Home Alone 3

Diane is OOT this week to help with Darci & Jeremy’s new daughter, Sydney.  Sydney is cute as a button, and I’m looking forward to meeting both Sydney and Kennedy!  They are grandkid numbers 10 & 11.  Diane is making a quicker trip this time because Jeremy’s parents are local and there is help from their side, this is Diane’s busiest time in the office, and Darci & Jeremy have two cats, which wreaks havoc with her respiratory system.  Not to mention the fact that we’ll be home in a couple of months…  Anyway, I’ve become somewhat accustomed to having Diane around and I miss her!  She’ll fly back on a redeye flight Tuesday night, then probably crash for a few hours and then start catching up.  The package season has arrived, and this is what was waiting for her from just the Monday morning delivery!  We get 3 shipments a day of packages.

 

Sister Williams' desk, hidden by Christmas packages

Thanksgiving last week was quiet but nice.  Diane and Sister Postma fed 6 sets of missionaries and 4 seniors (3 missionaries and Jay), so there was lots of good food and good company!  Diane left me with a chocolate pie and an apple pie, and for some reason I’m feeling a little sick most of the time, maybe because that has been most of my diet this week.  Too much of a good thing!!

On Saturday afternoon I was feeling bored, so I jumped on the subway and went and wandered around downtown Manhattan for a couple of hours.  It’s fun to watch people and just drift along, as long as you are not in a hurry!  The only part that wasn’t fun was the weekend construction in the subway tunnels, which caused me several times to go past where I wanted to stop, then backtrack on another train.  (When we first got here, that would cause us to freak out a little bit, but now it’s just par for the course!) 

Sunday afternoon I went with Jay2 on the annual New York Transit Museum’s vintage subway train ride.  They do it on Sundays between Thanksgiving and Christmas each year.  We took a modern train downtown, then changed to the vintage train and rode along the F line between 2nd Av and Lexington Avenue / 63rd Street.  During the ride we moved along from car to car (you can do that in the old cars, but not in the modern cars) looking at the various differences in finish and construction, and reading the vintage signs from the 30’s and 40’s.  The old cars are definitely louder, with the ‘cooling systems’ being open windows, doors and vents, instead of the enclosed systems of today!  There were also people dressed in period dress to celebrate their rides.  It was a unique NYC experience!!! 

 

I’ve had several conversations in the last couple of weeks with Elder Palmer, who is going to take my place in late January, and that’s an interesting experience, reliving and remembering all the questions we had before we came!  It’s amazing all we have learned and experienced, and we have thoroughly enjoyed our mission! I wouldn’t trade it for the world!!