Finally Arrived

It's amazing how a new morning can make everything look like an exciting adventure rather than the bad dream that it seemed the night before.

We got into Queens at about 3:30 last night (tip: Friday afternoon in NY is not the best introduction to your new life.). We met the other couples at the mission office (surprisingly it was pretty much the way I pictured the office only bigger.).

Then we moved into our apartment next door, with the help of several young missionary Sherpas.  The other couples took us to a Peruvian restaurant.  The food wasn't great but the people were nice.

Once we got back and got our clothes sort of unpacked, we sat down and Marc said, "what do you want to do now?"  I said, "go home?"  Don't worry, we were only half serious.

We really like the apartment and realize many missionaries probably don't have it as good.  It's small but has granite countertops and hardwood floors with pretty rugs.  The previous missionaries left it clean and well-stocked with towels,etc.  The bathrooms are small but we each have our own with tub and shower.  There is also a washer and dryer.

Even though we are on a main thoroughfare, it wasn't as noisy as night as I was told it would be and we slept well.

We ventured out (by car) to get groceries this morning.  That was interesting.  Who would have thought that shopping, something I am normally most comfortable doing, would be so stressfull.  We made it back in one piece (2 pieces?) though.  And luckily I had an engineer along to tell me how to arrange the groceries in the cart.  I thoughtfully informed him that since I have been loading grocery carts for over 40 years that he did not, in fact, need to help.

During our morning study time today I decided to focus on faith, as I recognized I needed a healthy dose of it.  I found some great scriptures that seemed to be written just for me.

I think we will love it here and it may not take as long as I thought it would.