How Do You Say That in Mandarin?

We have had a lot of activity in several stakes this week, and we have been anxious to get facilitators called to take care of the new courses that will be taught. We only speak English and can only train the facilitators of the Spanish and Chinese classes if they are bi-lingual. We have had some attend, but there are several who speak only Spanish or Mandarin. We have met some who are willing to train in their languages, so I created the PowerPoint presentations in their languages by copying from the foreign language training manual and pasting onto the slides. There are some slides that Brother Google had to help with, so I have asked these volunteers to review them and make sure they make sense. It has been challenging because in Mandarin, the videos are not available. I found the transcript of all but one and put it into Google Translate and pasted it next to the video, so they can read it as the video plays in English. It's not subtitles, but the best I could do. It was fun, but very time consuming. I should mention that a lot of prayer went into it. Without prayer, they would have no videos, and errors that I had missed in one version was pointed out as I did another version. Sometimes I fear we take those moments of inspiration for granted. I am trying not to do that so often, now.

Spanish

English

Mandarin

It has been quite beautiful here in our area. Fall is taking its time and we have not had anything resembling winter, so far, except a few cold days. We even took a long walk through the woods of Forest Park. We haven't felt that we had time for that, recently, but things have leveled off quite a bit for us, giving us time to do some things at home that have been neglected for a while.

A typical scene through the woods.
The road is not used except for the
very occasional forest service vehicle.

Off the main road are trails with street
lamps from Narnia.

From our window
looking across the
street. Day 1.

Day 2

Day3

Day 4. It changed rather
dramatically each day.

The artist of the scenes along
the bridge is Geoffrey Rawling.
This isn't really graffiti; he is hired
to paint these panels.

Capturing scenes of the forest

and other Queens scenes.

We got the results from the Lynbrook Stake, where they played the devotional video in English, Spanish and Chinese (Mandarin). 159 people signed up for classes. Another 21 turned in sign-up sheets, but didn't state a preference as to which class they wanted. Even more are interested, so we felt it was a great success. We are struggling with leaders to find time to go through the sheets and organize the groups. It hadn't occurred to us that they have never planned an activity like this and were not prepared. We are doing a little hand holding to get it all in place.

The final slide in the video inviting them to fill out and pass in the sign-up sheets.

We enjoyed another stake conference this weekend. The visiting authority was Elder Vaiangina (Vai) Sikahema. We had met him before at the Lynbrook Stake Conference six months ago. Of course, some of us are old enough to remember when he was setting records at BYU by returning punts and even kickoffs for touchdowns. We were able to attend all three sessions and were a little emotional, realizing that it was the last stake conference we will attend in NYC. I have recorded some of the inspirational stories from the talks in my journal. I will relate a couple, here.

Elder Sikahema invited a young woman up to the podium whom he had met earlier. She has been a member for just a few months and currently serves as a counselor in the 4th Ward YW presidency. He then invited up members who had befriended her as she began attending, then the bishop, then the RS president, then every member of the Brooklyn 4th Ward who were there (Saturday evening). He pointed out that success comes when new members are welcomed into the Church and encouraged during hard times.

Corinne (left) was first welcomed into the ward
by Rasheida (in pink). Rasheida is a friend of ours,
so we were not surprised. She is a member of less
than a year, but very stalwart.

At the end, all the 4th Ward members came to the
front with Elder Sikahema.

President Holmes told about a new missionary who had just arrived in the mission. Along with each of the other new missionaries, he interviewed her. When she entered the room, he could tell that she had been crying and was still on the verge of tears. He helped her gain control of herself and asked if she was going to be alright. She related that she was more than alright. Her father had served in this mission as a young man, but he died when she was only 10. She felt it such a tender mercy to be called to serve here. Then, upon entering the stake center where she would be interviewed, she very definitely felt his presence. The feeling was so clear and so strong, that she was overcome with emotion.

We thought we had to get to another meeting, so we couldn't stay for the 13 baptisms after the Sunday session. Of those, 9 were from the Brooklyn 5th Ward, where the Barnes serve. It was quite a spiritually uplifting weekend.

We also got to talk to many of our friends and acquaintances at the conference.

Brooklyn Stake is really promoting
Self Reliance. Here Ashley Miller,
a SR specialist is passing out a trifold
inviting people in the stake to enroll
in upcoming classes. There is even a
QR code on the back to make it easy.

Stanley was one of the first people we met last year.
We were with him through the Find a Better Job
course, at the end of which he got a job. It turned
out that the job required him to work until early
Sunday morning. He now informed us that he found
a better job and no longer works nights or Sundays.

We said goodbye to a senior couple, Elder and Sister Duncan, who have been great friends. We were invited to attend a farewell party put on by the Brooklyn YSA Ward where they have served as CES missionaries, supporting the ward and teaching Institute of Religion classes. The ward will miss them a great deal. Their replacements had to cancel their mission because of issues at home, so it will be January before their replacements will be available.