We had another busy week that flew by!! Transfers are next Tuesday, and the week
prior is often more of a slow week, but this one wasn’t for me! Two accidents, one new car pickup and
delivery, the on-going shell game of getting missionaries into a loaner car so
theirs can get body work done, new Flushing Building dedication yesterday, and
prep for today’s SS lesson.
Transfers this week will be a tough one! I think there are 28 going home (most of whom
we know well, so it will be tearful!), another 24 coming (including one who
will need to be trained and certified as a NYC driver that same day). It’s always a busy day—it’s all carefully scheduled
to get missionaries in and out at certain times, so they aren’t all at the
church/office at the same time, but they love being together, and love saying
hello and goodbye, so the schedule ends up as more of a ‘rough guideline’, and ~150
missionaries and their luggage end up all being there at the same time! It’s
hard to imagine the bedlam. Every time, I
have elders and sisters who can’t find their cars (they park as far away as ¼ mile
away to find parking, and sometimes both companions are changed). In addition, last transfer, there were two
sets of missionaries who came to me for cars, and I didn’t have any planned (!),
through some miss-communication with the assistants! But, as always, things
work out (that time with a complicated two-week shell game of loaner cars and
swaps). My goal is for nothing like that
to happen ever again. I know I sound
like it’s all about the cars for me, but that’s just my assignment! It’s really all about helping the Lord’s work
move forward the best we can, in our human, error-prone ways!! We love transfer
week, but we are also very glad when it’s over.
 |
| Elder Mingyun Ko and us. Elder Ko has been assistant to President Reynolds for the last 6 months, and goes home 12/14/16. |
Yesterday for the Flushing Building dedication, Diane drove
over at 9AM to help get things ready. She
had an assignment to stay in the primary room and explain the Primary program
to English-speaking visitors, along with a Spanish sister and a Chinese sister
and a Korean sister with the same assignments in their respective languages.
I stayed at home, did a driving test for another elder
who has to drive starting Tuesday, worked on my SS lesson, took shirts to the
laundry, and moved cars around to clear the parking lot for Sunday
meetings. (Church parking lots here have
12-20 spaces, and they generally are double and triple-parked on Sundays.) Real estate here is just so valuable and hard
to get!!! Property value in Queens is
roughly ten times that in Utah, in my estimation. A 2500 sf house on ¼ acre is about $2+
million. (But I digress…) At about noon, I walked over and caught the subway to
Flushing, then walked the mile from the end of the line to the chapel. The entire journey of 6-7 miles took 75
minutes, and I loved it!! Along the way
I ran into two sisters and their recent convert in the subway, met and watched
a lot of other interesting people, and saw MetLife stadium on one side and
Arthur Ashe tennis stadium and the globe from the world’s fair ¼ mile away on
the other side (the subway is on an elevated platform not underground in that part
of the trip), then walked through the center NYC’s largest ‘Chinatown’ in
Flushing.
After the dedication, we were invited over for dinner by the
Shins, along with the Rapleys and another couple that are Chinese (can’t remember their
name). We assumed ‘over for dinner’ would be to their house, but when we got
directions, it was to a nice Korean Restaurant (BCD Tofu House, in Bayside). We
got to see a very nice area of town that we hadn’t seen before, and get to know
some people outside of church, which is always great! Brother Shinn is a bank manager and a
counselor in our stake presidency, Brother Rapley is our stake patriarch and
CES administrator for the area, and the other brother works in customer service
(and has a BS in Electrical Engineering).
It was fun to talk and hear conversion stories, not to mention be
adventurous and eat everything in a wonderful Korean BBQ. (I told Diane, “Don’t wonder what it is, just
try everything and see what you like!”)
Luckily, when I asked they brought some wood chopsticks—MUCH easier to
use than the chrome ones in the place settings. (I found when I went to Korea
for business that my hand cramped up by the end of a meal with metal chopsticks…Not
in shape for chopstick use.) Although it
was not comfort food for us, it was an adventure, the company was great, and we
loved the experience!! Our mission is
much the same-- the experiences aren’t always comfortable, but we know we are
doing the Lord’s work, we know he strengthens us every day, and we know that
our love and our testimonies are stronger than they have ever been!! We still love it!
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