A Miner Modification

Sunday and Monday

Monday we went to Liberty and Ellis Islands. It was a nice day, and we enjoyed the tours. We took the audio tours. We did not go up into the statue because tickets for that are all sold out. They only allow 240 people a day to go up inside. The statue will close in Oct. for renovation that will take about a year to complete. We went to our ward for the first time on Sunday. Whoa! It is a 99% black branch in Brooklyn. There is hardly any priesthood--mostly women. Many are from Jamaica, Haiti, and Guyana. They have accents that make it hard to understand them. They were nice, but I still felt uncomfortable. RS was crazy.  A blind woman taught the lesson, and people were talking to each other the whole time. Many just blurted out when they had something to say. One woman said, "I have something to say, and I'm going to say it!"  During sacrament meeting a lady with three little kids walked out at the first of the meeting, and came back later with all the kids sporting snacks she had obviously gone to the corner store and bought for them.  Many people did not have on church clothes--jeans, capris, scrubs, Hawaiian shirts, shorts, etc. I really don't know what we can do to help them, but they need a lot of help. We have to talk in Sacrament meeting on Sunday.

Ridin the rails

(and the bus and walking a lot)


Last Wednesday we were assigned to inspect three missionary apartments in the Bronx. We had to take several trains, the bus and walk a lot.  This was our first adventure by ourselves on the subway.  It took us 5 hours to do all the apartments. We left at 7:15 and got back at 12:30.  The Bronx is a whole different world from Manhattan.  We were the only white people around.  All the apartments were places you wouldn't want to live, but I guess it is safe enough there for the elders.  The last one was very near Yankee Stadium, so we can tell Dave how to get there when he comes.

Earthquake!

New York felt the earthquake that was centered in Virginia today. I was laying on the couch, and had fallen asleep. I remember opening my eyes and things were moving, and I thought I better close my eyes again. I felt like I had vertigo. Robert was on a chair in the bedroom reading. He felt the chair move. We did not know that it was an earthquake, until we turned on the TV. No damage was reported around here.

No Habla Espanol

We have now made it through one week. The hours are long, and we get home so late that we are ready for bed. Tuesday-Thursday we get home at 10:00 p.m. and on Friday we get home at 11:00 p.m. On Friday, the missionaries clean the temple after the sessions are over. I hope my stamina improves as I get used to it. It is really like having a full time job again, and you all know that I have not had that in many years (or maybe ever). In September our schedule will change to the mornings for the next three months. I think that will be easier for me, but someone pointed out that with the afternoon/evening schedule you have time to run errands in the morning, as our schedule starts at 3:00 most of those days.

Now to the "no habla" part. On Thursday I was assigned to be the 2nd follower on a session at 7:30. That is the person that helps give the tokens, etc. I was giving out the new name before that started and couldn't understand why all these sisters didn't understand English very well and did not have cards that said they needed the earphones for translation. When I was about done someone told me that it was to be an all Spanish session. So anyway, I went on an all Spanish session, not understanding a word that was spoken. I know the endowment well enough that I could tell where we were, but I just had to follow the cues of the 1st follower. I would say that 50% of the patrons at the temple speak Spanish as their primary language. Some speak hardly any English.

We have had some good food. We had some great tacos from a street vendor, a huge sandwich from Lansky's deli, (we will know next time to get one and split it), and Chinese food from Ollies. We also had hot dogs from Grays Papaya, but if those are the best hot dogs in NY, I would hate to taste the worst. On Friday, we went on the MTA all the way to the Staten Island Ferry stop to apply for a senior citizen discount on the subway for dad. I do not qualify until my next birthday. That makes it half price for him. 

Today we went to a ward that meets here in the Lincoln Center building. The schedule was old that we were given, and we ended up going to a singles ward. It was interesting. The sister leading RS had all the new people and visitors introduce themselves, but went right by us like we were invisible. (The McCoys were with us.) Oh well, I guess it won't be too bad next week when we have to find our way to our assigned branch in Brooklyn. We have also been assigned to inspect 3 missionary apartments up in the Bronx this week. I hope we can find them.

This temple does many things different than we did in Dallas or that we were taught in Provo during our training. The workers (sisters) do all the laundry including gathering, washing, drying, folding, ironing, mending and handing out. You also have to do the laundry in the baptistery. There have been so many new things to learn, that it has been information overload.

It has rained all day today (Sunday). I can't decide if we dare take a walk to Central Park or not. It is only one block away and we haven't seen it yet except for driving through on our way from the airport.

Ready to Go

We have loved our experience at the MTC, but are now anxious to go to NYC. We finished our training on Thursday. We spent the week in the Provo temple with Elder and Sister Bonnie Hammond. Since we are not set apart to work in that temple, we were only able to act as patrons. Through the week, we participated in all the ordinances. We were also able to study the cards a couple of times, and were able to practice with our husbands. That is something that is not allowed in other temples. We were able to compare the ordinances for males and females. They are a bit different, but I told Dad I didn't want to look at his too long, or I might get confused. The temple recorder, engineer, and laundress talked to us about their duties. We even had to help fold clothes in the laundry for a half hour. They do over 7,000 pounds of laundry a day there. There were a total of 30 people in our temple class. They are going to El Salvador, Washington DC, Seoul Korea, Madrid, London, Copenhagen, and NYC.

We did move into the MTC rooms on Monday. Even though they are very small, and not that nice, we liked being on campus. Not worrying about rides, and being able to go back to your room to brush your teeth or rest between classes was worth it. Friday Katie came and picked us up, and we went to the Bean Museum with Jenny and her kids. We then went to the Brick Oven for dinner. Today (Saturday) we are going to go to the canyon with them. Mandy and Martin took us out to the Macaroni Grill on Wednesday. They are camping at Swift Creek right now. (That is where Martin's family took him as a child.)

Our next report will be from NYC, yeah!

Mission Story #1

Dad:

Let me tell you a few things that have confirmed to me that being on a mission is where the Lord wants Jana and I to be at this time.

Jana and I had been thinking for a quite some time that we should go on a mission. We figured that going sooner, after I retired, would be better than going later. We felt that this is what the Lord wanted us to do. So after I retired, the end of December 2010, we took a K and GK trip, (kids and grand kids). After we returned home, we decided we had better get after it and started trying to devoid our selves of 32 years of stuff.

The following is the reception we got from our priesthood leaders.

First event, Jana and I met with the bishop in tithing settlement and told him that we were thinking about going on a mission and his face lit up like a child with a new Christmas present.  He told us that the Stake President had asked each bishop who was ready to go on a mission in his ward and most bishops had an excuse for each of the couples that were of the right age. Most of them had either a physical or a financial problem. Our bishop had said that Brother Miner was still working and he did not know when he would retire.

The second event took place about a week later, Jana and I were working on the Nativity exhibit at the Stake Center when the Stake President came and asked if he could talk to us for a minute.  When we were in his office, I said to him, I guess you have been talking to our bishop and we know that you wanted to talk to us about. He said he had not talked to the bishop, but wanted to talk to us about a mission. When we told him our plans, our desire to serve a mission, he was very excited and wanted to put our name in the system right then, so we could start completing our application.

What to do with our home:

Jana and I had talked for some time about what to do with our home if we went on a mission? We decided that it would be the right time to “down size” and sell our home, and if we could not sell it, we would rent it while we were gone.  We talked to Christine Mannewitz/Downing, a realtor we had know since she was a baby, and she had told us that she felt confident that she could sell our home in 60 to 90 days. But if we did not sell, she could rent it in 10 days to 2 weeks.  So we prepared our home: de-cluttered, spruced up, touched up paint, did all the things they tell you to do on TV.

Christine came to our home and took pictures and loaded them on to  MLS. The day after the pictures appeared, we received an offer, but we did not feel good about the offer, it was complicated and they wanted a lot of concessions, so we spent the day trying to decide how to counter. The next day, before we had time to send in the counter, we got an offer from a new potential buyer. This one was very simple, they wanted our home, No questions asked.  We felt good about the offer, but did not know what to do.  We had submitted our papers to the mission department, but had not yet received a call, but with the offer in hand, we felt that we needed to proceed so we set a date for sale. May 23rd.  The interested party felt like it was a good date so we started toward that date. We then received our call to go to the Manhattan Temple in New York City, to serve for 18 months. We were really excited and then read the next line that said that we were to enter the MTC (Missionary Training Center) on September the 19th. We did not know what we were going to do between May and September, but we knew we were doing the right thing.  So we contacted the potential buyer and asked them if they would consider buying the house in May and leasing it back to us until Sept. 19? They came back to us and said, “lets just put off the sale until that time”, and we agreed.  We felt that this was an answer to our prayers, and all would be well.  A week later, we received a call from the missionary department of the church asking us to pull our start date up from September 19, to July 25th, almost 2 months sooner.  Well, we went back to the potential buyer and asked if they would be willing to change the sale date one more time to meet our needs. They told us that they would be glad to oblige, and we felt we were in good shape, except for one thing, they still needed to do an appraisal on the house and we were concerned that maybe the house would not appraise for the sale price we had agreed upon. Within a couple of days of discussing the concern with each other, we received a call from Christine telling us that the buyer had decided to pay cash for the house, and no appraisal would be necessary.  We know that the Lord is standing behind us in our decision.

What do we do with our cars?

We next decided that both of our cars were really old and would be that much older if we kept them until we got home, so we decided to sell them. I was a lot more worried about selling them than Jana was, but on Sunday I spread the word they I had two old cars, a Honda and a Van, that I wanted to sell before we left on our mission.

Within a week or so I had sold the Honda to a family who had a young daughter who was excited to get transportation that she could use to and from High School.

A little later, some dear friends, the Swartz’s told us that their daughter, who lived in San Antonio, was pregnant with her second child, and they only had one car, and needed a van, so when we went to see Matt and Maria, we sold the van to them.  The special part of the deal was that they were happy to let us keep the van until we left for our mission, and their mother took us to the airport the day we left in our van.

These are just a few of the special events that have led up to why we know that we are doing what the Lord wants us to do and where he wants us to be.