3 months in New York

As of today, we have been on our mission for 3 months!  What an amazing experience it's been so far. We are very fortunate to be here in northwestern New York, to be in the cradle of the
Restoration, where we feel such a tremendous spirit at the church sites. We also see some of the most beautiful countryside during our constant travels from Palymra to Niagra falls. We've put 6,500 miles on the car since we've left on our mission!  We love our associations with all the missionaries, junior and senior, as well as our mission president and his wife. We are getting to know the great members of our Brockport Ward and are learning how we can help them.
Some of the happenings this past week: staff and training meetings, helping orientate a new group of missionaries (one of whom came from Mexico City), helping a new senior missionary couple move to their apartment in the small village of Arcade, and finding an apartment for another senior couple way down south in Cattaraugus (which is part of the Seneca Nation Indian Reservation). It's very hard to find decent housing in that remote area. We were getting a little discouraged.
Finally, after saying, "Lord, we put it in Your Hands", we found this, and were very pleased.

This is an old school house built in 1850. It has been reconverted into 4 nice apartments. There's a half acre lawn in the back, bordered by tall pine trees bordering the Seneca Reservation. Our chapel is on the reservation, and the new senior couple will be serving there.

Saturday night, after a very busy week, our "sons", the Elders who live in our complex, offered to cook us dinner. Looks like we've got a tradition going. We buy the main ingredients and fix some of the sides, and the elders cook their signature dish. (It's sort of  a competition to see whose dish we like the best.)

Elder White (on the right) was so proud of his "Chicken Azteca" and re-fried beans. It was very, very yummy. (Let me know if you want the recipe and I'll e-mail it. Kids would really like it too.) Elder Bowman just got transferred here. He's our new district leader, and is a very awesome, hard-working missionary. An Illinois farm boy, he is going to make us his homemade biscuits with sausage gravy.
Good thing we're still able to squeeze in some running time a few days a week!