It's Up to Us, New York, New York

Rheumatoid arthritis stopped her from many things she  enjoyed, but she still had a sharp mind and sharp wit.    She was a teletype operator in the WAVES during WWII August 22, 1923 my mother was born in Vernal, Utah. She died just a few months prior to her 91st birthday in March of 2014. Had she lived, she would have been 100 this past week. She taught us to appreciate high expectations, and to respect fine work of all kinds. She was kind and seemed to know what to do with most hurts, illnesses, and even heartaches. She loved to read us stories and re-read the ones that touched us most (how many times did we read Pierre and the Orange Tree Lady  from the big Readers' Digest volume?). She was a natural when dealing with any kind of animal, but refused to allow us to keep a stray dog or cat (until we children begged and promised to take care of it ourselves). So much more I could write. I miss her and think of her almost every day.  Love your bones , Mom! What an...

 More visitors this week. It seems that NYC is a big draw for family and friends. Our daughter, Britta, and her family came with son, Calvin, at the end of July. This week their daughters Elsa and Abigail joined us. We were able to send them off on their own for some of their trip, which seemed to please them, and it allowed us to keep up with our work. We did have to cancel our English class with the El Salvador Consulate staff because many weeks ago we purchased matinee tickets for the musical Wicked. Back then we were not aware that we would be teaching that class on that Wednesday. It is still a popular show in NYC. The large theater was packed with an appreciative audience. People seemed to love Elsa's Wicked t-shirt and Abby's Glinda dress. Though distant, we had a good view of the stage. Notice the dragon above the proscenium arch. Inside the theater before going up to our seats. There was still a lot of daylight after the play, so we went to a couple of stores in Times ...

 We loved having family visit for the past two weeks, but it was nice to have a little time to catch up on items that were a bit neglected. We had a lot of reporting to do and we were also able to get back to our employment services responsibilities. We have learned that when we have visitors, they can make it to some destinations without, or with very little of our help. That made it possible last week to still keep up for the most part. It's also nice to know that Cedric's family is all back together on St. Thomas, USVI. Tuesday, while I met with one employment candidate, Olivia met with a 24-year old young woman from Haiti, for the second time. She finally shared that she had been homeless for the last four days and was desperate for a place to live. She is actively looking for work, but she has limited English skills. We ended up bringing her home, so I could conduct the Facilitator Training while Olivia spoke with the local Haitian-Creole branch RS president. They worked o...

  Sorry I missed sending a post last week. I don't know if we never had a P-day or if everyday was a P-day for the last 2 weeks. We enjoyed visits from family back to back, but still managed to keep up with much of our missionary work.  We were able to meet with employment services candidates on Tuesday July 25, in the Woodside center and on Wednesday the 26th we were scheduled to go to the El Salvador Consulate. We traveled to the airport to pick up our daughter Britta, her husband Clint, and son Calvin Wednesday evening. The view from the sidewalk into the door of the Consulate. Photo from the website. The woman on the back is a senior staff  member at the Consulate, and one of our students. We went to five museums and saw so much on Thursday the 27th with our family. On Liberty Island with everyone. Of course, we got permission to go to Liberty Island. Here we visited the museum. On Ellis Island we found sister missionaries from the New Jersey Mission. The Church ...