A Miner Modification

Cruise around Manhattan

In June we went on a cruise around the island of Manhattan with some of the other missionaries. Here are some pictures from that day. 

The first two pictures are the Intrepid Museum which is docked right by where we took off. The space shuttle Enterprise had just been put on the museum. 

 

We went by the Statue of Liberty and Yankee Stadium. I had no idea we were so close to the river when we were at the stadium with Katie and Dave.

Some really rich person's yacht passed us along the way.

 

The last picture is of Dad and I.

 

Katie's Visit

I have been very lax lately about putting any pictures of our activities on the blog. Here are some pictures Robert took while Katie and her family were here in May. We enjoyed having them here so much. It made me realize how much I miss all of you.

 

 

 

 

Weekend Update

This past weekend we went to our new branch for the first time. It is in Queens. We were able to get there without too much trouble. We have to ride 3 trains and a bus and then walk 6 blocks. The building is much nicer than where we have been going, and the area is a little less depressing. It still isn't somewhere I want to go a night. The building is an old Masonic Hall that has been converted by the church. It actually has pews instead of just chairs. It has an organ, and they had someone that could play it. I recognized several sisters there that I had seen at the temple. I hope those who came from the East New York 1st branch felt as positively about it as I did.

On Monday we went to see Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. It was a cute funny movie.

Conference Weekend

Sorry I have not been good about keeping you informed of what we have been doing. On conference weekend we had a rare three days off. Early on Saturday morning we went on a tour of church history sites in lower Manhattan. Despite the cold, rain, and wind it was enjoyable and very interesting. None of the buildings are still there, but we saw where Joseph Smith stayed with Parley Pratt when they came to New York to purchase supplies for Parley's store, where Martin Harris showed Professor Anton the characters from the Book of Mormon, where a couple of Mormon newspapers were published, and where the ship the Brooklyn left with a group of saints to sail all the way around South America to get to the west. Those who read the "Work and the Glory" series will remember that story. We also saw other modern day sites such as the New York Stock Exchange.

We spent the rest of the day and Sunday watching conference on our computer. It gets such a much better picture than our TV that we are always amazed.

On Monday night we went to a lecture at Columbia sponsored by the LDSSA. It was given by a medical doctor at the U of U that has written a book about Joseph Smith and his concept of death and how it affected his thoughts on the sealing power. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to follow it, but I did.

 

Newsies

A week ago today we went to see the Broadway play Newsies. It is a Disney production that has been produced for licensing. That means they are going to make it available to use for community theater and high school and college musicals. It started out at the Paper Mill theater in NJ and it got good reviews so they decided to bring it to Broadway for a few months. It was supposed to run just until June 10, but I heard that it has been extended until August. It is a very clean, family friendly story. Thanks to Mandy I knew all the music. She loved the movie that came out in 1992, and watched it all the time. An interesting side note, the movie took 15 million dollars to produce and only made 3 million dollars, so it was considered a flop. It has had a strong cult like following since, and many schools had been asking to be able to use it for productions. It was never a stage play before now, just a movie. We enjoyed the play very much. It is always interesting to see how they do the sets, etc.

Yesterday the branch we have attended since we got here was dissolved and the members divided between two other branches. We now have to go all the way to Queens to church. We go at 1:00 pm so will be gone all afternoon. No more Sunday naps I guess. I hope this will be an improvement. We had so little priesthood in the other branch.

Spring in the Park

We have had a very warm winter here in NYC. The past few days have been in the 70's. Yesterday we took the bus to 58th and Lexington on the East Side so I could try on some shoes at a Naturalizer store over there (I have been looking for some brown flats to replace the ones I bought before we left. They kill my toes). We walked back, and went through the park. Dad got some good pictures of the daffodils and crocus that are in bloom.

 

We had family home evening last night with the other missionaries. We first went on a tour of the temple to identify all the emergency escape routes, the fire alarms, extinguishers, and first aid kits, etc. We then played games. We had fun playing Balderdash. I remember many fun rounds of that game with you all. If you can't remember it, it is the one where you make up definitions for obscure words, and try to guess which is real and which is made up.

Madison Square Garden

I am not being too good about posting what we have been doing, so I'll try to do two posts today. On March 5 we went to the Garden for the BNP Paribas Showdown. It was an exhibition match between Wozniacki and Sharapova and Roddick and Federer. It was a lot of fun to watch them live. The girls were pretty serious until the end when Wozniacki brought down her boyfriend Rory McIlroy and he hit a few balls against Sharapova. Roddick was hilarious the whole time. He left the court to go in the audience to get an autograph from Ben Stiller. He imitated Nadal, and just talked back to the referee and the audience the whole time. I think the pictures are self explanatory.

 

 

 

 

Columbia University

Today we took the bus up to the Columbia University area. I have discovered I love to ride the bus. If you are not in a hurry, it is the best way to go. Not so many people, and you can see all the scenery on your route. The main reason we went to the area was to eat lunch at Five Guys. We had seen it there when we went to St. John the Divine Cathedral, and were craving good french fries. Good french fries have been scarce in NYC. After we ate we walked around the campus. I was surprised that it looks much like a college campus with a quad and everything. It was very cold outside, so we didn't stay too long. Dad didn't remember his camera, so no pictures.

Tonight we have family home evening. A brother Bushman who is a sealer at the temple and a professor at Columbia is going to speak to us. He has written a book about Joseph Smith and has had something to do with compiling the Joseph Smith papers. I'll let you know more later.

What we did on our winter vacation

Our two week vacation while the temple was closed for maintenance went by quickly, and yesterday we started back at the temple. We did many touristy things during the break. We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and a museum on the lower east side called the Tenement Museum. The Tenement Museum teaches how many immigrants lived in the late 1800's and early 1900's. It was one of my favorite places we went. While we were down there we walked through Chinatown and Little Italy. We ate dinner in Little Italy.

One day we went to Macy's and bought dad a new suit. We spent another day going to pick it up after alterations. That day we went over to the main NYC public library. There is an exhibit there of many rare or noteworthy books, manuscripts, and items owned by the library. One of note is the original Pooh and his friends that were the toys of the author's son and inspired the writing of the stories. We went to two Broadway plays-War Horse and Mama Mia. The puppets in War Horse were amazing, and Mama Mia had us smiling the whole time.

Some days we just stayed home and watched TV and rested.

Here are a few pictures that Dad took. The first is Washington Crossing the Delaware at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The second is a Picasso at the Museum of Modern Art. The painting Starry Night by Van Gogh is also there, but Dad did not get any good pictures. The third is the entrance to the tenements that we viewed while on tour at the Tenement Museum.

 

 

St. John the Divine

Last Thursday morning we went to an Episcopalian Cathedral located at 110 and Amsterdam. It is close to Columbia University. It was built (or started) in the late 1800's. It has never been finished as they ran out of money. The man who was our tour guide teaches architecture, so he was very interesting to listen to. Although we have seen some beautiful cathedrals in Europe, we learned so much more here, as the tour group was small, and we were able to ask questions.

Today (Monday Jan. 23) we start our two weeks of vacation as the temple is closed for that time for maintenance. We had to go to the temple this morning and work for half a day in cleaning the lockers, and clothing rental area. We hope to make good use of our time. Tomorrow, we are going to go shopping for Dad a new suit. We have tickets to War Horse (the play) and Mama Mia. We plan to go to the MOMA to see the Diego Rivera exhibit. Many museums are not open on Mondays when we have our usual day off.

The first picture is of the cathedral from a statue in the adjacent children's park. The second is of the    window on the side of the building. There are many beautiful stained glass windows. The rose window over the front doors (Dad didn't get a good picture of it.) is 40 feet in diameter. From the floor it looks like it's about 5 feet. Two football fields would fit end to end inside the cathedral.