Forever Friends

Elder Williams wrote last week about our Senior Missionary Dinner at the Mission home.  We are at that point of our mission where couples we have gotten close to and have come to love are leaving.  President Reynolds had us go around the table and tell one thing we didn’t think anyone knew about us.  We learned a lot about our fellow missionaries.

Elder and Sister Lilly (who are leaving in 2 weeks) worked for the Church humanitarian aid department and were involved in providing aid after Hurricane Katrina and again in Haiti.  They have some good stories to tell. 

Another elder told just a tiny bit about being a paratrooper in Vietnam.  On Monday after the dinner we had our small group FHE at Sister Petersen’s.  I asked him some questions about his experience (being careful not to get too personal).  I won’t go into too much because it was some private stuff he was sharing but, wow!  You just never know the things people have gone through in their lives.  Half way through the story his wife got her phone out and started recording.  She said he had never talked that much about it before.  Some things he only touched on but his wife told us later that he had been a POW.  Years later he joined the church and he shared his testimony about how the temple helped him deal with things.  I can’t describe what a true pleasure it is to work with these missionary giants.

 

Yesterday Marc and I took a little drive to Brooklyn to see if we could find the house from the show Bluebloods.  We found it in a very posh area of multi-million dollar homes.  Then we drove home through Flatbush—the least posh part of our mission.  There was a stark difference. 

The house from Bluebloods

I appreciate that Marc is willing to just jump in the car or subway and go on an adventure.  He is much more spontaneous now.  It’s great!  Then on Sundays we talk to our friend Jay who grew up here and knows EVERYTHING about New York and he fills us in with lots of tidbits of interesting information about what we saw.  It’s great to know someone who can teach us so much about the area.

I have been dusting off my sign language skills learned in college.  They are still pretty dusty. We have a sweet little deaf girl in Primary who has just started attending.  So far she just has sat there unable really to participate other than to hold posters and things for us.  Today as I taught them some signs and we sang I noticed she was singing (with sign) with a big smile on her face.  It felt good.  I love that as I have prepared for my songs there have been a couple of times when I was stymied not knowing which sign to use.  The first time I ran into the ASL missionaries at a Zone Conference in Brooklyn and the next time they came into the office.  We don’t see them much because they are in Brooklyn but they are here when I need them.  I know the Lord sends them because this little girl is so important to Him. I witness every day just how much He loves all his children.

Checking cars at Dyker Heights Zone Conference

Dyker Heights.  You can't see it but it was snowing.  Better than checking
cars in 98 decree weather with 90% humidity.