The reason for the season

The Christmas season and the reason for the season brings me much happiness and joy. 

On Monday night, our FHE group met at the church for pizza and to assemble gifts for missionaries who receive no/few packages from home.  Many of them have families who live in distant areas of the world and shipping packages is cost prohibitive.  Others are more or less on their own.  For whatever reason, we put together 30 gift bags.  People/parents/missionaries donated money, candy, other items that Sister Williams and some of the other senior sisters gathered together and organized for the assembly process.  It was a lot of fun.  Much joking, giggling, and love going on in that room on Monday night.

Tuesday I drove to Hicksville to take some medicine to a missionary.  While there I coerced a set of elders to go to dinner with me.

Elders Rhodes and Perry

Wednesday and Thursday I prepared for the Mission Christmas Devotional by going grocery shopping (The senior couples each provided 2 pans of “funeral” potatoes for the dinner at the devotional.) and going to a practice for our Zone musical number.  Each of the 9 zones prepares a skit/musical number for the conference.  It is always a fractured Christmas carol presentation with lyrics relating to our mission and missionary work set to a familiar carol/song. Out zone did a medley of several songs.  So you get the picture, here is our skit script:

Game plan---

Sing silent night while walking stage

Elder Sundet says "who is that?"

Elder Thomas plays Santa clause is coming to town (sing one verse while Santa walks in) 

---Baby It's Cold Outside tune ---

(Far Rockaway) We really should go 

(Everyone Else) But elders it's cold outside

(Far Rockaway) You're starting to scroll

(Everyone Else) But Elder it's cold outside

(Far Rockaway) But president said

(Everyone Else) I'm just gonna stay in bed

(Far Rockaway) Where is your purpose

(Everyone Else) How has it really come to this

(Far Rockaway) The zone leaders will start to worry

(Everyone Else) I'm trying to watch Steph Curry

(Far Rockaway) Our numbers are looking grim

(Everyone Else) I really wish we could swim. 

(Far Rockaway) So really we'd better go

(Everyone Else) It looks like it's gonna snow

(Far Rockaway) You told me just an hour more

(Everyone Else) That was twenty minutes ago

(Far Rockaway) We really can't stay

(Everyone Else) Cause Elder it's cold outside

--- Last Christmas tune ---

We should go, but it is cold outside

We're half hour late, more memes to rate

Get up, out of that chair

Jay needs to cut my hair

How is your battery life

My Facebook time is way too high

New transfer is gonna begin

So I can start to grin

--- Feliz Navidad tune ---

Feliz transfer day

Feliz transfer day

Feliz transfer day

Now I can start my purpose clear 

Elder Peter's going home

Elder Rossi's going home

Their mission is done

They have seen two visions come and go

We get a new vision next year

Another idea to pioneer

Wonder what we'll get

After 5, 6, 7

--- Jingle Bells Rock tune ---

Ring the bell, show the tag

Give out a card

Find when you teach,

And teach when you find

Snowing or blowing,

We really don't care

After 6 were all out there.

Swipe the card, Find a seat,

Talk to some peeps

You studied it all at 8

Look through your eyepiece, ***(eyeglass)

and follow the rules

Be obedient,

Be obedient,

Be obedient!!!!

(Last Song)

We wish you a merry Christmas, We wish you a merry Christmas, We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year

(Slower 2nd time)

We wish you a merry Christmas, We wish you a merry Christmas, We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year

           --- The End ---

Again, we had fun (always having fun!) practicing and trying to get the words to the tune so the audience could understand what we said.

Friday, the day of the conference, a missionary was sick so I stayed in my apartment with the sick missionary so the companion could attend the conference.  I had a most rewarding day.  We talked and shared stories and thoughts and testimonies.  What a blessing for me.

Saturday was a “get ready for Sunday-Christmas day.”  I always love primary songs and Saturday is a Special Day is a favorite song of mine.  Anyway, I invited 6 sets of missionaries, 2 senior couples and Laura to brunch after Sacrament Meeting on Christmas Day.  I cleaned my apartment, set up the tables and chairs and finalized the food preparation that could be done ahead.  I made French toast strata which is made the day before so the bread can absorb the milk and eggs.

Sunday after church, I assembled a savory casserole with sausage, onions, tater tots milk, eggs and cheese.  Cut up some fruit and was ready at 3 when they arrived. Then the sisters and Laura stayed after we ate to use my wifi to talk to their families in the Philippines, Hawaii, Brazil, and Utah.  Laura didn’t talk to her family in Colombia as they will be meeting her in Florida in two weeks.  She will be going back to Colombia as her work visa will expire then.  She desperately wants to stay here but has no choice but to return to her country.  She is going to see if she can get a different kind of visa so she can return.

Laura

Sister Talaboc and Laura. We practiced Laura's English by reading and singing the words to Jingle Bell Rock

I was able to FaceTime my family as they all gathered at my home for Christmas pho.  Jeff made brisket pho, a Vietnamese soup.  I missed going to Grace Mary Manor with them to serve breakfast and I missed out on the pho, but it was great to talk to them and share in the festivities from a distance. 

Rory, Katie, & Reed

"Christmas" Pho

 

 As the missionary and I chatted on Friday, we talked about adversity in our lives.  I found a thought that I really like.

“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.”

—Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98

Then I read a talk given in October 1973 by H. Burke Peterson.  You may read the whole talk but I liked these thoughts:

Let us remember—trials are an evidence of a Father’s love. They are given as a blessing to his children. They are given as opportunities for growth.

Now, how do we approach them? How do we overcome them? How are we magnified by them? There seems to be a reason why we lose our composure in adversity—why we think we can no longer cope with what we’re faced with here in this life. There is a reason why we give up, why we “fall apart at the seams” so to speak. The reason may be so simple that we lose sight of it.

Could it be it’s because we begin to lose contact with our greatest source of strength—our Father in heaven? He is the key to our enjoying sweetness in adversity—in gaining strength from our trials—he and he alone.

May I suggest the best way I know to keep close to the source of this great strength is through prayer.  No man can stand alone in his struggle through life. Sometimes in discouragement our prayers, at best, become occasional or maybe not at all. Sometimes we forget or just don’t care. Brigham Young once said, “Prayer keeps man from sin, and sin keeps man from prayer.”

Some may be thinking that because they have a Word of Wisdom problem or because they have been dishonest or immoral—because they have not prayed for years—because of any reasons they now feel unworthy—they may say, “It’s too late, I’ve made so many mistakes—so why even try?” To these we say, “For your own sake, give yourself another chance.”

Sincere prayer is the heart of a happy and productive life. Prayer strengthens faith. Prayer is the preparation for miracles. Prayer opens the door to eternal happiness. The Father of us all is personal, ever waiting to hear from us, as any loving father would his children. To learn to communicate with him, to learn to pray effectively, requires diligence and dedication and desire on our part. I wonder sometimes if we are willing to pay the price for an answer from the Lord.

As we learn to develop this two-way communication, the standard of our life will improve. We will see things more clearly, we will try harder to do better, we will see the real joy that can come through trials and testing. Although problems will still be with us, peace, contentment, and true happiness will be ours in abundance.

I know that adversity is a blessing that gives us the opportunity to learn and grow.  I also know that prayer is a vital part of my life.  Without it, I would be lost.  I hope that you know and trust that you are loved by our Heavenly Father.  He desires and hears our every communication to Him.

I love you my family and friends.

A corner of back yard (Utah) in winter splendor

This is an "I'm a Morman" video. This man lives in our mission and is really good to our missionaries. I love his video.  (If you can't play the video, you can go HERE to view it.)

 

Visit from Jake & Shea AND a message from Elder Holland

It’s been a glorious week!!  Jake and Shea blessed me with a visit.  We were able to spend five days wandering around the boroughs of New York and enjoyed eating and laughing and talking.

Monday was the usual with FHE.  Tuesday was temple day so the sister missionaries whose companions were at the temple came over to keep me company.  We played games, baked cookies and had lunch (leftover taco soup from FHE).  It was a fun day.  

Sisters Hilliard and Fitt playing Quiddler

I was up at 5:00 AM to take another senior couple to the airport.
After lunch, I crashed to the amusement of my dear sisters.

Wednesday was trainer/trainee meeting.  I forever enjoy being with and teaching/helping the missionaries.  That afternoon, Jake and Shea arrived.  We went to Flushing and had dinner at Mizumi and then to Bayside to the French Workshop Artisan Bakery for the world’s best chocolate dessert, The Duke.

The food at Mizumi is really varied. Everything from sushi to octopus. This is Jake's plate.
I can't believe he ate an octopus!!  He hates fish.

The Duke

Thursday we went back to Flushing for Korean chicken noodle soup at Arirang.  And then next door to the restaurant, to a new Korean bakery for some pastries.  Among other delights, we had a red bean doughnut.  It was good but not a favorite for Jake.  He ate the doughnut part and I ate the red bean part.  Yes, I’m weird.  Jake took most of the food pictures so I don’t have them to add but the doughnut was a round ball filled with the red bean paste. Not the typical doughnut with the hole in the middle.

We were all so hungry we didn't get pictures of our soup. The noodles for this Korean chicken noodle soup
are handmade. There are two types: regular long noodles and square or "pan" noodles. I asked for both.
This is a picture of what I brought home. The noodles are thick. It reminds me of the noodles
my Grandma Terry used to make. Thick and a little chewy. Every time we went to St George to see her
she would make this soup. Fond memories.

Thursday evening I went with Anthea to a BYU Alumni Association banquet sponsored by New York Latter-day Saints Professionals Association at the Catholic Riverside Church in upper Manhattan.  Elder Holland was the guest speaker.  He came to present a Visionary Leadership Award to His Eminence, Timothy Cardinal Dolan.  We had a dinner and several talks and scholarship presentations.  It was a pleasant evening.

Anthea Pierre

Friday Shea, Jake and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and had pizza at a renowned pizzeria, Grimaldi’s.  Good stuff!

Train to Manhattan

Statue in City Hall Park. I giggle at the expression on his face and the bird on his head.

Black squirrel

Brooklyn Bridge Shea & Jake

Grimaldi's

Here is some information about Grimaldi’s:

“Grimaldi's Pizzeria is an American pizzeria chain from the New York City area with several restaurants throughout the United States. Its most famous restaurant is under the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn at 1 Front Street, next door to its original location. It does not sell slices, only whole pies. The pizzas are renowned for being cooked by coal-fired brick oven.

History

Patsy Grimaldi, the founder of Grimaldi's Pizzeria, learned to make pizza at age ten at Patsy's Pizzeria, his uncle Patsy Lancieri's restaurant in Italian Harlem in 1941. Decades later, Grimaldi decided to go into business for himself and originally planned to his own restaurant in Manhattan. However, Grimaldi believed coal-fired brick ovens produced the best pizza and new coal ovens were illegal in Manhattan. As a result, Grimaldi opened Grimaldi's Pizzeria in Brooklyn, New York in 1990.

In the late 1990s, Patsy Grimaldi retired, selling the Grimaldi's name and franchise (except for the Hoboken locations) to restaurateur Frank Ciolli. In 2011, the building's owner declined to renew Ciolli's lease, so he renovated an abandoned bank next door and moved the restaurant over. The next year, Patsy Grimaldi came out of retirement and opened a new pizzeria called Juliana's Pizza in the original building, resulting in considerable enmity between himself and Ciolli.”

I have eaten at Juliana’s too a few weeks ago.  Both are delicious.  There are always long lines in front of each restaurant, so the moral is, stand in the shorter line.  Both are excellent pizzas.

Friday evening we had to experience another Duke so we drove back to Bayside and then because we were so close, we found our way to Great Neck on the north shore of Long Island to look out over the sound to Connecticut.  Gorgeous sunset.

 Saturday we planned to go to the Montauk Lighthouse but we got a later start than planned so we opted for the Fire Island Lighthouse.  I know I told you about Fire Island a couple of blogs ago but this time I actually walked out onto the island and into the ocean.  Fun day!!!

 

Started the day at a Colombian bakery. We agreed it all looked delicious but was lacking in flavor.
The fillings were made of agave. Jake has decided that "cactus pastries" are not high
on his "let's go get some" list.

Yummy looking pastries- false advertising.

Walking out across the marsh on Fire Island toward the Lighthouse.

Fire Island deer. Last trip I saw a fox.

Deer watchers.

Fresnel lens. (Info at end of blog.)

They are trying to restore the beach so there is a walkway through the sand.
I liked it. No sand in your shoes!

Saturday evening we hopped on the train and went into Manhattan for pizza in Hell’s Kitchen.  Info at end of blog on the area. 

Only pic I took in Hell's Kitchen

Yesterday was the frosting on the cake.  Ten days ago, the mission sent out an announcement that there would be a mission wide conference on October 16^th.  No other information.  A mission wide conference is normally held only once a year at Christmas, so this abnormal announcement had everyone buzzing and wondering what was going on.

Elder Holland came and talked to our mission.  It was a special spiritual occasion.  He shook hands and looked into the eyes of every missionary before the meeting began.  As he got up to speak, he explained that he does that because he NEEDS to. He said he needed to interview each missionary. He explained that he wanted something approximating one on one time with each and every one of us. He said that he doesn't really care too much about our names or where we came from because he will forget it a few minutes later...but what he wanted was to just look into our eyes and "interview" us. He said that is all it takes, shaking our hand and looking into our eyes. With that he looks into our souls.

He complimented the spirit he found in our mission.  He said that if he had found that our mission was not ready spiritually to learn what he had to teach he would not have given the talk he had prepared.  He spent an hour and twenty minutes at a chalk board right down on the floor talking to us about the Book of Mormon. (It was like being in a Sunday School class. Amazing!)  He reminded us that it is the most perfect book on earth and a testament of Jesus Christ.  He showed the missionaries ways to teach investigators and to get people to listen and to read the Book of Mormon.  We all left on a spiritual high.

I would encourage each of you to read and re-read the Book of Mormon.  That is the only real way to learn about our Savior, the things we must do to return to live with our Father in Heaven and to become truly converted.

I love you my family and friends.

The Fire Island Lighthouse is a visible landmark on the Great South Bay, in southern Suffolk County, New York on the western end of Fire Island, a barrier island off the southern coast of Long Island. The lighthouse is located within Fire Island National Seashore and just to the east of Robert Moses State Park. It is part of the Fire Island Light Station which contains the light, keepers quarters, the lens building containing the original first-order Fresnel lens, and a boat house.

The current lighthouse is a 180-foot (55 m) stone tower that began operation in 1858 to replace the 74-foot (23 m) tower originally built in 1826. The United States Coast Guard decommissioned the light in 1974. In 1982 the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society (FILPS) was formed to preserve the lighthouse. FILPS raised over $1.2 million to restore the tower and light. On May 25, 1986 the United States Coast Guard returned the Fire Island Lighthouse to an active aid to navigation. On February 22, 2006, the light became a private aid to navigation. It continues to be on the nautical charts, but is operated and maintained by the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society and not the USCG. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 and a boundary increase for the national historic district occurred in 2010.

It is listed as Fire Island Light, number 695, in the USCG light lists.

When the lighthouse was built it was on the edge of Fire Island Inlet and marked the western end of Fire Island. However Fire Island has extended itself through accumulating sand so that the lighthouse is now nearly five miles (8.0 km) from the western end of the island at Democrat Point.

The Archives Center at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History has a collection (#1055) of souvenir postcards of lighthouses and has digitized 272 of these and made them available online. These include postcards of Fire Island Light with links to customized nautical charts provided by National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

The lighthouse celebrated its 150th Anniversary in 2008, the same year as the 100th Anniversary of Robert Moses State Park.

How a spherical Fresnel lens collimates light

1: Cross section of a spherical Fresnel lens
2: Cross section of a conventional spherical
plano-convex lens of equivalent power

A Fresnel lens (/freɪˈnɛl/ fray-NEL or /ˈfrɛznəl/ FREZ-nəl) is a type of compact lens originally developed by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel for lighthouses.

The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the mass and volume of material that would be required by a lens of conventional design. A Fresnel lens can be made much thinner than a comparable conventional lens, in some cases taking the form of a flat sheet. A Fresnel lens can capture more oblique light from a light source, thus allowing the light from a lighthouse equipped with one to be visible over greater distances.

Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton and Midtown West, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is traditionally considered to be bordered by 34th Street to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the east, and the Hudson River to the west. The area provides transport, medical, and warehouse infrastructure support to Midtown's business district.

Once a bastion of poor and working-class Irish Americans, Hell's Kitchen's location in Midtown has changed its personality since the 1970s. The 1969 City Planning Commission's Plan for New York City reported that development pressures related to its Midtown location were driving people of modest means from the area, and the gritty reputation that Hell's Kitchen developed afterward kept real estate prices below those of most other areas of Manhattan. Since the early 1990s, the area has been gentrifying, and rents have risen rapidly. Located close to both Broadway theatres and the Actors Studio training school, Hell's Kitchen has long been a home to learning and practicing actors.

Several explanations exist for the original name. An early use of the phrase appears in a comment Davy Crockett made about another notorious Irish slum in Manhattan, Five Points. According to the Irish Cultural Society of the Garden City Area:

When, in 1835, Davy Crockett said, "In my part of the country, when you meet an Irishman, you find a first-rate gentleman; but these are worse than savages; they are too mean to swab hell's kitchen." He was referring to the Five Points. 

According to an article by Kirkley Greenwell, published online by the Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association:

No one can pin down the exact origin of the label, but some refer to a tenement on 54th Street as the first "Hell's Kitchen." Another explanation points to an infamous building at 39th as the true original. A gang and a local dive took the name as well.... a similar slum also existed in London and was known as Hell's Kitchen. 

Local historian Mary Clark explained the name thus:

...first appeared in print on September 22, 1881 when a New York Times reporter went to the West 30s with a police guide to get details of a multiple murder there. He referred to a particularly infamous tenement at 39th Street and Tenth Avenue as "Hell's Kitchen," and said that the entire section was "probably the lowest and filthiest in the city." According to this version, 39th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues became known as Hell's Kitchen and the name was later expanded to the surrounding streets. 

Another version ascribes the name's origins to a German restaurant in the area known as Heil's Kitchen, after its proprietors. But the most common version traces it to the story of "Dutch Fred the Cop," a veteran policeman, who with his rookie partner, was watching a small riot on West 39th Street near Tenth Avenue. The rookie is supposed to have said, "This place is hell itself," to which Fred replied, "Hell's a mild climate. This is Hell's Kitchen." 

Hell's Kitchen has stuck as the most-used name of the neighborhood, even though real estate developers have offered alternatives of "Clinton" and "Midtown West", or even "the Mid-West". The Clinton name, used by the municipality of New York City, originated in 1959 in an attempt to link the area to DeWitt Clinton Park at 52nd and Eleventh Avenue, named after the 19th century New York governor.

There were multiple changes that helped Hell's Kitchen integrate with New York City proper. The first was construction of the Hudson River Railroad, whose initial leg – the 40 miles (64 km) to Peekskill – was completed on September 29, 1849, By the end of 1849, it stretched to Poughkeepsie and in 1851 it extended to Albany. The track ran at a steep grade up Eleventh Avenue, as far as 60th Street. 

The formerly rural riverfront was industrialized by businesses, such as tanneries, that used the river for shipping products and dumping waste. The neighborhood that would later be known as Hell's Kitchen, started forming in the southern part of the 22nd Ward in the mid-19th century. Irish immigrants – mostly refugees from the Great Famine – found work on the docks and railroad along the Hudson River and established shantytowns there.

After the American Civil War, there was an influx of people who moved to New York city. The tenements that were built became overcrowded quickly. Many who lived in this congested, poverty-stricken area turned to gang life. Following Prohibition, implemented in 1919, the district's many warehouses were ideal locations for bootleg distilleries for the rumrunners who controlled illicit liquor. At the start of the 20th century, the neighborhood was controlled by gangs, including the violent Gopher Gang led by One Lung Curran and later by Owney Madden.   Early gangs, like the Hell's Kitchen Gang, transformed into organized crime entities, around the same time that Owney Madden became one of the most powerful mobsters in New York. It became known as the "most dangerous area on the American Continent".

After the repeal of Prohibition, many of the organized crime elements moved into other rackets, such as illegal gambling and union shakedowns. The postwar era was characterized by a flourishing waterfront, and longshoreman work was plentiful. By the end of the 1950s, however, the implementation of containerized shipping led to the decline of the West Side piers and many longshoremen found themselves out of work. In addition, the construction of the Lincoln Tunnel had split Hell's Kitchen in the Lincoln Tunnel ramp area at 39th Street, and anything southwest of 39th Street and Tenth Avenue was virtually condemned. -

In 1959, an aborted rumble between rival Irish and Puerto Rican gangs led to the notorious "Capeman" murders in which two innocent teenagers were killed. By 1965, Hell's Kitchen was the home base of the Westies, an Irish mob aligned with the Gambino crime family. It was not until the early 1980s that widespread gentrification began to alter the demographics of the longtime working-class Irish American neighborhood. The 1980s also saw an end to the Westies' reign of terror, when the gang lost all of its power after the RICO convictions of most of its principals in 1986.

Today, Hell's Kitchen has become an increasingly upscale neighborhood of affluent young professionals as well as residents from the "old days", with rents in the neighborhood having increased dramatically above the average in Manhattan.