Our Final Sunday in Astoria

We taught Kat for the last time, Sunday, June 28th. We congratulate her on her graduation from Temple Preparation. The last lesson is a follow up after one attends the temple for the first time. She went to The Manhattan Temple with her step-mother and Amelia the day we taught a dance activity in Westchester. We are so happy for her and know she will return to the Lord's house often as she has a testimony of this most Christ-like service. We have three other students who are preparing for this blessing in their lives soon. We so enjoyed this part of our assignment during our mission.

We said sad goodbyes and shed some tears as we hugged our "NY kids." We loved having the Astoria Young Single Adults in our home for Family Home Evenings, Sunday dinners, and on special occasions. We will always consider them our NY family during our mission and will miss them a lot. Their strength and examples of faithfulness through challenging times in their lives strengthened our testimonies. We thank them for their generosity and love. They presented us with a large framed picture so we could always remember our good times together and a card we'll treasure always from "our kids." We love each of you (and are missing several in this picture, although they are pictured through out our entire blog). You will be in our hearts forever.

This photo represents a few of the Queens Stake Young Single Adults and our Institute classes. We will miss all of the CES dinners and firesides together and our weekly classes. Also many Sunday FHEs, and weekend activities that were apart of our work with this group. They have started a wonderful group and are meeting regularly for FHE and YSA activities...way to go. Thanks for making our calling so rewarding for us.

We grew to love the amazing Astoria Ward members too and thank all of the Relief Society sisters for the special thank you notes they wrote to us along with their families. They mean so much to us and all of you always will too. We searched for a family to teach and baptize to strengthen the Astoria Ward. We are hopeful that a family that had attended church meetings for three weeks and Elders Norman and Nielsen were teaching, will follow through with their committment to be baptized this month. We felt the strength of this special ward and they worked together to meet inspired goals.

When we arrived home from our church meetings, this marvelous couple was waiting for us. They look so relaxed and kick-back. The truth is that they were so exhausted and it was their last Sunday in the mission as well. We got a few things ready to send home together and they hurried off to attend several baptisms and President Bennion had to set 3 new missionaries apart. We will miss seeing President and Sister Bennion often and so appreciated all that they did to serve the saints of NYC, all of the missionaries, and for teaching us so many good things. We will always cherish the opportunity we had to serve together with them again.