Hi Everybody,
.......But
August is here and we're having to run to keep up. What happened to
our summer of looking for things to do to keep us busy. It's amazing
that the slowest time of the whole summer with our responsibilities in
our assignment was the 3 weeks that everybody came. We turned over our
calendar yesterday morning and there we were with school starting and
Friday Forum and everything else on this very calendar page. Yikes!
Also a weather note: The best weather of the whole summer was the time
that everyone was here as well so we all lucked out. This past week has
been temperatures in the 90's with unusually high humidity so our air
conditioner has gotten its workout both day and night. We know so many
people who just depend on fans for cooling and well....we're spoiled.
We did help 2 families move this week and Dad probably sweated off 20
pounds moving stuff up and down stairs. The ultimate one was moving a
sofa and bed among other things from the ground level to the 3rd floor
apartment of an old home WITHOUT an elevator! So if you see that
absolutely horrible picture that friends posted on Facebook where we're
eating at a Mexican restaurant, just know that it was taken about 15
minutes after that move. That was our "reward" for helping them move
and we looked terrible and were way tired.... and the food was
fantastic! Life is pretty tough for people trying to find a place to
live here especially close to Cornell campus. The rents are extremely
high for not a very good apartment and many of these old homes are
divided up into studio apartments (just a big combo kitchen-living
room-bedroom with a dinky bathroom) that go for $1200-$1400 a month so
some of these "slum" landlords (we really didn't say that but it's true)
are making $10,000 or more a month on an old run down house.
Enough
ranting about the housing situation except to say that after many days
of looking for an apartment near the Cornell campus for a new set of
missionaries and the exorbitant cost of rent, the mission decided that
it was best to have the extra set of missionaries go to another town.
That was with many of us looking and none of us coming up with anything
adequate and within the mission's price constraints.
We've
lost our pet sitting job this week too. John (upstairs neighbor) is
home from the hospital and rehab after almost dying and is now enjoying
being here after being gone for almost two months. We're trying to get
used to having someone live upstairs again where every footstep and open
and shut door sounds like it's in our house......but we're so glad he's
home again and alive.
So
what else? Two dinner appointments this week, so we love it when the
missionaries are invited to people's homes for a meal and we get invited
along for the ride and to give the missionaries a ride because the
houses are pretty far away. We made another trip to Cortland to return
lock and key to a storage unit for a former branch member, did some
shopping at a wonderful Walmart store there (unlike our one in Ithaca),
took Harmony to visit her Mom, cleaned and transported a fridge from the
Mom's house to the nursing facility where she's now in hospice care,
and in between those things started cleaning our own house and prepared
for our two Institutes. We're loving "Teachings of the Living
Prophets." We had great lessons in both classes this week where the
Spirit was strong as we discussed President Monson's last Conference
talk on the Temple. We don't do much teaching. The students discuss
and the Spirit teaches. It was a pretty neat experience to see Valerie
(our non-member attendee in Owego) feel the spirit of the temple even
though she has never even been in one.
One
of the absolute highlights of the week and of our mission was to spend a
day at the Harmony Priesthood Restoration site with Brother Baker and
Brother Done (CES institute teacher at Penn State). The construction
work is almost done on the site and it will be comparable to Palmyra
when it's done with a big new chapel and visitor's center and
restoration of the grounds and the Hale home and cabin where Joseph and
Emma lived and where most of the Book of Mormon was translated. We were
only able to see those things through the construction fences but we
walked down a beautiful path to the Susquehanna River where many of the
baptisms took place. Brother Done gave a wonderful talk to a stake
youth conference that was there for the day and told them the history of
the Church in that area leading up to the restoration of the
Priesthood. After they all left, we lingered for awhile and there is
truly a "Sacred Grove feeling" in that place and on the banks of the
river. Before that experience, we went with Brother Baker (and the
other CES couple who are in this area) back to the Josiah Stowell and
Joseph Knight homes and were told the history of the homes by the
"experts." All in all, it was a great day! The site will be dedicated
on September 19th and we're hoping to go to the dedication but it sounds
like the "guest list" is already full of historians, Church and
otherwise, from all over the world, along with the VIP's of the Church
and the area. There's a possibility that we may get to be guinea pigs
for the missionaries who have been called to work there to practice
their parts before the dedication. Hope so!
We
made a quick run to Johnson City today to visit Hector again at the
hospital and he was so glad to see us. Made us feel good too to know
that he's improving.....and now it's off to branch mission correlation
meeting so we'll say goodbye for the week. We love to hear from you
with all the news so we'll take whatever you send and whenever you send
it. Keep being the wonderful "kids" we always brag about! We love you
and you're always in our prayers and we know that your prayers will be
answered as you thank Heavenly Father and ask Him for the blessings you
need.
No comments:
Post a Comment