August 27th

We have been here three months and one week now--crazy.  We change shifts this week.  We will be basically working 3:30--10:30 PM Tuesday thru Friday, and 1-8 PM on Saturdays for the next three months.  It is hard to believe we finished a three month rotation.

We have a new missionary couple--Luann and Delmar Gray.  Spencer and I were asked to be their trainers.  That was actually a lot of fun.

Last Monday the missionaries rode the new Q train on the area that has been under construction for 100 years.  Lots of rock, but I don't know what else made it such a project.  It is clean and beautiful in that station!  We went to eat at a Mexican restaurant.  We had entertainment on the train.  I'll see if I can attach the video later.

You can see the pristine conditions.

We always enjoy these outings.  But then we still have all of our work to do.

I can't get the pictures to work right, so I hope Spencer writes enough to fill up this space!  :)

Love, Jeanine

Hello Dear Family,
I don't have much of an excuse for not communicating except that the three hour difference at the beginning of the and the end of day makes phone calls more difficult.
There other thing is that we are very much engaged in the temple and there isn't much that can be said about it except that that is our life.

There are so many things about New York that are unique.  And, there's much about the city that isn't exactly wholesome. The styles of clothing are lewd and inappropriate in some cases.  On the other hand, there is a wonderful diversity of nationalities and colors and life styles.  What a great place and what a terrible plae, all at the same time.  Money determines what you are in the public eye.

 This morning I was asked to teach the High Priest class.  I love those black pople.  All you have to do is throw out a couple of ideas.  They are so dramatic and talkative that you can't shut them up.  Those people are as knowledgeable and faithful as anywhere in the world.  They are good people.  They look after their brothers ans sisters in a remarkable way.  They just happened to live in the Bronx.  I'm telling you that you're going to be seeing them in the councils of the church.  It demonstrates that this is not an English speaking church anymore.

Love, Spencer

August 20, 2017

Hello to all of you out there in blogger land who love us enough to read this,

This week was very busy in the temple.  I think many people were making up for the lost time when the temple was closed for the maintenance break and then again last week for our emergency A/C break (pun intended!)

Thursday there was a couple from Guyana (South America) at the temple.  They attended a session that I was in and later they were sealed.  They were completely bilingual.  I had the opportunity of visiting with the husband later while he was waiting for his wife.  In Guyana he was an Evangelical Pastor before joining the church.  He also drove taxi and that is how the missionaries met him.  He loved the Lord and His gospel so he was very interested in knowing what the missionaries had to say.  It didn't take long to be converted.  I inquired about how his congregation reacted to his conversion.  He said that was a very difficult day in his life.  He still demonstrated a lot of emotion when he talked about it.  He loved his little flock and it was hard to tell them goodbye.  He bore testimony to them and explained that once the Lord testifies to you, you have to listen and obey.  He went from being the "head honcho" of his own congregation to being the least experienced and knowledgeable new convert in the Lord's church.  It was a truly humbling experience.   A few members followed him, but not many. 

We all need to be humbled in life.  For most of us, it is not that dramatic.

For King Lamoni it was being taught by the Spirit and for his wife it was falling beside him and learning also.  
For Enos it was praying in the forest for many hours when he went to pray.

For Helaman it was discovering that NONE of the stripling warriors had perished in battle--in spite of serious injuries.

For the young stripling warriors it was going to war to defend their adopted country and putting the teachings of their mothers to the test.

Sometimes I think that for parents of adult children it is "letting go" and realizing that you are extremely limited in how much you can do for your children who have special challenges and struggles.  As parents we would like to "kiss their hurts, and make it all better".  But we all have to use our agency and we all have to suffer the consequences of our choices.  We pray that you will make correct choices.

Living in NYC, we see the consequences of the choices of others all the time.  It is really heart wrenching at times and almost annoying at other times.  Here is the camp of some homeless guy less than a block from our apartment.  He has two cats and spends the day combing them.  Then on Saturday, he doubled the campsite when another guy "moved in" with all his junk and his dog.

It makes me wonder what choices they made that led to them living on the street like this,

On a happier note.  We love working in such an international temple.  I already told you about the couple from Guyana.  The day before within about 1 1/2 hours I worked with two couples visiting from Paris, France, (speaking French) two sisters from Brazil (speaking Portuguese) and of course Spanish speakers and Mandarin speakers.  It definitely keeps us on our toes.

We love the Lord and we love His temple.
Spencer and Jeanine

Hmmm.... apparently my video didn't post.  I'll try it a different way!  Bear with me once more....

That looks more like it.  I hope you enjoy it.
Love,
Jeanine

8/13/17

Before I start on this week's activities, I have to share a video that I forgot last week.  When we were at Cassie and John's we went to a museum.  Outside there were "trompas" to ride on.  Rachel loved them.  Then she decided to give her parents a ride.  It was a lot of work, but she kept it up for quite a


while.  I would title this "The Trooper Pushing the Trompa".  I hope videos work on a blog.  :)

Now, I will tell about this crazy week.  When we returned to the temple we discovered (rather quickly) that they hadn’t been successful in repairing the A/C unit.  Long story short—they’d fix one thing, only to discover a new problem and have to order a different part.  Unfortunately the floors affected were 5^th and 6^th:  initiatory, endowments, sealings, etc.  It was really tough during sessions.  On Wednesday one of the workers had symptoms of heat exhaustion.   They were monitoring the temperature.  When Spencer and I finished a session on Wednesday we learned that the rooms were 92 degrees—hotter than outside, but just as humid.  President Bench called SLC and told them he was closing the temple for the rest of the week.  I hope it is fixed when we return on Tuesday.  If not, they may have to replace it—but that is an enormous hassle with city permits to bring in huge cranes and shut down the street. 

 

It actually took most of the next day before we felt like we had recovered from the draining exhaustion.

Thursday afternoon we rode the subway to the tip of the island and took the ferry to Liberty Island.  It is overwhelming how large the Statue of Liberty actually is.  It was educational and

informative.  There is a free audio tour. 

From Liberty Island we rode the ferry to Ellis Island. We could have spent many, many hours there, but it was too late in the day.  I can see why this is a favorite spot for our grandchildren Daimon and Ellie.  There is history dating back to the beginnings of settlers coming to America, not just the years that Ellis Island was in operation.

Hmm, I seem to have lost Spencer's picture here.  I'll try once more.

We definitely will be returning to spend more hours there on another day. 

Neither one of us had ancestors come thru Ellis Island.  It opened in the 1890's and (sometimes centuries) before the pioneers crossed the plains.

Friday night I went with several other missionaries to visit the Morgan Library (as in Pierpont Morgan and J. P. Morgan).  I wanted to see the Gutenberg Bible on display.  I astonished at the beauty and the collections there. The library, which was part of the private home previously, has three floors of books in one room.  There are 15,000 books there and another 5,000  in other rooms--primarily the den.

 I kept thinking how much Rachelle would love to have a library like this! Many of the books are rare and very old.  There are only 150 Gutenberg Bibles and the Morgans own three of them.

There is a library vault off of the den where precious documents were  extremely protected.  The library is filled with statues and precious relics and archeological finds.  I loved the vaulted ceiling of the rotunda.  It was 3-dimensional with sculptures and paintings intermingled.

There were other exhibit areas dedicated to Henry James, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson and some that I'm not literate enough to recognize.  There were original paintings of Rembrandt and others I didn't recognize.  Original scores from Mozart, Bach, etc.  It was pretty amazing.

While I was doing that Spencer had a delightful evening doing things he enjoyed!  He worked on his lesson for priesthood and he watched a ball game on TV.  So we were both happy campers!  But it was nice to get back home and be together.

Last week I also forgot to mention that Spencer Raymond is now in Sierra Leone (out of the MTC in Ghana) and Caleb Alexander is a trainer in Taiwan.  Jacob Dike is enjoying the work in Branson and Ashley Judd is a great missionary in Oregon.  They are great examples for both of us.  We love and miss all of our family and friends.  We appreiate your prayers.  And we ESPECIALLY LOVE EMAILS OR PHONE CALLS.

August 5, 2017

We were on the road last weekend and didn't make a blog entry, but we made lots of memories!  I will blend Spencer's comments, my comments and photos so you will know what we did during the temple closure time.  Our break didn't really start until Tuesday, July 25th since the missionaries help with the cleaning on Monday.

Spencer:  During our break we had a great experience of traveling in this part of the country.  I owe it to Jeanine for master-minding the whole thing, including the rental car, the navigation and her ability to make things happen.

Jeanine: Our trip northward through Pennsylvania was amazing.  For some reason I do not understand, the GPS sent us on the byways and scenic roads for most of the trip.  We traveled on one lane roads, farm roads between corn fields and saw beautiful farmlands and scenery we would have never seen otherwise.  But it was a little nerve wracking--Spencer was asleep--I didn't really know where we were and the conditions just kept getting more primitive.  Here is a few views we encountered.

Our first stop was Susquehanna, PA (formerly known as Harmony during the time of Emma and Joseph Smith).  It is a cute little town.

Spencer: Our visit to the Susquehanna Visitors' Center was very meaningful for me.  I had recently given a talk in the Concourse Ward about the restoration of the two priesthoods and the importance of the priesthood keys.  To then have the privilege of going there and feeling the special spirit associated with that location is a highlight for our mission.  I wandered off in a grove of trees at the end of our visit and felt really moved about that event in our history.

Jeanine: We learned some new things--John the Baptist didn't visit on the banks of the river. It was in the Sugar Bush up on the hillside and the baptism occurred later that evening.

The next day we visited the Philadelphia Temple and were privileged to do a session before traveling on to Gettysburg, PA.

Spencer: Our visit to Gettysburg was a good experience.  It helped me to rekindle my understanding of the development of this great country..  It reminded me of the issues of slavery then, and now the growth of the church with the Blacks here and all over the earth.  We could have spent days there.

We associate with wonderful Blacks here in our ward whose ancestors came to the Caribbean or USA as slaves. The difference between those who have embraced the gospel and those who have not is striking (and that is not to say that most Blacks aren't good).

We had some good times at Jon and Marjon's with their family.  I guess the two events that stand out is our trip to the zoo (which is owned by a member of their ward) and the trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains where we took a hike.  It was like climbing Mt. Baldy near Big Lake in the White Mountains.  It was fun to see them.

Jeanine:  I didn't make it all the way to the top on the hike.  My knee was starting to give me problems.  I waited and had a beautiful place to meditate and pray.  I loved the pictures of those who did make it to the top.

Jeanine:  We celebrated Spencer's birthday there.  We went out to eat at a Mexican Restaurant and we had a birthday cake that honored both Spencer and Brynly.

Spencer:  The last leg of our trip was to see Cassie (Crawford) and John Kidd and their family.  They live in a beautiful place in North Carolina (Chapel Hill).  John is working on his doctorate degree.  They have a cute little family.  I was personally enamored with little David.  I'm so moved by being around him and feeling of his spirit.  I'm going to keep his name on the prayer roll at the temple for months to come.

Jeanine:  Rachel couldn't understand why we had to leave.  We assured her that we will visit her again.  We talked about working in the temple and helping people.  On the day before we left she told me "You are going to help the people get married in the temple and then you are going to come back here and live forever!"
We visited an Arboretum and another day we rode the city bus to visit a museum.  Rachel loved pulling the cord so the driver would know when we wanted to stop.

Spencer:  Somehow we made it back into this city and returned the car having new memories that will last for a long time.
I love our choice assignment here, and what we are learning about the temple, its patrons and the place called NYC.
I have had members from Utah quiz me at the front desk about the strategy of getting a mission assignment here.  They want to come here.  Sorry, its not likely to happen...

Jeanine:  Today we attended a ward BBQ in a park in the Bronx.  We rode a different train and we saw some interesting tenement housing apartments.  The subway came up out of the ground for awhile.  That was sort of interesting.

Jeanine: I agree with Spencer, this is a choice assignment.  The variety of people we see and languages we hear spoken is overwhelming--but fun.

We love you all and miss you.
Jeanine