All of this thinking about facades made me think about the
“facades” of life. I know that often in
my life, I’ve felt the need to put on a front or to make others think I am
something I am not. I had to have
certain clothes to be what I thought they would make me appear to be. I had to act a certain way to make people
think I was something I was not. This
all sounds weird I guess, but I remember going to the doctor or dentist,
somewhere with a waiting room, when I was little. I couldn’t read but people were sitting
around reading magazines. I thought it
was important to show them that I was smart so I picked up a magazine and
pretended that I could read.
That is a silly example because all children want to be
older and more capable than they are.
But even as I grew older, I wanted to be more popular, smarter,
important than I was. I did whatever I
could to be those things.
When I had a home, if I knew that someone was coming that I
needed to impress, I would shout at the kids:
“Pick up your stuff! Hurry, clean
the bathroom! Quickly! Clean up this
mess!! Most of the time, I think the
“mess” ended up shoved behind the couch or in a closet. I must confess I have even done this when
there wasn’t time to do it properly.
I guess because I compared myself to others, I always felt
I came up short and therefore had to put on that facade. As I continued to think about this during the
week, I came across an article by President Uchtdorf, dated May 2015. He says what I have been thinking and what I am
trying to say in a much more eloquent way:
“It is part of human nature to want to look our best. … There is nothing wrong with shining our shoes, smelling our best, or even hiding the dirty dishes before the home teachers arrive. However, when taken to extremes, this desire to impress can shift from useful to deceitful. ……“… This is especially dangerous when we direct our outward expressions of discipleship to impress others for personal gain or influence. ……“… If Jesus Christ were to sit down with us and ask for an accounting of our stewardship, [He] would want to know … the condition of our heart. He would want to know how we love and minister to those in our care [and] how you and I grow closer to Him and to our Heavenly Father. ……“With patience and persistence, even the smallest act of discipleship or the tiniest ember of belief can become a blazing bonfire of a consecrated life. In fact, that’s how most bonfires begin—as a simple spark. ……“… The God of Creation … can make of you the genuine, spiritual being of light and truth you desire to be”
As I’ve grown
older it has become less important to me to appear to be something I am
not. I still want to be liked, to look
and be my best, but I find greater joy and pleasure in trying to be a true
disciple of Christ. I want to love my neighbor
regardless of their color or religion. I
want to be kind and supportive to all I meet.
It is not always easy but as President Uchtdorf suggests, with patience
and persistence a tiny ember of belief can become a bonfire of a consecrated
life. Just food for thought.
This has been a
good week. Monday evening for FHE, we
had a farewell dinner for our friends, the Bramwells, who have completed their
mission. It doesn’t matter whether the
missionary is a senior or a junior, it is difficult to tell them goodbye.
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| Monday is preparation day so Sister Grimsman and I played a game of Quiddler - a word game. |
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| FHE dinner group left to right: Shapiros, Johnsons, Bramwells, and Williams at Longhorn Steak House. |
Wednesday I drove
to Lynbrook to have lunch with a couple of “goofy” sisters whom I love
dearly. They are great missionaries but
I must admit when the three of us get together, we have way too much fun. Then being close to Long Beach, I had to pay
a visit to the Atlantic. (Info at end of blog about Lynbrook and Long Beach.) I like to think of these excursions as “mini
vacations”.
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| This is the greeting I received from Sisters Krause and Fouts |
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| Lunch at Flaming Grill Buffet |
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| Along the boardwalk there were little red libraries open to take books
to read. I like that! If you take one you are to replace it with another. |
I have
trainer/trainee meeting next week so I spent some time getting packets and
other things ready for that.
Friday, I met
Michelle Workman who is a counselor at LDS Family Services in Manhattan. She had some information for me about a
missionary and then she and Marci, the administrative assistant, and I went to
lunch at Chelsea Market. I had a delicious
salmon salad followed by my all-time favorite food- chocolate. Go figure!
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| Across from me is Michelle. Next to her is Marci |
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| As we walked through Chelsea Market I enjoyed looking at the varied
shops and eating establishments but this spice store drew me in with it aromatic fragrance. Wow! Smelled so good. |
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| On my way to the subway to go to Manhattan I met this trio of matching sisters. Sisters Morales, Mejia and Maldonado |
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| Not the usual sight you see on the train |
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| Flowers in a planter along 87th Street in Manhattan |
My car needed a
deep cleaning so I took it to a car detailing/wash place on Saturday. It took them 2 ½ hours. Now you know that the appearance of having a
clean car was not one of my “facades.”
No two ways about it. It was a filthy mess. I was embarrassed when the people sitting in
the back seat looked at the headliner and asked: “do you have a dog that could rub against the
headliner?” I always answered: “No. I
have (had) two dogs. BIG dogs.” Now the headliner is free of dog hair. But when I left the car detailing place it
was raining. 36 hours later, it is still
raining. The carpet in the car is never
going to dry at this rate!!!
The week before
general conference, all of the wards/branches/stake boundaries were
changed. Today was the first meeting of
our “new” ward. Our Sacrament Meeting
was much larger in attendance. Our
Primary doubled in size. This is
GREAT! Only problem is that our Primary
Sacrament Meeting program is in 5 weeks and one of those weeks is Stake
Conference. The new children in the
Primary don’t know the songs so I have a short time to help them to learn them. We may have to resort to word strips because
I don’t think they will be able to learn 9 songs in 4 weeks. The Lord will provide a way I am positive.
In this area, it
is not uncommon to have a “linger longer” after the meeting block. Food is brought (potluck) and everyone goes
to the recreation hall and lingers longer to visit and eat. Today the ward provided a lot of the food so
that the members of our ward could get to know each other. It is nice to be able to mingle and visit.
I so appreciate
the opportunity that I have to be here and to be involved with this
mission. I learn so much on a daily
basis and enjoy meeting and working with new people all of the time. This is a great blessing to me in spite of the
fact that I miss my dear family. I enjoy
the pictures and Face Time that I get with them though.
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| Reed |
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| Rory |
I love you my
family and friends.
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| Flowers I saw as I walked through the neighborhood. |
LynbrookThe area currently known as Lynbrook had other names, including Rechquaakie (originally), Near Rockaway, Parson's Corners, and Bloomfield. It was later named Pearsall's Corners, after Mr. Pearsall's General Store because this store became a famous stage coach stop for travelers coming from New York City to Long Island. Alternately, it was called "Five Corners" because the stage coach stop was at the crossing of Hempstead Avenue, Merrick Road, and Broadway. It became known as Lynbrook in 1894 and the village was incorporated in 1911. The name "Lynbrook" is derived by dividing "Brooklyn" into its syllables and transposing them.Just some trivia:
- The sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond is set in Lynbrook; the fictional Marie and Frank Barone live at 319 Fowler Avenue and their son, Ray and his family live across the street at street number 320, a real street in the center of town, however the actual filming took place at Warner Brothers Burbank Studios in Burbank, California
- In a Seinfeld episode, the gang mentions going to a mall in Lynbrook; there is no mall in Lynbrook, but Green Acres Mall is in nearby Valley Stream
- Lynbrook's Trainland on Sunrise Highway was prominently featured in The Sopranos episode, "The Blue Comet" (aired June 3, 2007), with many scenes shot inside the store.
- Mike's Marbleopolis, a fictional marble column store featured in a spoof advertisement on Saturday Night Live was shown as being at 2941 Central Avenue, Lynbrook
Long Beach is a city in Nassau County, New York, United States. Just south of Long Island, it is located on Long Beach Barrier Island, which is the westernmost of the outer barrier islands off Long Island's South Shore.Long Beach's first inhabitants were the Algonquian-speaking Rockaway Indians, who sold the area to English colonists in 1643. While the barrier island was used by baymen and farmers, for fishing and harvesting salt hay, no one lived there year-round for more than two centuries.In 1849, Congress established a lifesaving station.Austin Corbin, a builder from Brooklyn, was the first to attempt to develop the island as a resort. He formed a partnership with the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) to finance the New York and Long Beach Railroad Co., which laid track from Lynbrook to Long Beach in 1880. That same year, Corbin opened Long Beach Hotel, a row of 27 cottages along a 1,100-foot strip of beach, which he claimed was the world's largest hotel. In its first season, the railroad brought 300,000 visitors to Long Island. By the next spring, tracks had been laid the length of the island, but they were removed in 1894 after repeated washouts from winter storms.
Crowded beach, c. 1923 1900sIn 1906, William Reynolds, a 39-year-old former state senator and real estate developer, entered the picture. Reynolds had already developed four Brooklyn neighborhoods (Bedford-Stuyvesant, Borough Park, Bensonhurst, and South Brownsville), as well as Coney Island's Dreamland, the world's largest amusement park. Reynolds also owned a theater and produced plays.He gathered investors, and acquired the oceanfront from private owners and the rest of the island from the Town of Hempstead in 1907; he planned to build a boardwalk, homes, and hotels. Reynolds had a herd of elephants marched in from Dreamland, ostensibly to help build the Long Beach Boardwalk; he had created an effective publicity stunt. Dredges created a channel 1,000 feet wide on the north side of the island to provide access by large steamboats and sea planes to transport more visitors; the new waterway was named Reynolds Channel. To ensure that Long Beach lived up to his billing it "The Riviera of the East", he required each building to be constructed in an "eclectic Mediterranean style", with white stucco walls and red-clay tile roofs. He built a theater called Castles by the Sea, with the largest dance floor in the world, for dancers Vernon and Irene Castle.After Reynolds' corporation went bankrupt in 1918, the restrictions were lifted. The new town attracted wealthy businessmen and entertainers from New York and Hollywood.On July 29, 1907, a fire broke out at the Long Beach Hotel and burned it to the ground. Of the 800 guests, eight were injured by jumping from windows, and one woman died. The fire was blamed on defective electric wiring. A church, several cottages and the bathing pavilion were also destroyed. Trunks belonging to the guests, which had been piled on the sand to form "dressing rooms", were looted by thieves. A dozen waiters and others were apprehended by the police, who recovered $20,000 worth of jewelry and other stolen property.In 1923, the prohibition agents known simply as Izzy and Moe raided the Nassau Hotel and arrested three men for bootlegging. In 1930, five Long Beach Police officers were charged with offering a bribe to a United States Coast Guard officer to allow liquor to be landed. The police had another problem a year later in the summer of 1931, when a beachcomber found the body of a young woman named Starr Faithfull, who had drowned. She had left behind a suicide note, but others believed she had been murdered, and the circumstances of her death were never resolved. Corruption became rampant in Long Beach by then; in 1922, the state Legislature designated Long Beach a city and William H. Reynolds was elected the first mayor. Shortly thereafter, Reynolds was indicted on charges of misappropriating funds. When he was found guilty, the clock in the tower at city hall was stopped in protest. When a judge released Reynolds from jail later that year on appeal, almost the entire population turned out to greet him, and the clock was turned back on.In 1939, Mayor Louis F. Edwards was fatally shot by a police officer on the front steps of his home. Officer Alvin Dooley, a member of the police motorcycle squad and the mayor's own security detail, killed the mayor after losing his bid for PBA president to a candidate the mayor supported. Jackson Boulevard was later renamed Edwards Boulevard in honor of the late mayor. After the murder, the city residents passed legislation to adopt a city manager system, which still exists to this day. The city manager is hired by and reports to the City Council.In the 1940s, Jose Ferrer, Zero Mostel, Mae West, and other famous actors performed at local theaters. John Barrymore, Humphrey Bogart, Clara Bow, James Cagney, Cab Calloway, Jack Dempsey, Lillian Roth, Rudolph Valentino, and Florenz Ziegfeld lived in Long Beach for decades.By the 1940s and 1950s, with the advent of cheap air travel attracting tourists to more distant places, and air-conditioning to provide year-round comfort, Long Beach had become a primarily bedroom community for commuters to New York City. It still attracted many summer visitors into the 1970s. The rundown boardwalk hotels were used for temporary housing for welfare recipients and the elderly, until a scandal around 1970 led to many of the homes' losing licenses. At that time, government agencies were also "warehousing" in such hotels many patients released from larger mental hospitals. They were supposed to be cared for in small-scale community centers. The 2.2-mile boardwalk had a small amusement park at the foot of Edwards Boulevard until the 1980s. In the late 1960s, the boardwalk and amusement park area were a magnet for youth from around Long Island, until a police crackdown on drug trafficking ended that. While there are few businesses left on the boardwalk, it attracts bicyclists, joggers, walkers and people-watchers.Beginning in the 1980s and accelerating in the 1990s, Long Beach has begun an urban renewal, with new housing, new businesses and other improvements. Today, the city is again a popular bedroom community, for people working in New York who want the quiet beach atmosphere. With summer come local youths and college students and young adults who rent bungalows on the West End; they frequent the local bars and clubs along West Beech Street. Just behind the boardwalk near the center of the city, however, vacant lots now occupy several blocks that once housed hotels, bathhouses and the amusement park. Because attempts to attract development (including, at one time, Atlantic City-style casinos) to this potential "superblock" have not yet borne fruit, the lots comprise the city's largest portion of unused land.2000sOn October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy struck Long Beach. As a result of flooding, hundreds of vehicles were totaled and houses suffered various levels of damage. The estimated cost of all the damage was over $250 million. The city was without power and running water for two weeks after the storm. The boardwalk was also destroyed during the storm. The City began rebuilding the boardwalk with grants from FEMA and the State of New York. The first two-block section of the new Long Beach boardwalk reopened on July 26, 2013, and the entire boardwalk opened on October 25, 2013.
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