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

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, b...

 It's true, we have seen, as in met, the future. The couple who will replace us in February came to Manhattan to visit their daughter's family, especially the 15 month-old grandchild. While they were in the City, they arranged to visit us in our apartment, because this will most likely be the place where they will live when they come. We will still be here for a few days after they arrive, so we'll see how that works out. Brother and Sister Hansen are from San Diego and have lived in many places during their marriage. They are very nice and will fit right in. They will serve for 23 months, so they will really get to know the area. They are about the same age as we were when we served our mission in Sweden. Okay, I wanted to lead with that story, because I wanted that headline and I wanted their picture to appear when you went to the blog. We have spent some time with Sister Olive Wang, who has helped with the video devotional in Mandarin and has been our interpreter when we...

That title could fit so many things, and in our case a couple of things. The major one was that the 5th Sunday in October arrived and in every ward and branch of the Lynbrook Stake, the video devotional was presented and signup sheets turned in. More about that later. The other "time has arrived" event was that our daughter Hannah, her husband Jeff, and children Laurel, Maisy, Norah and Oliver (the Stevensons) came for their promised visit. We tried to keep up with our missionary responsibilities and be with them as much as we could at the same time. I think we did OK. Upon coming into the apartment, they immediately saw the 50th anniversary quilt. We love that quilt! We took them to one of our favorite sites, Theodore Roosevelt's summer Whitehouse and farm. Fall at Sagamore Hill. We often see deer on the trek to Fire Island lighthouse, but this is the first we have seen one with a rack of antlers. There is a welcome center at the light- house that explains how the lenses...