Hi Everybody,
The first thing we did when we got up this morning was turn
on the heater! Part of it was because we
were still freezing from last night’s outdoor Tab Choir concert at Bethel Woods
(more about that later) and part because it was cold outside and inside
both. We never appreciated that fact
that at our home-home in Utah, the sun actually shines and shines in the
windows of our house. Ah the price we
pay for green grass and trees here in upstate New York!! But as much as it rains here, we just
discovered that the state of New York has a state ordinance against any home
fireworks….sparklers included.
Whaaaaat??? No wonder we couldn’t
find any sparklers for the little kids when they get here on the 4th
of July.
Where did June go?
Where did last week go? We just
wrote an email didn’t we? Either we’re
getting slower or time is going faster and we can’t keep up. We try, but our list of things to do before we come
home keeps getting longer than our list of what we’ve already done.
So here’s some highlights of last week:
1.
FHE where 1 person
came because everybody else went somewhere for vacation and Institute
where we
almost ran out of treats because we planned based on how many were at
FHE and
about 15 times that many came (in other words, 15 people came to
institute). We had some young people
come from other units in our stake which was fun. Our Owego institute
stays pretty steady and
we eat all the treats no matter how many come.
It’s so interesting how we can prepare two completely different lessons
for our two institutes, both based on the same Conference talk. We love
the Conference talks! Never has there been such a time in our
society when we NEED the counsel of living prophets and apostles.
2. The upstairs doggy
got sick. Help! We realized that we’ve “tended” this dog for
almost a month and still don’t know what her name is. Supposedly John’s kids are coming to get the
dog and cat in the next couple of days because it looks like John will still be
in the rehabilitation center for a while.
3. We cleaned house
(not ours), drove 45 minutes to the doctor, waited, and then drove back (not
us), planted flowers (us) because there was one day last week when it didn’t
rain, and did some more complex outside cleanup because it needed it and
somehow what we think is a priority isn’t.
We just discovered that we have a real, live forest growing in our rain
gutters.
4. Put up a canopy
that was big enough to fit 3 cars end to end, went to a baby shower and drove missionaries on their “car fast”
day (figure that one out). Oh and went to
4 grocery stores in one day so that there is plenty of grandpa and grandma food
when you all come. The missionaries are
hoping that there is some leftover!
5. Big
highlight: Going to the AME Church in
Ithaca (African Methodist Episcopal) for a “vigil” honoring the lives of those
who were shot in the Charleston AME Church last week. One of the highlights of that program was a
young women singing “His Eye is on the Sparrow” and hearing the members of the
congregation join in on the chorus.
There were many of us there from all races and we’re assuming many
faiths joining together to share sorrow over what happens when evil expresses
itself so violently and hope that some good will come out of this tragedy.
6. A Big, Big
Highlight: Taking Stacey and Efen to
Bethel Woods (two plus hours from here) to the 2nd concert on the
Tabernacle Choir’s summer tour. Stacey
is an older student in our Owego institute who joined the Church a couple of
years ago and Efen is from Taiwan living here in the US and working at Cornell
and who went to some meetings in Salt Lake a few months ago and saw what she
thought was a castle from a distance (Salt Lake Temple) and ended up on Temple
Square….so she’s a “Temple Square Referrel” and the Elders are teaching
her. They both absolutely loved the
concert. Bethel Woods is the site of
Woodstock from the 60’s (google that if you don’t know what it is…..how could
you not know what Woodstock was?!) and now there is a Center for the Performing
Arts there. We’ve heard a lot of Tab
Choir/Orchestra concerts in the last many years but this was the best of the
best!! The Center was a stage and a
covered pavilion so we just froze but didn’t get wet thank heavens because it
rained non stop. We were prepared with
our winter coats and hats and gloves and blankets but the Choir/Orchestra were
the heroes. They sang with their normal
choir clothes on and they had to be freezing and the wind was blowing the
orchestra music here, there, and everywhere, and they just played and sang on
and it was completely wonderful! They
will be blessed the rest of their lives for just performing in behalf of the Church that one time!!
Time to finish….still another meeting tonight and then a
busy but exciting couple of weeks ahead
of us. And how we will miss the Jacklin
kids and grandkids!! But we know that
two trips to NY in one mission is a little much to expect of you, especially
with soon having two missionaries out.
We love you all….be happy….be good…..be safe….and as Elder
Holland used to say to the missionaries at the missionary training center…….”DDST”
which let’s see if you can guess what it means.
XOXOXO Dad and Mom
and G and G and E and S
P.S. DDST= don’t do
stupid things
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