Six Month Slump...and The Plan of Happiness

Today we celebrated being missionaries for six months! It's so hard to believe we've completed 1/3rd of our mission. Our time is flying by. In one year we'll be heading home. The elders told us we are supposed to "burn a tie!" We have learned and grown so much and we're thankful for the opportunities we've been given thus far. Along with all the joy there are great challenges and disappointments. We don't experience all the highs and lows like the young elders and sisters do, but we did this past week and wanted to share what we've learned. Elder West and President Bennion are pictured with "Joseph Elias, from Bethlehem." He walked up to Elder Teerlink out on the streets of Astoria and said he wanted to learn more about the Mormon Church. The elders were thrilled, but Joseph said he wanted to have older, more experienced members teach him the gospel. We received our first referral. We were so excited to teach him, last Thursday. We had a wonderful time getting to know him and teaching him about the Restoration. He was excited to be given the Book of Mormon in English and in Arabic. He couldn't read well so Chas even gave him some reading glasses. He was so receptive and happy to hear about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Joseph explained that he was a Palestinian Christian, who left his family,(wife and five children) four years ago to find work in the US. He'd had a good job he enjoyed in Miami. Someone told him about a lucrative construction job here in NY, but when he arrived, about six months ago, it hadn't worked out. He told us he was trapped in NY, hated all the people and the city; he was miserable. We were so hopeful that the gospel would be a blessing to him in every way. On Saturday we met with him again. He was anxious to meet others and we offered to take him to the two barbecues we were attending so that perhaps someone could help him with employment ideas. He then confided in Chas that he was homeless and sleeping in the park for the last six months. Chas told me and of course our hearts went out to him. We invited him to join us for our church meetings Sunday and explained that we were having a special missionary focus that day. Our friends, President and Sister Bennion were speaking in our ward and then during the third hour we had a combined meeting regarding the missionary work that all members could participate in. We asked him to join with us and the Bennions for dinner afterwards. He was very happy and accepted our invitation. Chas had a meeting at the church Saturday night and Joseph asked to relax there where it was cool during the meeting. Chas introduced him to our Stake President, President Duffy, and then he privately visited with President Duffy about what we should do. President Duffy assured him that he should bring him to our home for the night and then the next day he would make sure we got him on a bus to Miami so he could go back to his job there. So Joseph spent the night, our first NY house guest! We didn't sleep well, but we believed we were doing what the Savior would have us do. Sunday was a wonderful day and after Sunday dinner President Bennion and Elder West taught Joseph about the Plan of Salvation. About 4:00 pm the Bennions left for a baptism, and Chas told Joseph he would take him to buy his bus ticket. We would contact missionaries in Miami who would continue teaching and helping him. Joseph was so grateful and happy until Chas pulled out the credit card. Joseph went into a rage and told him to take him back to the place where he lives at 31st and 30th Ave.. He only needed cash and would buy his own ticket! Chas did as he asked and he was so angry he left his plastic bag, with all he had, in our car. Chas tried to get it to him, but he wouldn't stop. At about 6pm Joseph called the elders and said he was confused and would they meet with him. They agreed to see him tonight. We took his bag to the church and while we were there this morning for CES training, Joseph picked up his bag, leaving the 2 Book of Mormons, and glasses on the table. He never showed up to meet with the Elders tonight. We have no idea if anything he told us was true. We have now experienced that feeling that our young missionaries experience all the time. We have also felt the joy that comes from teaching and sharing the gospel. There is much opposition in this work. Yes, we're learning, and will be more cautious next time, but we will continue to ask ourselves what Jesus would do? How thankful we are to be His representatives. We are also grateful for what we learned.

"Happy Birthday" JiYoung!

What a celebration we had with JiYoung Cha as she celebrated her birthday last Friday night at Angelo and Maxie's Steakhouse, at Park Avenue South and 19th Street in Manhattan. The food was absolutely delicious and we enjoyed our time with Astoria Ward friends and met some of JiYoung's friends from law school. She's just completed her first year and was also celebrating the fact that she got a terrific internship she really wanted for this summer. JiYoung is a most talented individual who plays the piano, and sings, very well. She is the YSA rep from our ward. We appreciate her enthusiasm for all she does and love and appreciate how she serves and shares herself with all. Happy Birthday JiYoung! Thanks for your sweet invitation. We had a great time. (Pictured L to R) Cassandra Handley, Brian Bullock, JiYoung Cha, and Vonya Kalaidjieva.

Ward Barbecue at Tony's

Our friend Tony Moustakas hosted the Astoria Ward at a festive barbecue on Saturday afternoon. It was an "all you can eat" opportunity featuring cheeseburgers and hot dogs and all the yummy summer foods that go so well together. The large backyard Tony has is a rarity, so it was well attended. Midway through the party, Mother Nature sent a huge thunder and lightning storm with amazing rain. Tony invited all inside his spacious home for the Mets vs Yankees game, and passed out ice cream bars. Ronin, Olive, Darby and Cache, had such a good time. Jason Glass (the 2nd counselor in the Astoria Bishopric) hurried to grab a bite while keeping an eye on this little club! I get a kick out of all of them. Thanks Tony for a terrific time!

YSA ASTORIA FHE

Tony, JiYoung, Judy, Nephi, and Robert, pose, then smile, as they are loading up their dinner plates! We have such a great time with "our kids" on Mondays when they come for FHE. We have missed our family after being empty nesters for several years. What fun it is to have a growing family of Astoria YSAs that come to our home. Last Monday we had 8 plus our 2 Astoria Elders. Our lesson was about the blessings of daily scripture study and then we played scripture password and had a blast! Ji Young and Sarah were our winning team. Way to go ladies!

Humanitarian Activity

The contents for school and hygiene kits were gathered and organized for the Astoria Ward activity, June 21, 2008. Heather Eastman, Kristie Larsen, and Elder West were busy assembling kits while I had fun snapping shots. When I think of all the good our church accomplishes through out the world, I think the humanitarian effort is one of my favorite things. Imagine a child, with very little to call his or her own in this world, having a school bag with their brand new set of colored pencils, ruler, notebooks, pencils, and erasers. Kristie Larsen sewed a fun scrap of fabric on one side of the bag, just to make it special. The hygiene kits have soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, washrags, hand towels, and all of the essentials. I love the effort that all of this takes and the blessing it is to all who receive it. The Astoria Ward is a small, incredible group of saints who are talented and outgoing. We just love this special ward, and thank our President Bennion for wanting to have us serve here. He knew we would be happy.

Loving the Eastern Shore

Living on an island, we see the water daily. We love the Eastern Seashore after being California Beach Buns all of our lives. We never tire of the seagulls and Long Island is a quick get-away! We hope to spend a little more time out on the Island this summer.

MONTAUK POINT LIGHTHOUSE

Our June Senior Social was hosted by Elder and Sister Roush who live in Riverhead out on Long Island. We traveled to their home on Saturday, June 14th. We enjoyed a delicious brunch and then traveled out through the beautiful Hamptons to Amagansett. There we met Brother and Sister Edwards, devoted members of the Roush's ward, and enjoyed their charming home. He is retired from years of commanding a Coast Guard vessel, and now fishes alone 5 days a week. Sister Edwards made us fresh fish salad, (her specialty) on crackers. She is a talented homemaker and gardener. He is from twelve generations of fishermen, and whaling captains, and actually lost his father in a fishing accident in 1999. Brother Edwards took us on a personal tour of the Marine Museum in East Hampton and taught us the history of whaling on Long Island. It was so interesting as we learned about the Right Whale, named because of it's size and the fact that it floated after it was killed. The last whale taken off the coast of Amagansett was in 1907. We saw his family's boat and can only imagine the courage it took to get beside a huge whale in what seemed like a very small craft. We also saw pictures of many of his family members. After viewing the museum, we drove to Montauk, the furthest part out on Long Island, about a 3 hour drive from Astoria and yes, in the NYNYSouth Mission! (so is Bermuda...we're hoping to have President Bennion send us on a dance assignment there!) After seeing the lighthouse and memorial to fishermen lost at sea, we had a dinner at a local seafood house. It was a beautiful evening and we could see all the boats going in and out of the harbor. Lobster season is just beginning and so we hope to have a lobster boil in the near future with the Edwards. It was most memorable day. Thank you to the Edwards and especially Elder and Sister Roush, who we dearly love!

"Goodbye" Elder Loftin..."Hello" Elder Low

We can only imagine Elder Loftin's homecoming. We visited with his parents and they were so excited to welcome him home. We have a terrific new Astoria elder, Elder Low, from Perry, Utah. He has five sisters and loves cookies and cream ice cream! His release date is September 3rd, so we are hopeful that President Bennion will allow him to "die" here with us! We are happy to see Elder Patton and Elder Low working very well together and they are being blessed in finding and teaching. Elder Patton was "born" in Astoria, and so he is "our baby" too. What a blessing it is for us to watch him learn and grow. He is a great young man, very supportive, helpful and kind with a most infectious sense of humor. Elder Patton and all of the elders we work closely with in the Astoria Ward, will always hold special places in our hearts.

Our New District Leader

We were sad sending Elder Warner out to Zone 8,(the end of Long Island) but thrilled that Elder McLean was called to serve as our new District Leader. This fine Elder is such a wonderful example to all of us as he is very humble and Christlike. He's been in our district for the last 14 weeks and during that time we have grown to respect and love him a great deal. His goals are lofty and we are all working hard. He is also uniting us in many different ways as the entire mission is surpassing the goals set by the APs and President Bennion. Last week we held a successful FHE here at our home with less-actives and investigators. Also, a street sweep at a busy subway stop, Steinway and Broadway went well last Tuesday. Elder McLean (L) is pictured with his new companion, Elder Teerlink,(R) who arrived in NY the end of January. He's from Holiday, Utah, has 5 sisters and loves to water ski. We look forward to getting to know him.

Souls and Goals

Our great Zone Leader, Elder Bell, directed "Souls and Goals." It's one of our favorite things about Zone Meetings. We list all those that have committed to a baptismal date; Jamie, Wendy and Jose on June 22nd, Kumar, Kshtiz and Omar on June 29th and Elerky on July 6th. The prayer rainbow (usually a prayer box) is above, listing those we all need to pray for; they need some extra help in making their commitment. There were 8 individuals listed. As you can see, even the best leader has a hard time keeping Elder Crisanto out of the picture! He's quite a character.

Happy Father's Day...The INSIDE SCOOP!

We celebrated then, October 14th, 2005, and there's reason to celebrate again! We just learned that Will and Krista are having their first little Hasler! So Happy Father's Day, Will and congratulations to all of us. Krista reports that she's having rough evenings, but managing. That's really good news all the way around. We love each of our sweet grandchildren and can hardly wait for another expected to arrive the first of 2009!

Grandkids Make Our World Go Round

Our two favorite artists from Fallbrook, California, Jacob and Shelby Nye, sent their fabulous creations. We think they are so terrific we had to post them on our blog! Jacob has had a talent for drawing temples for several years. We think this one of the San Diego Temple is so well done. Jake served as Class Representative this year. Way to go! Shelby has always been fascinated by creatures. Her impression of a colorful, animated, dolphin is very fun. Her last day of school is tomorrow! Our oldest grandson, Johnny, emails us to tell us about how well he is doing in school. He likes math best and staying on the top of the honor roll for his class. Congratulations, John. Lincoln auditioned for his class play, Peter Pan, and got the part of Captain Hook! All it takes to keep Annahlise happy is glue, paper, scissors, and marking pens. She designs books and doll clothes! Now that it is Summertime, we hope they will all have a memorable break from school and enjoy lots of playtime and storybooks. That's what we remember most; sand, surf and Summer reading clubs!

True Love...on the Steps of BYU's Allen Hall

58 plus years ago my parents fell in love! The rest is history. We just celebrated their 78th birthdays (just 10 days apart). They are the parents of 5 children, 24 grandchildren and 20 great- grandchildren with 3 more on the way! Thanks Dad for making me think of you, along with the great father of my children, Chas and our wonderful sons, Jeff, Shane, Zach, Will and Sean, when I read this poem.

You're head of our whole family, you see to all our needs.
You listen and you hear with love, you smile and praise good deeds.
You shoulder your own heavy loads and share our burdens too.
Armed with patriarchal power, God blesses us through you.
Your hands hold our smaller ones when calming childish fears
or touch to gently reassure and wipe away our tears.
As you walk forth in righteousness, we want to follow you.
And on our knees we humbly pray to God, just as you do.
We're walking in your footsteps, secure in loving care.
God bless you fathers, everyone, is our most humble prayer.

by Mary Jane Davis

Anna and Jason, Baptisms in Flushing

We met Anna Liu when she came to our home for a Family Home Evening where we celebrated Jimmy and Eva Hawkes wedding. Yesterday, just two weeks after coming to church for the first time, she was baptized. She has a real excitement about learning all things spiritual and will attend our Queens College institute class. We are so happy for her, and glad we will be able to teach her and get to know her better. She's also working hard to learn English. In the meantime we will produce our handouts in English, Spanish, Italian and now Chinese! Anna is pictured (L to R) with Elder Xie, her uncle, and Elder Toronto who baptized her.
Jason Yu was so thrilled to be baptized by Brother Eric Lowe, a returned missionary who served in Flushing, and knew his family well. Jason asked him to travel back to New York from his home in Ohio to baptize him. Jason is smiling with his cute sister, his Mom, Qian Chen, and Eric Lowe. Attending these happy occasions is one of our favorite things to do on Sundays.

The Power of the Word

For the past 5 weeks we have been teaching The Power of the Word. Our testimonies have been strengthened as we have been able to teach and testify about the importance of daily scripture study. So many of our students are very new to the gospel of Jesus Christ and so it's been meaningful to include some of the sharing time ideas they missed in Primary, like the Article of Faith songs. If one can memorize them as a song they are hard to forget! In 1969, President Harold B. Lee said, "All that we teach in this Church ought to be couched in the scriptures. It ought to be found in the scriptures. We ought to choose our texts from the scriptures. If we want to measure truth, we should measure it by the four standard works, regardless of who writes it. If it is not in the standard works we may well assume that it is speculation, man's own personal opinion; and if it contradicts what is in the scriptures, it is not true. This is the standard by which we measure all truth." We know this is true, and we are grateful for the students we teach and the opportunity that we have to serve as missionaries. Each day we like to think of the scriptures "as a letter from home." We are excited to read and study from them and learn what our Heavenly Father wants us to know.

BYU Plays Carnegie Hall

Our first concert at Carnegie Hall, featuring the BYU Chamber Orchestra, was to a packed house of New York Latter-day Saints and international diplomats from many nations. We took this picture from our box just before we learned that we aren't to take pictures! My favorite work was Copeland's Appalachian Spring. I had a hard time staying in my seat, and wanted to get up and swish my skirt a little! I also like the familiar Shaker hymn"Simple Gifts," which Copeland infused into the piece. Chas enjoyed Gioachino Rossini's Overture to La gazza ladra, featuring the stereophonic snare drums. We remember hearing it at an Italian concert we attended in a park when we were in Venice one summer. It was a lovely evening at an incredible place.

Backyard Barbeque

Monday night, Family Home Evening, was our first evening to enjoy eating outside with a fun family that joined us. Flory Pazmino, was baptized last Fall along with her children Flory and Brandon Skerret. Her youngest son, Bryand Pazmino is preparing to be baptized soon. He is studying the scriptures to strengthen his testimony about the truthfulness of the prophets. Elder Loftin worked with this family and so we celebrated his birthday together and fortunately we had the opportunity to get acquainted. After I took this picture Yasmin also was able to join us. Elder Patton gave a great lesson on the power of prayer in our lives. It led to a discussion and sharing of personal experiences from all. Pictured (L. to R) Fory Pazmino, Flory, Brandon, Elder Patton, Elder Loftin, and Bryand.

"Elder-hood" in the Afternoon!

Another Sabbath at the North Shore Long Island Jewish Medical Center. This trip I didn't need the X-ray, Elder Loftin did. Friday while playing basketball, he landed wrong on his left food and sprained his ankle. Saturday was his 21st birthday and he could barely walk to his meetings, but managed. He put on a really brave face and wanted to tough it out until two doctors, (one a podiatrist) at our ward today said, "Get an X-ray." So we spent the afternoon together. As you can see Elder Loftin was in good spirits and this was his first time ever on a hospital bed. I said that is blog-worthy! Elder Patton celebrated the occasion by splurging on Cheetos for all! Amazingly, Elder Loftin has ten more days here in NY before going home and has never been sick or had a down day. He gave pass-along cards to his two X-ray techs and taught a discussion! After the X-ray his doctor assured us it was not broken, ordered crutches, wrapped it and asked him to stay off it. We headed back to Astoria, where Elder Loftin and Elder Patton arrived at a barbecue with ward members and we got to our Break the Fast, at Richmond Hill, with the Queens Stake YSAs and SAs.

A Beautiful New Family For Time and All Eternity, Friday, May 30, 2008

Joy and happiness is what we have experienced this past week as our dear friends and students, Eva Wang and Jimmy Hawkes were sealed for time and all eternity in the Manhattan Temple. Their story is worth telling and we have invited them to be our "poster couple" for institute! Eva is studying to be a nurse and Jimmy has one more year of medical school. They met at Elder and Sister Goodson's Institute class in Flushing. Our first Sunday in the Astoria Ward (last January), we met Jimmy who told us he was engaged. He also asked us if we knew his grandparents, Blaine and Bonnie Hawkes from Sugar City, Idaho. Jimmy's father, Billy, is their oldest son. We have known his family for years and I served with his aunt, Betty Waddell, in a presidency for five years and have known her well since I was 20 years old! It's a small world as we make connections often in the Church. Our Bishop invited Jimmy to bring Eva to our temple preparation class. Every other Monday night we met for dinner and a lesson and grew to have a great love for both of them along with Vanya and Judy who also came. Last Monday night we had an incredible Family Home Evening as we welcomed the YSAs from the Flushing Chinese Ward and the Astoria YSAs along with two elders from each ward and two investigators. Elder Loftin taught about priesthood power and authority and why we are married in the temple. We bore our testimonies of the blessings of being married in the temple and Eva and Jimmy shared their love story and testimonies about why they were being married in the Manhattan Temple. Wednesday we were privileged to attend the temple with Eva, Jimmy, his parents, and his sister, when Eva received her endowment. On Friday, May 30, 2008 we joined them when they were sealed in the Manhattan Temple and we attended their Chinese Party that night! It was a memorable week. We are so thankful for the blessings of serving and teaching these choice young people that are here. Eva and Jimmy are so blessed for making so many good choices in their lives.....so are we, especially our choice to serve in the NYNYS Mission.