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!

a house guest this week

Philip flew into town on Monday night and has been with us all week. The missionaries joined us for two games of bowling. One of the Elders won the first game, while Philip won the second. I came in dead last on both games.

 We still had our duties to attend to during the day. One day we were busy for 6 hours doing apartment checks on just a few of the many that we check. I love this old house that was built in the early 1800's. The Elders live in the 2nd floor apartment.

The house has charm and is a bit spooky. I call it the "ancient house".

This window latch is so old and cool. The window beneath it has a bullet hole in it.

We also have to find 3 new apartments this month. Here's  one we found in the town of Batavia for a senior missionary couple arriving soon.

In spite of a chilly week, and a few freeze warnings at night, spring has sprung. I love these white "popcorn" trees. They are all over the place.

Friday evening, we attended a special fireside for senior missionary couples at the Hill Cumorah visitor's center. The speaker was Elder David Cook, our Area Seventy General Authority. He spoke on the prophet Jospeh Smith.

 It was special celebrating our first Easter as missonaries. We were asked to speak in church, so it was a neat opportunity to reflect on our Savior's Atoning Sacrifice, and feel gratitude for the peace, comfort, and joy it brings to us.
And, of course, we missed our loved ones, children and granchilden, in Texas, Minnesota, California, and Utah. Since we have one kid here visiting, as well as our missionaries who across the way from us, the Easter Bunny came.

Elder Preisendorf is being transferred to another area tomorrow, so Easter dinner was his last meal with us (he really didn't eat that entire bunny face!).

Celebrations

Monday, March 26, we attended a special event at the E.B. Grandin Bookstore/Printing shop in Palmyra, celebrating the anniversary of when the Book of Mormon became first available to the public (at this very place).

3,000 copies were printed, and sold for $1.50, equivalent of 2 days' wages in those days.

This was the most advanced printing press of the day, brought to Grandin's printing shop via the fairly recently completed Erie Canal. The ink is being applied in this photo.

Our sweet Mission President and his lovely wife greeted hundreds of guests who walked back in time to that day in 1830.

We were also reminded of the special sacred circumstances involved in the bringing forth of the Book of Mormon.

view from 2nd floor window of the Grandin Building

I know that the Book of Mormon can bring us closer to our Savior, as it testifies of Him and contains the fullness of His Doctrine and stands next to the Bible as a witness that He is real, that He was resurrected, continues to live and loves us beyond measure. 

The next morning, the missionaries who live in our apartment complex helped celebrate Elder Ellis's  (Grandpa's) 66 birthday!

Elder Preisendorf made french toast with his special buttermilk syrup(sounds yukky, but it was good)!

Elder Preisendorf , Elder Ellis, and Elder White

Later on that day, we came home to this surprise (done by none other than our sweet Elders).

On Saturday, we drove to Cattaraugus, location of the Seneca Indian reservation, to attend the baptism of a young lady whom Elder White had taught while he was in that area.

The man in the middle of the picture, holding a paper plate, is Brother Garlow, a Native American (Onieda tribe) from Canada, whose wife (not pictured) was born on the Cattaraugus reservation. When a missionary first handed him a Book of Mormon, he immediately felt something that made him cry. Three weeks later, he and his young family were baptized. He serves in the branch presidency, along with another Native American, who is the branch president. This chapel is on the reservation.

This weekend, was a celebration of another kind--General Conference. On Sunday, we saw the sessions of conference along with a few guests, one of whom is deaf. So, along with hearing it, we got to see it signed in ASL (American sign language).

These two gals, who are college students, are seeing General conference for the very first time.

Conference was great! The words of our Prophet and apostles were timely, uplifting and inspiring.  If you missed it, you can see and hear it on lds.org.

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."