and how scared but yet how excited and how earnest to be
good missionaries they are. And this is the first time in months we
haven't driven to Utica in a snowstorm for several months. It was
wonderful!!!
The rest of the week was spent in
preparation for Institute classes, activities with Cornell United
Religious Work, and preparations for Friday Forum. Only two Friday
Forums left until the summer break and shall we stand up and cheer?!
That's probably our most intense assignment in terms of stress and
numbers of hours spent but we are always blessed for our work. We had
47 people at Friday Forum last week and probably close to 10 of them
were non-members. We had a great discussion led by one of the student
wives on President Uchdorff's General Priesthood Meeting talk at the
last Conference. So they were fed in body and spirit.....and we fed 47
people meatball sub sandwiches and frog eye salad (which most of them
had never heard of) and Reeses Peanut Butter cupcakes. We have two more
until this semester is over and then there will be a break for the
summer because there aren't that many students here. I'm going to have
to learn how to cook for just Dad and I and the missionaries again.
Whew! The "rest" will be nice.
The activities
in the Branch are winding down the rest of this month and the next as
Cornell graduation is Memorial Day weekend. We will loose about half of
our branch this summer with students leaving to go home for the summer
and a big group that will be finishing their graduate studies and headed
off to all parts of the US for their jobs and the rest of their lives.
We've become attached and will miss them when they go! So if anyone
wants to come out and live this summer and camp out in our back yard and
boost the numbers of the branch, you're welcome to come! But we
sincerely believe that "whenever two or three are gathered together in
my name, there I am also" is a true doctrine!! Our Institute numbers at
Cornell will go down but our Owego numbers will stay the same because
of the dynamics of the group in Owego. How we love those "senior"
Saints who come so eager to to learn and think that because we're
missionaries we know everything! We learn from them more than they
learn from us! It's crazy to think that we can read in our journals
(which Dad is so good at and me....well....) what we did a year ago on
this date and how things have changed and how much we've learned. In
other words, we just have a little over 5 months left and it seems like
the days literally fly by. The adversary knows that too and tries to
get us to be anxious or discouraged or tired or whatever would slow down
our work these last few months but through the blessings of the Spirit
in our lives and our work....and the wonderful examples of the young
Elders and Sisters....we keep on keeping on and our lives are blessed.
We
love you all and hope your Spring/Summer has come back and everybody
can make it to the end of school or work or whatever else it is that
you're doing with your brains intact. We'll try too!
XOXOXO
Dad and Mom and Gpa and Gma et al
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