Transfer week

Every 6 weeks, new missionaries enter the mission, a few go home, and several new companionships are formed (nice thing about being a senior couple is that we get to keep the same companion). It's called Transfer Day. Here are a few going home.

Our own Elder Hulse (he lives in our apartment complex) returned home to Idaho, but will be back this summer as part of the cast for the Hill Cumorah Pageant.

Elder Miller, also one of our finest, (Spanish speaking) returned to Arizona.

The sweetest senior couple, the DePews, are planning on going on another senior mission shortly after they return home to Wyoming on Apr. 2.

On the way home from Transfer meeting, we passed through the lovely, quaint village of Fairport.

Nice spring day for a little stroll along the Erie Canal.

So, all the new missionaries got orientated and teamed up with their new companions, we said farewell to the departing ones, and the remainder of our day went like this:
       Sister Thomas (a sweet young sister missionary): (phone conversation)" Hi, Sister Ellis, we got
             moved into our new apartment just fine. There is a slight problem,however. The carpet in the 
             hall is soaking wet, and we can't take a shower (due to some missing shower fixtures).
       Me (Sister Ellis):  (expressions of concern and apology) We'll take care of that right away.
So, Elder Ellis and I called the apartment manager who thought the bathroom repairs were completed a week ago. Thankfully, by the next day, the missing shower fixtures were installed and the sisters were able to take a shower. The source of the soggy carpet was found to be a broken hot water heater, which was replaced, along with the carpet.
At the same time, there were immediate needs for a missionary apartment which, after transfer day, is now housing 5 sister missionaries. Five girls and one bathroom--Yikes! They needed a few items of furniture which we were able to get from the Shed, the storage place for various household items and furnishings needed by missinaries. After we loaded their stuff into the A.P.'s truck (assistants to the mission president), we stayed on for another 6 hours and cleaned up and organized "the shed" (there's another one too, not included in the picture). Here are the "before" and "after" photos.

Before the big clean-up. There wasn't much room to even walk around in it.

After! Whew! I was so tired I let Elder Ellis talk me into going to Taco Bell for dinner. 

middle of March in the mission

The two missionaries who live in our apartment complex invaded our kitchen this week to show off their culinary skills.

Elder Hulse, who is going home next week, treated us to Adobo na Monok, a sweet/sour chicken dish he learned to cook while serving the first part of his mission in the Philipines.

Avery, this photo is especially for you -- Elder Hulse is striking a "chef" pose for an episode of your favorite T.V. show, "Cooking Show Grammy"(part of her series on missionaries and their cooking skills).

Not to be out-done, his companion, Elder Preisendorf, cooked up his famous Cafe Rio Pulled Pork later on in the week.

Both dishes were yummy (I made the side dishes to go with them). These young men are awesome missionaries.

We were treated to a spiritual feast on Wednesday when the entire mission met wth Elder Cook, who is our area authority. His inspired words, along with President Christianson's, filled us to the spiritual brim.
We got one last photo of Elder Peck, who is completing his mission at the end of this month, and returning to BYU, where he will be on their football team and will be totally awesome, I'm sure. If he's half as good a football player as he is a missionary, the team is headed for victory. He is a giant of a young man wth an even bigger testimony of our savior, Jesus Christ.

What a wonderful week it's been! Saturday was a beautiful Spring day that filled our hearts with joy as we accompanied Maren and several of the missionaries to the Palmyra temple, where Maren had her first amazing experience inside the House of the Lord.

The flowers are starting to come up in the temple flower beds.

For lunch, we stopped at the most amazing little Italien restaurant on Palmyra Rd.

Nima's has the best tasting calzones in the world! Life doesn't get much better than a day like this. (unless, of course,we were spending it with our grandkids!)

P.S: Do you think if we keep feeding Elder Ellis more of these calzone's that he will grow any taller?

Elder Hulse, Elder Ellis, Elder Elrey

bits and pieces of the past week

Last weekend, we attended our first stake conference in the Rochester, N Y Stake. At the Saturday night adult session, we heard wonderful testimonies from recent converts who made mighty changes in their lives when the gospel of Jesus Christ changed their hearts. One young woman  told of how her tattooed, smoking,drinking sister got baptized, paving the way for her conversion as well as her boyfriend's (now her husband). Here is the sister's story.

After the Sunday session of stake conference, we had the Elders and two fairly new members of the Church (Casey and Maren) over for lunch. Both of these beautiful young women are the only members of the church in their families, just as I was so many years ago ,when I first joined.

Maren (on the right) is very excited to be going to the temple for the first time this month.(She is also planning on going on a mission this summer.) Elder Ellis is helping her get registered on the new familysearch.org, and getting names of her own ancestors ready so she can perform the ordinances for them in the temple.

While they were busy at the computer, the talented Elder Preisendorf filled the room with beautiful violin music. He will be playing the violin as part of a special musical number at the next zone conference, which will be held in the Sacred Grove in May.

While out and about, checking 21 missionary apartments, from the  northeast to the northwest of our mission (Niagra Falls to east of Palmyra), we had a chance to visit with these delightful couples. 

The Stevens had been helping check out missionary apartments to the far south of Niagra Falls, and have completed that service. We thanked them for the help they had given for the past few years, got the apartment keys from them, and gave them to Elder and Sis. Wood, who will be helping us by checking those apartments.

It was fun to go out to lunch with the Woods, who have recently arrived in our mission from Liberty, Utah. We feel such a bond with other senior missionary couples. We're all in the same boat! (and love serving ) 

This morning, Sunday, we took a lovely 2 hour drive to the small Wellsville Branch, where we were the invited speakers. It was a great experience meeting these awesome members of the Church.

Everything is about to turn green around here. We had a high of 59 degrees!

first week of March

This week,we moved from Palmyra to the village of Brockport, a "Victorian Village" along the Erie Canal.

Elder Ellis is having fun cleaning out the frige of the Palmyra apartment.

This is the view from our "new" Brockport apartment bedroom window. Most of the apartments and homes in this part of New York are fairly old. But we like our new place, which has two stories, two bedrooms, a roomy living room and dining area, and  a dishwasher and disposal (which our other place didn't have). It's lots bigger than our previous basement apartment.

The spiritual  highlight of the week was a zone leader training meeting which we helped out with (helped with the luncheon ).  After lunch, President Christianson invited Elder Ellis and I to join them all on a hike on the hill Cumorah.

(The two sister missionaries are the site trainers, an equivalent of zone leaders.)

Some of the oldest trees in the state of New York are on this part of the hill -- 300 to 400 years old.

We pondered the sacred events that took place upon this hill, where 1,600 years ago Moroni buried ancient scriptures which testify of Jesus Christ and contain the fulness of his Gospel. Through the power of God, they were found and translated and called "The Book of Mormon". Before Moroni sealed the records and deposited them in the earth, he gave a promise (Moroni 10:4&5)

"And when ye shall recieve these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."