New Year’s resolutions

The weather here is worse than Utah!  I’ve heard it said about Utah that if you don’t like the weather, wait an hour and it will change.  Here in New York, it is 60 degrees one day, sunny and balmy, and 35 degrees (with wind and humidity, it feels like 7 degrees) the next day.  Then it rains and goes to 45-50 degrees for a few days.  The poor missionaries don’t know how to dress.  Should they wear a coat and die of the heat?  Or they think it will be warm so they wear a sweater only to find a sudden drop in temperature and a strong wind off the ocean.   I guess it can be like that everywhere but it seems particularly routine here.  At least we don’t have inversions.  Jake took a winter hike up Millcreek Canyon on Saturday.  He sent me some pictures that I will share.

Tuesday

Beautiful winter mountains

Inversion in the valley

Mount Olympus to the left. In the distance the Oquirrh mountains.
The tiny ones right in the middle is Corner Canyon and Point of the mountain.

Jake enjoying the sunshine with the inversion behind him.

I’ve read that weather and temperature changes don’t have an effect on whether you catch a cold or sickness but from the number of missionaries in bed with colds and gastroenteritis, I am beginning to question this fact.  However, just to set it straight, I do know that it is not the weather but the number of people with whom they come in contact in stores, homes, subways, church, etc.  It is IMPOSSIBLE to properly wash hands often enough to avoid the dreaded common cold virus.  The viruses we seem to have this year though are particularly nasty!!

Just a helpful hint to anyone who gets gastroenteritis (stomach flu): drink ginger tea for nausea and vomiting.  The missionaries have been my guinea pigs.  I have recommended ginger tea and then ask for feedback.  The ones who drank it raved about how it helped them. I didn’t do an excel document to calculate the numbers but a guess is that 75-80%, or more, found the ginger tea helpful.  The way I look at it, what have you got to lose????

I apologize, but I am going to be all over the place this week.  I live between JFK and La Guardia Airports so I get a lot of “fly-overs.”  I think most of the air traffic is bound for JFK. I seldom hear it any more but today as I listened to a jet fly over, I was thinking about the times I’ve flown over cities and looked down wondering what the neighborhoods are like.  Where are the people in all of the cars going?  What are the people doing?  I’m sure I’ve thought that as I’ve flown into JFK probably right over Rego Park where I now live.  This afternoon as the plane flew over I was preparing food in the kitchen.  I know the streets.  I know the neighborhoods.  I wondered if the passengers in the plane were thinking about the people and homes and streets below them.  Don’t know why I had to share this but it just struck me that I was in one of those homes that plane was flying over and I was just doing mundane things and carrying on life just like everyone else.

The sister training leaders are at the church next door fairly often.  They live a 20-30 minutes train ride away so they asked me if I would help them with meals when they are on exchanges with other sisters so that they wouldn’t have to go so far to get dinner.  Of course, I jumped at the chance so that I could cook and spend time with the missionaries.  Two things I love to do.  So Tuesday was our first meal together for exchanges.

 

I went to the store to pick up some last minute things for dinner. This person was taking
a shopping cart full of aluminum cans and plastic bottles to the recycle collection.
In NY every time you buy a can of soda or a bottle of water you are charged
a recycle fee of a nickel, I think. People go through trash collecting cans and bottles.
I've mentioned this before but this person had a load!!  I think it was a woman.
She had at least 10 large plastic bags full.

Tuesday night dinner guests:  Sisters Staker, Grimsman, Monteiro, and Bush

 

Wednesday I went to Flushing to meet some missionaries and then I invited the Korean sisters to dinner.  Their choice was a Japanese restaurant:  Nippon Cha.  Good food!  I had Yaki Udon (Pan-fried soba udon with kimchi, pork, veggies in okonomi sauce.)  Soba udon are thick noodles.  The other three had Teishoku (Set meal).  Each had a different meat but the meal comes on a tray with salad, soup, poached egg, and meat prepared in whatever way they choose.  We were served a complimentary appetizer:  Takoyaki (Octopus balls with bonito flakes).  I was a little leery of the octopus balls but it was really quite good.  It had a creamy texture inside and a small bite of octopus.  The outside was crispy.  The flakes on top moved.  Really!  They moved and it looked like the dish was alive.  We were told that the heat (temperature) and then the flakes cooling made them move.   I looked it up on Google for a more accurate description of the Takoyaki.

Sisters Hilliard, Kim, Yu

For dessert we went to Martha's Country Bakery. I had Mississippi mud cheesecake.

akoyaki and Yaki udon

Teishoku (set meal)

Takoyaki (たこ焼き or 蛸焼^?) is a ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour-based batter and cooked in a special moulded pan. It is typically filled with minced or diced octopus (tako), tempura scraps (tenkasu), pickled ginger, and green onion. Takoyaki are brushed with takoyaki sauce (similar to Worcestershire sauce) and mayonnaise, and then sprinkled with green laver (aonori) and shavings of dried bonito. There are many variations to the takoyaki recipe, for example, ponzu (soy sauce with dashi and citrus vinegar), goma-dare (sesame-and-vinegar sauce) or vinegared dashi.

Takoyaki was first popularized in Osaka, where a street vendor named Tomekichi Endo is credited with its invention in 1935. Takoyaki was inspired by akashiyaki, a small round dumpling from the city of Akashi in Hyōgo Prefecture made of an egg-rich batter and octopus. Takoyaki was initially popular in the Kansai region, and later spread to the Kantō region and other areas of Japan. Takoyaki is associated with yatai street food stalls, and there are many well-established takoyaki specialty restaurants, particularly in the Kansai region. Takoyaki is now sold at commercial outlets, such as supermarkets and 24-hour convenience stores.

Yaki is derived from "yaku" (焼く^?) which is one of the cooking methods in Japanese cuisine, meaning "to fry or grill", and can be found in the names of other Japanese cuisine items such as teppanyaki, yakitori, teriyaki, okonomiyaki and sukiyaki.

Friday I went to lunch with Sister Albanese.  Her companion had gone with other missionaries to pick up a car so we took off for the mall.  Panda Express.  Good but not adventurous.  Great company though.

Sister Albanese

New Year’s Eve all of the missionaries had to be in their own apartments by 6:00 P.M.  Sisters Dos Santos and Talaboc who live upstairs came down and we had pizza and played Monopoly Deal until they had to go to bed at 10:30. I forgot to take pictures.  You will have to use your imagination.

Sunday in Primary I decided to do a singing time based on making New Year’s Resolutions.  (Thank you Katie for the idea.)  I had balloons with the name of a song inside each balloon:  I Am a Child of God, A Child’s Prayer, Scripture Power, I’m Trying to be Like Jesus, Baptism, I Love to See the Temple, Nephi’s Courage.
Then I had some resolutions on the board:  Remember who I am, Pray always,  Read Scriptures, Choose the right,  Keep covenants,  Prepare to go to the temple,  Be obedient.

As a child was chosen, they could pop the balloon to get a song title and then match it to the resolution. I explained to them that Primary is a good place to learn songs that can help one remember to keep their resolutions.  The music has a message and when we are trying to make a choice, for example, we can think of the song and even sing or hum it to help us make the right choice.

I went to LDS.org to see if I could find a story or thought that I could use in singing time. I didn’t find one but I found a great talk.  Because I had been doing a lot of thinking about New Year’s resolutions, this talk hit home.  I have been making New Year’s resolutions all my life.  Like most people, I haven’t in the past been all that successful or diligent about keeping those resolutions.  This year, in addition to others, I intend to be more regular about exercise and I must lose some weight.  My yearly mantra.  I thought about how I’ve said this so many times and then I just keep up with the same habits I have always had.

The talk is a BYU speech titled "Flaxen Threads" given by Carlos E. Asay in February 1982.  He says:

Bound with Flaxen Thread

I have invited two young men, Elder Brockman and Elder Robey, to help me introduce my subject. Will you two please step forward. You will note that both have their wrists bound together. Though you may not be able to see the material that I have used in binding my friends, it is the same for each-flaxen thread.

Elder Robey's wrists are tied with only one strand of the flaxen material. I will now invite him to muster all his strength and courage and break free. (Pause) Did you notice how easy and effortless that was?

Elder Brockman's wrists are tied with twenty strands of the flaxen thread. I now ask him to do what Elder Robey did. (Pause) If you were close to the pulpit, you would see that my captive is really trying to break his cords. You would also observe that, as he strains to break the thread, it is beginning to make indentations in his wrists, and, if he were to continue much further, I think it would cut and draw blood. Thank you very much.

Bound by Habits

I have engaged you in this simple demonstration to make a point. Suppose each strand of thread used in binding these young men represented one bad habit. From the demonstration, we might conclude that a single bad habit has limited restricting power. A number of bad habits, however, has great power-almost limitless power.

"The chains of habit," said one man, "are too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken" (Samuel Johnson)

He goes on to say:

When I taught at this institution, I worked with students who fitted, floated, or failed. Those who fitted came with purpose, high resolve, and good work habits. Those who floated appeared on the scene for a semester or two and faded away to something less challenging when their grades finally caught up with them. Those who failed lacked the commitment and discipline required of a person in an institution of higher learning.

It seemed to me that most of the failures were shackled by poor habits. Some were not in the habit of attending class regularly; some were not in the habit of reading required texts; some were habitually late in submitting assignments; some were not in the habit of budgeting time and energies; and some were not even conditioned to work. In all too many cases, so it seemed to me, one weakness seemed to breed upon another, and what appeared at first to be a flaxen habit proved to be a strong inhibiting cord.

A Spanish proverb reads: "Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables." I suspect that most students come here with pure intent. They register, select their courses of study, and attend their classes with high hopes of attaining declared goals. But, when one becomes careless, when one permits resolve to sag, slouchy habits appear, and academic anemia sets in. This malady comes web by web until learning and growing are choked off by the cables of intellectual inactivity.

I hope that I have piqued your interest and that you will read this talk in its entirety.  His talk is directed to students but it fitting to each of us.  It is more about habits than New Year’s resolutions, but in order to be successful in keeping these resolutions, most often they have to become habits.

We all have habits.  Some are good habits.  Some are not so good.  If the habits we develop lead us to righteous living such as regular and frequent scripture study, daily prayers, Sacrament Meeting attendance, Temple attendance, etc. we can rest assured that we will be blessed.

I am going to do my best to live up to my resolutions this year (including exercise and weight loss) and to develop habits that will take me nearer to my Father in Heaven and eternal life with my family.

I wish you the happiest of Happy New Years and pray that you will be blessed beyond measure in all that you do.

I love you my family and friends.

 

I always love flowers!  A gift from a friend.

There is a missionary here who has Celiac's disease so he can't eat gluten. One night
he and his companion were invited to dinner. He couldn't eat anything that was prepared
so they gave him three bananas. Now every time they go somewhere and he can't eat something,
his companion asks:  "Do you have any bananas?" So this Elder get bananas frequently!

Tonight the elders came with a can of cookies for me that had been given to them by a family.
Then they showed me the can of "cookies" they were taking to their gluten-free companion.
I'm always getting such a kick out of these missionaries. They keep me giggling!!