Catch Up

I have to say, I am so impressed with my friend the Paces who are serving in the Mission Office in Ghana.  They post on their blog every Sunday.  I aspire to do that but I forget to take pictures and find that there really isn't a whole lot for me to write about.  I have been saving up for weeks and these are a few of the activities we have participated in over the last three weeks.

The Young Single Adults Ward that we have been assigned to likes to have activities.  Once a month we have a game night.  People bring all kinds of games.  Everyone goes for the game that they want to play and we have lots of snacks.  I have discovered Bannanagrams!

We also have Linger Longer after church several times a month.  There is always a theme.  The last one was just before Thanksgiving so of course it was a Thanksgiving theme. 

                                                                         Rebecca

Kiery, Rebecca and Alec.

 The Relief Society had had a pie baking night a few weeks ago.  Attendance was sad.  Only three girls came but they made lots of yummy pies and so we got to enjoy them at Linger Longer on Sunday.

Elder Halstrom

Elder and Sister Stevenson

 On November 13 we had the great blessing to have an ALL Mission Conference with Elders Halstrom and Stevenson.  All 185 missionaries traveled to Altoona.  We had some wonderful instruction from servants of the Lord and all who attended were blessed for the time we had there.  The next day, we had a special Stake Conference and Elder Stevenson spoke there.  We had met the Stevensons when we were in Guam and it was good to be able to attend these meetings and hear him again.  His wife spoke in the Stake Conference.  They have a son attending Carnegie Mellon University here in Pittsburgh and so Elder Stevenson asked his daughter -in-law to speak in Conference.

This is our entire group of missionaries in the PA Pennsylvania Mission.

Elder Haroldsen is our Fleet Coordinator and works in the office with us. He really enjoys photography and takes all the Zone Conference pictures and any others he can. This was when he was taking the picture at the All Mission Conference.  He does a really good job of photo shopping.  If you go back to the group pic you will find he added himself on the right hand side.

We got to drive this new Suburu to the conference to switch out for a car we are now selling.  Wayne really liked the cruise control.

This is Elder Gull.  He was assigned to produce the Mission Video for 2016.  For the entire month of November he came to the office a few times a week and worked on it the entire day.  The finished product was presented at our December Zone Conferences.

This is Sister Casler.  She is the Mission Secretary and works in the office also.  On this day, she was working on gift bags that were given to all the missionaries at the Zone Conference.

I had been working on these all week to go in the bags Sister Casler made.  This is the Mission Cookbook.  Next time I get an idea I really need to think through how much work it will involve.  I also bought myself a binding machine so I could make them.  One of the Elders mothers had also made a PPM Christmas ornament that was really cute and that went in the bag. Sister Johnson had mission recommend holders, a picture of Christ, a Christmas card from the First Presidency and another from the Johnsons.  They turned out really nice but of course I did not get a picture of the finished product.

I did take a picture of a finished product I had been working on.  This was my fall wreath.  It is a stitch and fold project and I now have a Christmas one hanging on the door.  The fall one is now on my table with a flower in the center as my centerpiece. 

We went into the downtown area of Pittsburgh and enjoyed the lights and a Christmas Market. 

One of the favorite vendors was a Kathe Wolfhart store.  We had been to her store in Rothenburg Germany and it is amazing.  I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of merchandise in this little temporary shop in the middle of Pittsburgh

They also have a beautiful, big tree in the middle of a big ice skating rink they set up.  Not many people on this night but we went back a week later and it was very full.

Bad pic but we returned to the Benedem Theater to see Christmas Story the Musical.  It was very good but as you can tell, we were way up in the balcony. 

 
The theater is very old.  It has been restored but much of the décor is original.

For Thanksgiving, the Ader Family, the Clarke's and the Chritensen's cooked dinner for all those in the YSA Ward who had not gone home.  We had about 17 show up.  They played games before dinner and then we ate.  Brother Ader had cooked two turkeys and then he told everyone to take leftovers home in the Styrofoam trays that he had brought.

Elder Clarke really enjoyed his meal.

I have a lot more that I could post now but this is getting way too long so I will save it for another day.  I have been taking a lot of pictures or at least I have been trying to.

As you can see, we do keep active and we have fun here and there.  We have been seeing a lot of Pennsylvania and we love it here.  But the thing we enjoy most is working with the missionaries and members here.  We love the work we are doing and try to make ourselves available to help in any way we can.  We miss family but know this is where we are supposed to be at this time. 

Because I neglect to take pictures and have not had a lot of these before now, I am agoing to go back and post some pictures from past happenings. 

A little hard to see but this was taken when Elders Perkins and Meurs met with our missionaries in Sept.  We had some wonderful training on Friday and then the Stake that we attend had the pleasure of having Elder Perkins speak Saturday and Sunday.

At the end of September we had Zone Conferences. These are held in 3 different locations.  The first was in Greentree and this was our group there. 

 The next day we met with another group in Cranberry.  The third day we met with the rest of the missionaries in State College.  Greentree and Cranberry are within a half hour of where we are and so we just go for the day.  State College is quite a drive so we left from the Cranberry Zone Conference and headed for State College.  As always, it was a beautiful drive. 

This is Sister Christensen.  Her husband is the Mental Health person for 23 missions in the North East US.  If the rest of the missions are having as much trouble with anxiety issues as we have had then he is kept very busy.  Sister Christensen acts as his secretary.  She also does the luncheons when we have new missionary training.

In between new missionaries arriving, orientations and Zone Conferences, we work in the office 5 days a week.  Some days we are very busy and do not leave until well after 5pm. Other days, we run out of things to do by 2:30 and we take off.  On those days we entertain ourselves by shopping or going to a movie.

This is our latest group of new missionaries learning the nitty gritty of missionary life - medical, finances and housing issues. We had 20 new Elders and Sisters arrive on Oct. 23.

Elder Clarke giving his instructions on housing and referrals. We have a little over 80 apartments that we oversee.  We have found that we have some really nice landlords that we deal with.  We are trying to train our missionaries to contact those landlords when they have problems.  One week we had three separate issues of water leaking in an apartment.  One of those was an apartment of Sisters who stayed up most of the night dumping a bucket and putting it back again in their closet because water was dripping.  They waited until the next morning to call Elder Clarke.  He contacted the apartment but instructed the Sisters to call the landlord immediately next time - day or night.

On Friday, Nov. 4th, I had to do the lunch for the Friday Forum at Institute  It was a good thing that I had planned an easy meal.  We had a few issues in the Mission and Wayne ended up having to drive one missionary up to Warren and bring another one back to catch a flight home.  I ended up having to drive myself into Pittsburgh and do the luncheon.  The speaker was a retired professor from BYU.  He spoke about a non-profit that he organized in a class he taught.  They go into South American countries and work with the people in providing small business loans and training.

Again I have no pictures but that night we had a Senior Missionary game night.  All of the seniors came to the Mission Home and we had a yummy soup and salad dinner.  We then played Three Degrees of Glory (Bunco). Most everyone had a good time.  I felt bad for the husband of our Church Service Missionary though.  He does not like to play games and you could tell it.   Two of the couples who came from across the mission stayed the night at the Mission Home and the next morning we all met at the National Aviary.  This was a thoroughly delightful experience.  There were so many different birds.  All sizes - from canary to condor, and colors - plain black to a rainbow parrot. 

                                                 

 

 Sister Samuelson just had to compare her height to that of the Flamingos.  She is a bit short.

Cute little Kukaburra.

 Our Senior Gang: Elder Haroldsen, President Johnson, me, Sister Johnson, Wayne, Sister Caanan, Elder Caanan, Elder Samuelson, Sister Samuelson, Elder Thompson, Sister Thompson, Sister Casler, Elder Christensen and Sister Christensen.

One of our little oddities.  Elder Kotter is from cowboy country and I don't think that he is used to being without his hat.   Since we are close to Amish country, I guess he thinks it is okay to wear one of their hats.   We discovered that Elder Kotter has a PVC steer that he practices roping on P day.  Sister Johnson was telling us about how skilled he is with the bull whip.

I thought I would close this post with a picture that my niece had taken of my parents.  95 and 96 years old and still going strong.  They have always been an example to family and friends.  When you talk about enduring to the end, I think of them.  My Dad always wanted to serve a mission and that did not happen so in a way I serve my mission in honor of him.

Busy Week

We started our week with one of my favorite activities.  I got to go to the Mission Home on Monday to help prepare dinner for 20 new missionaries who arrived that afternoon.  It is always so fun to see them as they arrive tired but excited to finally be in the mission field.

One of the Elders is originally from Qing Dao in China so it was especially fun to meet him and reminisce a little bit.  He left China when he was 18 and his family now lives here in the States.

Tuesday was Orientation and Training for the newbies and that is always a busy but enjoyable experience.  We travel to Greentree for a morning of instruction followed by a great lunch, which I end up helping with, a little more training and then there is an influx of other missionaries as they all meet at that chapel to meet up with new companions and head for new areas.  It is transfer time!

We have a Senior Couple who had to leave after only two months because of a medical emergency in the family.  We told them not to worry about cleaning their apartment and so Wayne and I headed for Meadville on Friday to clean and get things ready for our Move Crew to go and load up all the furniture and household goods.  I wish I had taken pictures.  They lived in a very old home that had been converted into apartments.  There were very high ceilings and all the doorways were arched.  The doors looked so neat.  There were about 3 fireplaces in there.  It was a very interesting place.

Just off the highway in Meadville there is a Dept of Transportation service yard with a lot of very interesting art work.  "Read Between the Signs" is one of them.  There also is a continuous mural made out of old recycled road signs. There were huge flowers that were amazing.  All of it made from used road signs -  pretty clever and spectacular.

Our mission is an iPad mission and usually the new missionaries receive their devices as soon as they arrive.  This time there was a hangup on the delivery and so they did not arrive until the day after transfers and all the new missionaries were now scattered all over Pennsylvania.  Since we were going to Meadville we decided that we would deliver the iPads to as many as we could.  We took 4 into Pittsburgh on our way to Meadville.  We took one to a missionary who lives next door to the apartment we were cleaning and since we had gone so far already Wayne decided to drive up to Erie to take one to a new Sister up there. 

 A house decorated with pumpkins and mums in Erie.

 They even decorate the meters.

 The Fall colors are getting darker.  The reds are finally coming out.  The yellows are already falling.

 As we drove down to Lake Erie, we passed several grape vineyards.  Wayne was told that this is a major Welch's grape area. 

 Saturday morning, Wayne went to participate in a service project on the Montours Trail.  This is the railroad tracks that have been turned into a walking trail.  I ran errands all morning and worked on a quilt top that I hope to finish sooner rather than later. In the afternoon we went into Pittsburgh to locate the Aviary.  The Senior Missionaries are having a fieldtrip there next weekend.  We wanted to make sure we knew how to get there.  Our Ward Halloween Party was that night so we killed a little bit of time driving around and then went to the church.  We were still too early for the party so we went to dinner at the Tamarind Restaurant behind the church.  The restaurant is in an old house.  It seems like there are a lot of businesses like that.  It is nice to see that they do not just tear down old buildings  There are some beautiful old houses here. 

Oh boy, my favorite kind of food - Indian.  They did have wonderful Garlic Nan though.

 At the party, we had so much food that they had to have a Linger Longer the next day at church to use it up.

 Bone yard ring toss.  I took a few pictures of things before the party got started and it was a good thing because they turned all but their special effects lights off and it was almost too dark to see anything.

Jedi Princess.  Alec had fun twirling in the dress all night.

 We had one very talented make-up artist.  Bryan sat for quite a while to get this look.

 Jill, our little peacock and Stephanie the make-up artist.

 The night was just a very laid back evening of mostly socializing.  It looked like we had just about as many people as show up for church on Sunday.  That really is not a large number.  Hence all the left over food.

Today we shipped off 4 more iPads and then Wayne drove several hours in the opposite direction as we had gone on Friday and delivered 3 others.  At least the weather was nice today and he had a nice drive while I stayed in the office and worked. 

Tonight is Halloween and all of our missionaries were told to stay in their apartments and to do a Halloween Haul Out.  They are supposed to clean their apartments real good.  I know the missionaries who live next to us are doing that because I can hear them vacuuming, etc.  We are stocked up with candy but we did not have one single trick or treater.  How disappointing.  I really expected some kids since we see them playing here all the time.  They must know some better places to go to.