Adam and Eve are in NY

 We were invited to attend a special luncheon with the American Jewish Committee. For the past 10 years this committee has been meeting over lunch (last year was only virtual due to COVID) with various members and leaders of the Church who are involved in community outreach, interfaith relations, and public affairs. We were invited along with Chris George, whom we have talked about before. Also invited were the Manhattan Temple President, and the Westchester stake President, President Mortensen and his wife. Many of you will recognize the Mortensens as Adam and Eve in one of the temple films. 

This man seemed to be the chairman
of the AJC, but he was not at our table,
so we didn't get his name.

Laura Shaw-Frank was the speaker at the event.

This young man is a masters student at a local
theological seminary. He is LDS, and is doing a
blog as Brother Jones to promote interfaith relations.

Nathaniel Goldman, Olivia, Peter Fox, me, Chris
George, our supervisor. These and James Jones
shared our table. Nathaniel is a CPA and a supporter
of the RAMBAM hospital in Israel, so he travels
there often. He is also involved in an interfaith group
of young professionals in New York City, so we are
trying to help recruit some LDS professionals
to join his group.

President and Sister Mortensen. I heard
her name once, but it has escaped me.

It turned out that we were able to attend the Westridge Stake Conference sessions this weekend, so we got to see the Mortensens quite a bit, though fleetingly. President Mortensen seems very supportive of our determining to promote Self Reliance as a retention tool and made some recommendations that we are following up on. 

The Sunday session was in Yorktown, over 40
miles away. The trees along the
expressway were beautiful. 

We were also able to meet with President Abreu, whom the Sturgills had introduced to us when we first arrived. It was a very productive two days as we were able to meet several who are involved in various aspects of what we are doing here.

Guy Moran is our stake self reliance specialist,
so it was a good thing to have met him.

These meetings were especially timely. President Mortensen is a very effective communicator. He directed the leadership meeting toward meeting the needs of the brethren who have recently joined the Church. Of 157 who had joined the Church a year or so ago, several had received the Aaronic Priesthood, but only 1 had received the temple endowment. 

The evening and Sunday sessions were about being on the covenant path. He noted that while we typically think of families being sealed in the temple, we think of a father, mother and children. In this stake, however, the vast majority are not in that mold. His approach and those of other speakers were both compassionate and effective.

The Las Vegas Andersons will 
appreciate this photo. Their former
babysitter, Sister Mayo was at the same
conference. Her Spanish is so good that
she was assigned to interpret for the
conference today. However, she and
her companion had a baptism immediately
after, so she found a substitute. The young
man was so excited about the Church that he
went street contacting with the sisters and
enthusiastically invited several to come to
church, even before being baptized.
Thus the big smiles..

Sister Ramos didn't know what the
purpose of the Women's Conference
would be, but even though she lives
in a different stake, now, she came
as an invited guest. She had just
finished the Finding Strength in
 Christ, Emotional Resilience course
with us and was thrilled to share
her  testimony with the sisters.

Saturday morning was our baptism by fire. We had been invited several weeks ago to address the Women's Conference in the Plainview Stake. We were assigned to speak on the Self Reliance courses, English Connect and BYU Pathway. By the time I had finished the PowerPoint presentation, it was about twice as long as the time we were given. We pared it down and practiced a lot. When we finally presented, it was just right. There was a lot of enthusiasm in the room and many questions, so we are hopeful that it was effective. 

An example of the slides in PowerPoint

Speaking of baptisms, The mission had set a goal of 127 baptisms for the month of October, knowing that it was a stretch. The missionaries are working hard all the time, but they have learned to expect miracles, so they determined for themselves what each companionship would accomplish. As you can see they exceeded their goal; most exceeded their personal/companionship goals.

The top lines of the top chart was how close
they had come by the 4th Sunday. They 
knew they were close and were confident
they would make it. The top lines of the
bottom chart shows actuals as of Oct.
30th. Amazing work.

This is where we come in. The stakes are inundated with new members who know little more than their testimonies of the Bible and Book of Mormon and to keep the laws of chastity, tithing and the Word of Wisdom. They have had some member contact and will go to the temple in 2 weeks with the missionaries who baptized them, if a ward member goes with them. With a Self Reliance course attended by a convert and an established member, growth accelerates and retention is increased.

Olivia loves to take a vigorous walk every day. I know it's for my good, so I go along and soon I'm enjoying it too. Here are a few pictures of our amazingly diverse neighborhood. 

It turns out that it is a depiction of
Job. Erected as a memorial of the
effects of the Holocaust 

We see this statue from the bus and 
thought it was a native American.

Every few days Olivia takes a picture of the tree 
across the street from us as it changes.

It adds color every day.

On one of our walks we noticed a flock of 
sparrows all in the same tree. Jack is the one 
with the eye patch.

Very near is Forest Park. It is a very large forest.
Olivia is always looking for a path we haven't
taken before. I can't say I'm always thrilled.

We found some beautiful, interesting
fungus growing on this fallen tree.

It's close enough to winter that the lights
come on in late afternoon

They are really quite nice along the
paved paths.

Some of the nice homes that surround our
neighborhoods

Several with Tudor influence

Thanks for walking with us this time. We are finding more and more to love about what we are doing and the people we are meeting and working with. 

The Lord told us that we need to teach all nations, baptizing them and blessing them with the gift of the Holy Ghost (D&C 84:62,64). This week alone, baptisms included people from the Orient (mostly China and Taiwan), Venezuela, Mexico, several other Hispanic nations, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Russia, etc. etc. It is thrilling to witness what can happen as the Lord leads the missionaries.