Chinese New Year

We had a great P-day on Saturday!!  The Zone Leaders told us the missionaries were meeting at 9:00 for the Chinese New Year parade, which we thought would be a sight to behold.  Turned out we were in the parade!  It was everything we thought it would be—colorful, noisy, fun and COLD!  (With wind chill it peaked at about 20 degrees Fahrenheit for the day…) All the missionaries wore the ‘Mormon Helping Hands’ yellow vests, and the members from the Chinese ward wore green t-shirts, and we gave out candy treats (with church info) to the audience.  Diane and I were both reminded of the parades we marched in while in high school—most of the time is spent standing around and waiting for the parade to start.  We were the 30^th group/float, so we waited about an hour before we started.

General impressions: DRAGONS, bright colors, drums banging (something about a legend that once you start banging a war drum, it’s bad luck to stop, so we listened to ours for nearly two hours total…), huge crowds of dark-haired people (10-15 people deep along most of the 1 mile route), missionaries enjoying being together, Sister Williams with a big smile on her face (but paying the price today for being on her feet for 3 hours straight), and a general feeling of goodwill! 

Then, after the parade the Chinese ward fed us huge bowls of spicy noodles!  I had the 'mild', and my lips were still numb for an hour! 

In the evening we went out to Dinner with our friend Jay Stonehill, at an Italian restaurant he suggested in Corona.  (You know a restaurant is good when the day before, the only opening they had was at 5:00PM…)  The place was packed and friendly and noisy, and the food was great!!  I had salmon, Diane had some kind of tomato linguine, and Jay had chicken cacciatore.  The best part by far was the conversation, though!  Jay was born in Queens and grew up here, and he brought a bunch of aerial photos of our neighborhood at different times over the years.  It was fascinating! 

Jay Stonehill and us 2/4/17

Jay is not a member, but is very active in the branch, and he cuts the hair for all the elders in both New York City missions, and loves and serves the missionaries in many other ways.  He’s reading Jesus The Christ with me now, reads the scriptures daily, fasts on fast Sundays, is the branch Sacrament Meeting greeter, and now is going to be my pseudo-home teaching companion for the two families they assigned me.  He has been single his whole life, and is a retired school teacher (math) and part-time barber.  I love him, and he is way too good a man to stay a non-member!!  It frustrates him, too, that he lacks the faith (his words) to get an answer to prayers.  In the past two years he says he has progressed from an atheist to a very engaged agnostic.  We feel blessed to have him as a friend, and we are determined to give him every opportunity to feel the Spirit and be converted!  What a blessing it is to be here serving the Lord and having all these experiences!!  We love the Lord!