The power to change the lives of others

It has been an interesting week, to say the least! I've been to Manhattan twice to accompany missionaries to appointments, helped with a couple of missionaries who have been having trouble with depression/anxiety/stress, helped a companionship who is trying to learn to get along, and helped with the usual nausea and vomiting, another stubbed toe, twisted ankle, heartburn, ear pain, etc.  Good news:  no tick bites nor run-ins with poisonous plants.

 The other good news is that I managed to stay away from Mizumi and a Duke.  It's been too busy!!  The bad news is:  I stepped on the scale and I discovered that too much sushi and duke/crunchies soon manifest themselves as fat deposits on my hips!!  You'll be pleased to know that I've had two whole days of eating well, meaning no chocolate nor fat producing meals. 

Back to my week.  Last Friday I took a group of sisters to dinner.  (This was before I got on the scale.)

Escalator bottom to top - Sisters Anderson, Lemmon, Allen, Muñoz.

Yes-I'm always on my phone!!

On Saturday I went to the Intrepid Sea Air & Space Museum with Elder and Sister Williams.  It was a hot, muggy day but enjoyable.  I love to learn about history.  Since my dad fought in WWII it is of particular interest to me.

USS Intrepid (CV/CVA/CVS-11), also known as The Fighting "I", is one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the United States Navy. She is the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name. Commissioned in August 1943, Intrepid participated in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, most notably the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, she was modernized and recommissioned in the early 1950s as an attack carrier (CVA), and then eventually became an antisubmarine carrier (CVS). In her second career, she served mainly in the Atlantic, but also participated in the Vietnam War. Her notable achievements include being the recovery ship for a Mercury and a Gemini space mission.

Because of her prominent role in battle, she was nicknamed "the Fighting I", while her frequent bad luck and time spent in dry dock for repairs earned her the nicknames "Decrepit" and "the Dry I". Decommissioned in 1974, in 1982 Intrepid became the foundation of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City.

Ok airplane buffs. I forgot the name of this bomber but it was used on the Intrepid because of the wing design.
Most planes the winds fold up. This plane was designed for the wings to fold back.

The Chain Room. Big chains used in the steering mechanism of the ship.

Swinging bunks.

Big guns to shoot down Kamikaze planes. The seat for the gunner reminded me of Kay's tractor seat.

One of the propellers.

A big spool of rope. Taller than I.

USS Growler (SSG-577), an early cruise missile submarine of the Grayback class, was the fourth ship of the United States Navy to be named after the growler. Growler and Grayback were the only two submarines built in this class.

What makes Growler and her sister unusual was her nuclear armament, deployed on a non-nuclear diesel-electric submarine. Her mission was to provide nuclear deterrent capability off the Pacific Coast of the Soviet Union during peak years of the Cold War, from 1958 to 1964. She became obsolete with the deployment of nuclear-powered submarines equipped with ballistic missiles.

USS Growler Sub

Elder & Sister Williams

 

The rest of the days were filled with the above mentioned work.  I spend a lot of time at the computer and on the phone, so I am going to need to start my walking routine again more faithfully if I want to work off the dinners I've applied to my body. 

Today was trainer/trainee orientation.  I enjoy this day because I get to spend a little time getting to know the new missionaries.  I was up until 2:00 in the morning preparing my handouts and kits that I give them.  I had intended to do it earlier in the week but "emergencies" got in the way.  I should go right now and prepare everything for the next meeting in six weeks, but hey, I've got plenty of time. Right???

It is Sister Reynolds's birthday next week so the sister training leaders asked me if I would let them use my apartment to give the mission president's wife a surprise party. And oh by the way, would I also make a cheesecake.  I love them!  (You'll be proud to know that I only tasted it to see if it was edible and fit to be served to the group.)  The training leaders, 8 of them, had a meeting at the office scheduled with Sister Reynolds at 11:00 to plan the sister's conference.  The sisters all showed up at my place at 10:00 to decorate and get ready.  They had fun.


At about 5 to 11:00, I called Sister Reynolds and acted like I was sick.  I told her I needed to talk to her and that I couldn't come to the office.  I needed a private place.  She was reluctant because she had a meeting to go to.  When she got here everyone sang to her and I think she was truly surprised.  I wonder if she didn't have an idea that something was happening because none of the training leaders were at the church.  She was cute about it.

Sister Reynolds

The sisters made this a 'time machine party' because the actual birthday is next week.

This week in trying to help the companions who weren't getting along, I did a lot of studying about loving, lifting, caring, being compassionate.  One of the companions was so stressed that they were having headaches, nausea, anxiety attack, and other physical symptoms.  The other was unyielding and defiant. Anyway, I learned a lot about how we can and should treat each other.  In the January1995 issue of the Ensign, I read an article by President Thomas S. Monson who at that time was the second counselor in the First Presidency.  Here is a part that particularly touched me.  President Monson had been talking about how Christ healed and lifted his followers and how Peter and John had healed a man and then Peter stretched forth his hand to lift the healed man:

"A helping hand had been extended. A broken body had been healed. A precious soul had been lifted toward God.

Time passes. Circumstances change. Conditions vary. Unaltered is the divine command to succor the weak and lift up the hands which hang down and strengthen the feeble knees. Each of us has the charge to be not a doubter but a doer; not a leaner but a lifter. But our complacency tree has many branches, and each spring more buds come into bloom. Often we live side by side but do not communicate heart to heart. There are those within the sphere of our own influence who, with outstretched hands, cry out: "Is there no balm in Gilead … ?" Each of us must answer.

Edwin Markham observed:

There is a destiny that makes us brothers;
None goes his way alone:

All that we send into the lives of others

Comes back into our own.

"He that loveth not his brother abideth in death," wrote the Apostle John nineteen hundred years ago (1 Jn. 3:14).

Some point the accusing finger at the sinner or the unfortunate and in derision say, "He has brought his condition upon himself." Others exclaim, "Oh, he will never change. He has always been a bad one." A few see beyond the outward appearance and recognize the true worth of a human soul. When they do, miracles occur. The downtrodden, the discouraged, the helpless become "no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God" (Eph. 2:19). True love can alter human lives and change human nature.

This truth was stated so beautifully on the stage in My Fair Lady. Eliza Doolittle, the flower girl, spoke of one for whom she cared and who later was to lift her from such mediocre status: "You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up [the dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so on], the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will."

Eliza Doolittle was but expressing the profound truth: When we treat people merely as they are, they may remain as they are. When we treat them as if they were what they should be, they may become what they should be.

In reality, it was the Redeemer who best taught this principle. Jesus changed men. He changed their habits and opinions and ambitions. He changed their tempers, dispositions, and natures. He changed their hearts. He lifted! He loved! He forgave! He redeemed! Do we have the will to follow?

Prison warden Kenyon J. Scudder related this experience:

A friend of his happened to be sitting in a railroad coach next to a young man who was obviously depressed. Finally the man revealed that he was a paroled convict returning from a distant prison. His imprisonment had brought shame to his family, and they had neither visited him nor written often. He hoped, however, that this was only because they were too poor to travel and too uneducated to write. He hoped, despite the evidence, that they had forgiven him.

To make it easy for them, however, he had written them to put up a signal for him when the train passed their little farm on the outskirts of town. If his family had forgiven him, they were to put a white ribbon in the big apple tree which stood near the tracks. If they didn't want him to return, they were to do nothing; and he would remain on the train as it traveled west.

As the train neared his home town, the suspense became so great he couldn't bear to look out of his window. He exclaimed, "In just five minutes the engineer will sound the whistle indicating our approach to the long bend which opens into the valley I know as home. Will you watch for the apple tree at the side of the track?" His companion changed places with him and said he would. The minutes seemed like hours, but then there came the shrill sound of the train whistle. The young man asked, "Can you see the tree? Is there a white ribbon?"

Came the reply: "I see the tree. I see not one white ribbon, but many. There is a white ribbon on every branch. Son, someone surely does love you."

In that instant all the bitterness that had poisoned a life was dispelled. "I felt as if I had witnessed a miracle," the other man said. Indeed, he had witnessed a miracle. We too can experience this same miracle when we, with hand and heart, as did the Savior, lift and love our neighbor to a newness of life. May we succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees, thereby inheriting that eternal life promised by the Redeemer."

 If you would like to read the entire article, you may find it here.

Each of us has the power to change the lives of others around us if we truly try to be more Christ-like in every action, word and deed. 

I love you my family and friends.

My oldest granddaughter graduated this week. I was there in spirit.

On Friday morning I took the train to Brooklyn to have bagels with Sister Christensen
whose mission ended a few months ago.

She brought her family back to show them
where she had served. I was happy to meet them and to see Kaylee.

Sisters Zambito and Anderson. This is what you look like when you come home after
eating 4 full meals. Two of the meals were huge plates of rice and beans. Then a person,
after feeding them, sent them home with frozen waffles and potato buds.

Tree lined street in Astoria.

Flowers along the streets of Manhattan.

Bottom one is my flower bed in front of my apt