I racked my brain about the best way to do this. We have had Megazone Conferences this week so I would have the opportunity to see every missionary but I realized that if I stood in front of them and told them to go get a flu vaccine, they would most likely listen in one ear and let it go out of the other.
The "talk/instruction" was to be made during lunch and since I love to be silly, I decided to present them with a demonstration of what the flu can do to a body. With makeup and great acting skills (HaHaHa) I became deathly ill. I must say I achieved my goal. I did catch their attention and they listened. I've had several report to me that they have received their injections.
I will follow up this week with a mass email to all missionaries that a flu vaccine will definitely help but that they need to be wise as well in the care of their bodies by eating well, getting good rest at night and washing hands frequently.
So my words to you: get a flu shot!
Monday I went to Babylon to accompany a missionary to an appointment. (Babylon - Makes me sound wicked and sinful.) Babylon, NY. I think I included information on the Babylon area in a previous blog but I will include again at the end if you like to know about the areas I visit. The town is very nice. It is about 30 miles out on Long Island. It was a beautiful clear day.
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| Babylon is a nice town. The streets are clean and the buildings are
nice. The street lights on the Main Street all have hanging baskets of flowers. |
After the appointment and lunch, I felt like an adventure or a mini-vacation as I like to think of it. I drove over the causeway to Fire Island. I will include info about that at the end of the blog as well. It is beautiful!
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| Lunch with Elders Bissereth, Reese, and Opfar |
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| Fire Island Lighthouse |
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| Causeway and bridge to Fire Island |
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| Entrance to the causeway |
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| End of causeway and tall tower in roundabout on Fire Island |
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| Lighthouse |
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| I spotted this osprey nest close to the road. There were signs all over
Fire Island about not feeding the wild life- particularly the deer. I didn't see any deer but this handsome fox trotted along the side of the road. He wasn't bothered at all when I stopped to watch him. |
Tuesday was conference at Woodside, which is close to my home and only about a 10-15 minute drive. I helped with the food that day by cooking Café Rio style pulled pork in my crockpot. (I bought an 8.5 quart crockpot so that I could cook large amounts of food. I think it will be helpful when I return home. I won't have to use two crockpots to cook for my family.)
We had Café Rio pulled pork salad. It was delicious.
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| At the Woodside conference I walked outside for a breath of fresh air
and to take a call. Around on the backside of the church I spotted these frolicking squirrels. One day on the rail and watched the two on the grass running around in circles. |
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| A black cat sat on a wall and watched the squirrels too. I was surprised
that the squirrels were not intimidated at all by the cat. They almost seemed to challenge him. |
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| The squirrels were everywhere. |
Wednesday, the conference was in Dyker Heights only about a 16 mile drive but it took 1 hour and 19 minutes to get there. The traffic was horrible. I thought about taking the subway but decided to drive. It would probably been faster via the subway due to construction and accidents. The Relief Society in that area which is mostly Chinese, prepared the lunch: Meatball sandwiches. (I'm sure you want to know what I eat, however that day, I spent too much time putting on my makeup and missed lunch.)
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| Dyker Heights is a large Chinese area of Brooklyn. I liked the big sign on the chapel door. |
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| Sisters Hall and Figaro. |
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| Elders Creager and Barola. (Elder Creager is my Aunt Amber Terry's great grandson. So I have a relative here.) |
Thursday, the conference was in the chapel next door so it was easy to get to that one. I again helped with the lunch by setting tables and serving. We had baked potatoes with all of the toppings and salad. One of the ovens in the church was not working so I baked a bunch of potatoes in my oven at home. Nice being just next door. It saved the day.
Friday the conference was in Plainview. It was a rainy 25 mile drive. The Relief Society there makes the best sub sandwiches every conference.
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| Sisters Bush and Bugingo. Sushi and soup after the conference in Plainview. |
So my week has been filled with travel and the opportunity to learn and to have my testimony strengthened. Being with the missionaries brings me great joy!
Saturday I did some grocery shopping and tried to get caught up on some of the work I had neglected through the week before conference started. I enjoyed the sessions in the comfort of my apartment with four of the sister missionaries.
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| Conference with Sisters Morales, Talaboc, Mejia, Grimsman |
Sunday after conference, Sisters Mejia and Morales came to dinner and brought one of their investigators from Colombia. She has only been here 2 months and 4 days. She is desperately trying to learn English. It was fun to try to help her. They had a lesson after dinner, in Spanish, which I did not understand but the Spirit was in attendance and that is what matters most. The young woman, Lora, liked dinner and agreed to come back again.
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| Sisters Mejia and Morales and Lora |
This week I have been pondering about prayer and the importance of prayer in my life. It is my communication line with my Father in Heaven. I really liked Elder Uceda's talk in the Saturday morning session where he told the story of falling off the trail in Peru into a 2000 foot abyss and holding on with all the strength he had to bushes that prevented him from falling all the way to the bottom. He told that often his prayers were only from his lips but at that time of need, his prayer for help was from the heart.
It made me think of how often my prayers are only from the lips. A habit or duty to be done. I am grateful for prayer. I will focus on my prayers being from my heart and not just repetition from my lips.
I know that the Lord hears and answers my prayers. I have been blessed to know this for a fact. There have been times when my prayers were not answered immediately nor in the way I expected and there are some things that I am still praying for but I know that all will be answered in the Lord's time and way that will be best for me and my spiritual growth.
I love you my family and friends. Go get a flu vaccine!
Babylon is a village in Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population was 12,166 at the 2010 census. Its location is approximately 25 miles from New York City at the Queens border, and approximately 33 miles from Manhattan.
Its official name is The Incorporated Village of Babylon. It is commonly referred to as Babylon Village, to distinguish it from the Town of Babylon, of which it is a part.
What is now Babylon Town and Village was originally part of Huntington Town and known as Huntington South. Lightly settled from 1689, its main industry, in common with much of the area along Great South Bay and South Oyster Bay (both actually lagoons), was the harvesting of salt hay, which was used as cattle feed and bedding.
When a coherent community grew up in the area by 1803, prominent local citizens sought to adopt a new name. An influential local lady, Mrs. Conklin, was used to living inland in what is now considered Dix Hills and was at unease with the home site that her grandchildren would be raised in. The bible-reading Mrs. Conklin compared the new hamlet to the biblical city of Babylon and proposed that name in apparent defiance of the area's rather bawdy reputation as a stop-over place for travelers on Long Island's south shore. Her son Nat was appalled by the use of an "unholy" name. The family legend states she replied: "But it will be a new Babylon." The name stuck, despite some effort to change it. The adjacent part of Islip town, an effective extension of Babylon, was originally considered as part of Babylon, or as East Babylon, but today is the hamlet of West Islip.
Fire Island is the large center island of the outer barrier islands parallel to the south shore of Long Island, New York. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy once again divided Fire Island into two islands. Together, these two islands are approximately 31 miles long and vary between 520 and 1,310 feet wide. Fire Island is part of Suffolk County. It lies within the towns of Babylon, Islip, and Brookhaven, containing two villages and a number of hamlets. All parts of the island not within village limits are part of the Fire Island census-designated place (CDP), which had a permanent population of 292 at the 2010 census, though that expands to thousands of residents and tourists during the summer months.
The land area of Fire Island is 9.6 square miles.
Geography Fire Island lies an average of 3.9 miles off the south shore of Long Island, but nearly touches it along the east end. It is separated from Long Island by Great South Bay, which spans interconnected bays along Long Island: Patchogue Bay, Bellport Bay, Narrow Bay, and Moriches Bay. The island is accessible by automobile near each end: via Robert Moses Causeway on its western end, and by William Floyd Parkway (Suffolk County Road 46) near its eastern end. Cross-bay ferries connect to over 10 points in between. Motor vehicles are not permitted on the rest of the island, except for utility, construction and emergency access and with limited beach-driving permits in winter. The island and its resort towns are accessible by boat, seaplane and a number of ferries, which depart from Bay Shore (Fire Island Ferries), Sayville, and Patchogue.
Dyker Heights is a residential neighborhood in the southwest corner of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, US. It is sandwiched between Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, and Gravesend Bay.
It originated as a speculative luxury housing development in October 1895 when Walter Loveridge Johnson developed a portion of woodland into a suburban community. During the height of his development, the boundaries were primarily between Tenth Avenue and Thirteenth Avenue and from 79th Street to 86th Street. The finest homes of the development were situated along the top of the 110-foot hill, at about Eleventh Avenue and 82nd Street.
The neighborhood of Dyker Heights lies within the boundaries of the then-Dutch town of New Utrecht settled in 1657. The area that is now known as Dyker Heights was not developed in the 17th or 18th centuries because the land was too sloped for farming; it remained common woodland until the mid-19th century. The trees of this forest were used by the townsfolk as a source of firewood and construction material. When the agricultural industry of New Utrecht changed from the farming grains to the cultivation of market garden produce, the trees were cleared for tomatoes, cabbages, and potatoes, among other produce.
The first house built at the top of the hill (what is now 11th Avenue and 82nd Street, at about 110 feet above sea level was built in the late 1820s by Brigadier General René Edward De Russy of the US Army. De Russy was a military engineer who built many forts in the US - from the Canada-US border and the eastern seaboard to the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific coast - including Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. Since this was the tallest natural point in southwest Brooklyn, he built his homestead here - it afforded a clear view of the harbor and its defenses, especially Fort Hamilton which was complete by November 1831. De Russy died in 1865 and his wife, Helen, sold the property in 1888 to Jane Elisabeth Loveridge and Frederick Henry Johnson.
According to the Brooklyn Eagle, Frederick Johnson did "much toward developing the locality in which he resided. He was the author of the original New Utrecht Improvement Bill, and an ardent advocate of the annexation of the Town to this City." The Town of New Utrecht was annexed to the City of Brooklyn on July 1, 1894. On January 1, 1898, the City of Brooklyn was annexed to the City of New York. Involved with real estate, Johnson was probably aware of the real estate pressures on and potential of the real estate in New Utrecht. With this in mind, he most likely purchased the De Russy estate with the intention of building an upscale residential neighborhood similar to Bensonhurst-by-the-Sea, built by James D. Lynch in 1880-1890 in the Bath Beach section of New Utrecht. At that time, the Real Estate Record claimed Bensonhurst-by-the-Sea was "the most perfectly developed suburb ever laid out around New York." The restrictions placed upon the property made Bensonhurst-by-the-Sea "a model settlement, where some of the most refined, intelligent and cultured of New York City and Brooklyn's citizens have built their homes."
Following Johnson's death on August 15, 1893 at the age of 52, his second son, Walter Loveridge Johnson, took over the real estate business and by October 1895 started Dyker Heights on his parents' property. Johnson named his development "Dyker Heights" after the Dyker Meadow and Beach, which his development overlooks. The meadow and beach received their name from either the Van Dykes (an original New Utrecht family) who built the dykes to drain the meadow, or for the dykes that the Van Dykes built. Walter L. Johnson was able to develop this portion of New Utrecht woodland into a residential community by making necessary improvements to it. In 1890, the only roads present were Kings Highway, 86th Street, Denyse's Lane, and a small unnamed road near Tenth Avenue - none of which were paved and only 86th Street was a thoroughfare specifically planned as such. The remaining land was unimproved. Johnson continued Brooklyn's street grid south with macadam pavement, graded the properties, installed gas, water, telephone, and electricity lines, and planted sugar maple trees - seven on the avenues and twenty along the streets. This opened over two hundred more building sites between Tenth and 13th Avenues as well as between 79th and 86th Streets.
Plainview's origins dates to 1648, when Robert Williams, a settler from Wales, bought land in the area. The land was considered desirable for farming because of a small pond named the Moscopas by local Native Americans, meaning "hole of dirt and water". The remainder of the land in the area was purchased by Thomas Powell in 1695 as part of the Bethpage Purchase. The name "Mannatto Hill" had already appeared on the 1695 deed of the Bethpage Purchase, and the settlement came to be called "Manetto Hill". Manitou was the Native American word either for "god" or for "spirit".
The 1837 arrival of the Long Island Rail Road to nearby Hicksville brought a boom to local farming. In 1885, residents of Manetto Hill petitioned the United States Postal Service for a local post office, but were turned down because, according to several accounts, a similar name was already in use upstate. The hamlet was then named "Plainview", for the view of the Hempstead Plains from the top of the Manetto Hills.
Plainview remained a farming community, famous for growing cucumbers for the huge Heinz pickle factories located in nearby Farmingdale and Hicksville. In the early 1900s blight destroyed the cucumber crop and many farmers switched to potatoes. After World War II, a potato blight combined with the desire of many returning GIs to leave New York City for the more rural Long Island, convinced many farmers to sell their property, leading to massive development in the area, giving rise to so-called suburban sprawl. Between 1950 and 1960, the hamlet grew from a population of 1,155 to more than 35,000. Most of the available land was developed during this period or otherwise designated as parkland. While overall development declined it did continue sporadically as smaller remaining parcels of land were also developed. In recent years, some of few large remaining parcels have given way to gated communities, which are in contrast to most housing in the area. Some of these developments include "The Hamlet on Olde Oyster Bay" and "The Seasons at Plainview", a residential community focused on over age 55 residents and first time home buyers.
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