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| Forest Hills Inn (now condos) |
Yesterday, Jay took us, along with Sister Petersen, on a
walking tour of Forest Hills Gardens.
This is a wealthy area of Queens with beautiful old homes and lots of
trees and park areas. It is beautiful
with lots of trees. There was so much
green and very little traffic! It was
very calming and hard to believe we were in the middle of Queens. The area near the train station has brick
streets and lots of archways. I felt
like I was in Europe. There is a large
tennis club there where they used to hold the US Open before they started playing
in Flushing. Jay, who used to live in the area, was like a regular tour guide
pointing out landmarks and relating the history of the neighborhood, along with
his own experiences there.
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| Tourists and "guide". Sister Williams, Elder Williams, Jay, Sister Petersen |
In the afternoon, we attended the baptism of a new
girl, Yelleni, who has been attending Primary in our Branch. Lots of the Primary kids were there and they
sang “When I am Baptized”. We were
pleased that so many of them came to support this new friend. I was able to gain more experience leading
the children singing without a pianist.
I had the song on my iphone so we used a small portable speaker. It wasn’t ideal but was good practice for
when Sister Harris, our pianist, is released from her mission in August. So many new experiences here and things to
make us stretch!
Afterwards was the
traditional light meal and visiting. We
are getting to know and love more people.
There are so many wonderful people here, all doing the very best they
can to love and to serve others.
Today was a very pleasant Sunday. Marc had an entire family of 6 investigators
come to his Sunday School class. He had
to do some quick lesson changes on his feet but said it went well. The visitors even participated and made a few
comments (which was good because usual class members didn’t say much with
strangers in the room).
Primary singing time today went well, with the kids very
much engaged. One girl is deaf so we do
a fair amount of signing as we sing. The
other kids love to learn and Arianna beams when she is able to “sing along”. I couldn’t have known a year and a half ago
that I would be not only leading singing in Primary, but teaching songs in ASL
and Spanish along with English!
Now that we are past the half-way mark of our mission we
feel a greater sense of urgency to do all that we can to serve the Lord to the
best of our ability. We don’t want any
regrets about not having done enough when we are finished.
This past week we finally were able to meet a family, the
Darcys, who Marc has been trying for months to get an appointment with. The father (not a member) is from Ireland so
Marc is eager to talk with him a little.
They are busy people and the Mother, a less-active sister who grew up in
Utah, has been sick and has cancelled the last couple of appointments. We decided to drop by with a care basket of
soup, banana bread, etc. We weren’t expecting
to actually see them but they drove up as we were leaving. What nice people! The son plays rugby and says he wants to play
for BYU someday. (My first thought was, “Then you’d better attend seminary!”)
We didn’t talk long but there was a good feeling there. I wanted Brother Darcy to talk more so I
could hear his wonderful Irish accent.
We are constantly reminded of the blessings that come to us
as we serve and to our family. Answers
to prayers seem to come more readily and we are so grateful for those many
tender mercies.
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| Forest Hills Gardens |
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| Felt like we were in Europe |
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| Sunday dinner at Sister Petersen's 5/21/17 |
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