Hi Everybody,
We
understand that we're missing the birthday dinner tonight?! We hope
the birthday song lives up to its normal standard of badness!! We'll
eat ice cream tonight and pretend that we're celebrating with you. In
fact, ice cream is probably what we'll have for dinner tonight. We just
got home from helping at a great but absolutely wipe us old people out
weekend in Palmyra with a YSA Regional Conference called Gathering in
the Grove. Actually we did the same thing when we had only been on our
mission for a couple of months and this year we knew what we were doing
which was nice. We started out the weekend with a session at the
Palmyra Temple, then helping to register about 300 young single adults
from as far away as Nova Scotia. In fact, there was quite a large
contingent from Canada. They all just kept coming and kept coming and
kept coming. Friday night all the kids camping in the Hill Cumorah
campground froze to death because the temperature got down to 29
degrees! But they survived!! And Saturday morning they all got up and
went to a devotional in the Sacred Grove at 7:00 a.m. It was amazing
that so many went that early (and on time) but probably partly because
many of them didn't sleep that night trying to stay warm! We continued
registering at the campground during the devotional and we froze the
hour and a half we were outside! Even froze up the computers! But then
the sun came out and it was beautiful the entire rest of the
Conference. Saturday was a day of eating and workshops and service
projects and more eating and a keynote speaker and more eating and a
dance and more eating. Bet you can't guess what we helped with! Made
us appreciate that feeding 50 people for Friday Forum is a piece of cake
compared to feeding the multitudes at GIG. Also on that day was a
great keynote speaker from Israel, Daniel Rona. He was introduced as an
American and a Jew and a Mormon. He lives in Jerusalem but he and his
wife currently live in SLC where they are serving a mission in the
Church Historical Department. He gave a great talk titled "Restoring
the Identity of Israel on a Journey From Ancient Holy Lands to
Latter-day Promised Lands." It's a talk he gives at many firesides and
gatherings and the young adults loved it. He hung around for most of
the Conference and interacted with the kids and ate with them and
visited with them one on one and generally seemed to have a good time
with them. We got a chance to visit with him for a few minutes as we
both have the Browns in common. We had heard of him several years ago
but had lost track of his activities since then. So....he was good.
Then we chaperoned the dance that night and cleaned up after and got
back to our hotel after midnight. Today (Sunday) was much more relaxed
with Church and lunch and then cleaning up and getting young adults on
their way. Then we came home, stopped off a a branch picnic to say
goodbye to all leaving this week as they graduated today. Cornell holds
their graduation on Sunday....kind of lame because that means the kids
have to choose between going to Church and graduation. Such is Cornell.
Anywho.....About
the only thing we can remember at the beginning of the week is visiting
early morning seminaries....up at 4:00 a.m., on the road by 5:00 a.m.
to be to class by 6:00 a.m. We'll finish them up this next week and
then we will take a long nap! It seems that the rest of the day is a
blur when one begins at that time of day. Can't remember what we taught
at our Institutes this week but we know we taught them!! Actually we
taught on Following the Living Prophet as a beginning lesson of our
summer program. How grateful we are for the guidance and counsel of our
living Prophets. And how we support them, and "heed" their words, and
love them and pray for them. What would we do in this world today
without the blessing of living Prophets!! We're now holding Institute
in the summer at the Church which is absolutely wonderful because you
can actually find a place to park. Anabel Taylor Hall on campus (our
normal place) closes their building at 5:00 p.m. every day during the
summer and our kids can still only come to Institute at night. We're
picking up a few kids from the other units in the stake at our Cornell
class which is nice. Last week, when we thought our numbers would go
down considerably, they went up.
Other
than an airport run to Syracuse to pick up a young woman coming to
Ithaca for her sister's graduation, that has been our week. This next
one promises to be just as busy because we add in a transfer day. We
really don't like transfers!! It means we loose missionaries that we
love to other parts of the mission and we wonder if we'll ever see them
again. We're loosing our great Elder Pyper who came here 4 transfers
ago as a brand new missionary, and Sister Gelinas who's a wonderful
Sister Missionary that we only got for two transfers. We will miss
them!!! The mission is only getting 3 new missionaries this transfer
and so some areas will have to be consolidated for the next 6 weeks so
President Wirthlin is really shaking things up. This will be his last
transfer as well as he and Sister Wirthlin are released on July 1 and
President and Sister Rogers (from St. George) will come in as new
Mission President. Three days later, he'll be greeting 22 new
missionaries (a mission record) and boy will they have to start swimming
because they'll be opening up new areas and re-opening closed areas.
The missionary work marches on.....especially after high school
graduation!!
It's
time to say goodnight! This is such a great week for all of you with
the end of school. We hate to miss graduation! We hope you can gather
together and imagine that we're there and be sure and take lots of
pictures for us of everything that is going on. Our time is flying by
and we're trying to cram as much good stuff into it as we can. Although
at times this mission is hard, hard, hard, it is so good and so worth
the effort and sacrifice and C-ooking E-very S-econd. "The Church has
need of willing old people who wear the worker's seal. Come help the
good work move along. Put your shoulder to the wheel." Or in our case,
your hands on the wheel (steering), your finger to the phone (texting),
your brain to the books (scriptures that is) and your heart to loving
this work and these amazing young people (missionaries) we serve with
and young adults we play with. Life is good!!!! And WE LOVE YOU a
bushel and a peck and a virtual hug around the neck from New York.
.
XOXO
Dad and Mom and Gpa and Gma and E Jolley Jr. and Elder-ette Jolley (I
need to repent and start referring to myself as Sister Jolley)
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