June is Almost Over

We had quite a few things going on at the first of the month, then they've quieted down a bit in preparation for a busy July!

We were asked to recruit missionaries to help with an event called the Global Family Reunion.  A man named A.J. Jacobs got the idea that everyone in the world is related so he decided to hold a reunion for ALL of his cousins.  Because of the Church's emphasis on family history they were one of the sponsors for it.  It was held on June 6th at New York Hall of Science at the World's Fair site.  There were a few celebrities there, on the stage, in the pink shirt is Dr. Oz.  I wish I could have gotten a closer picture of him!

They figured there were about 4500 people in attendance.  It was a fun day!

We were able to see a few of the things in the Hall of Science and pretend to be astronauts!

This is the closest I'll get to outer space!

These were rockets used in the  U.S. space program.

After we looked around a bit our job was to sell tickets.  We were there after the main rush in the morning so we weren't too busy.

We've got a "sighting" here!! The man in the suit is Ted Allen from the Cooking Channel show "Chopped"!  A fun story is about the man in the t-shirt, Ryan Koch, ... he was the one we communicated with about getting the missionaries signed up to volunteer, so when we finally met at the event and in getting to know him, we found out that he knew our daughter, Alona, when they were at BYU.  It was a fun, "small world" episode!

A few days after the "reunion", on June 9th, was a transfer meeting.  This is our mission president, Kevin Calderwood, and he's giving his good-bye address to the missionaries as he will be leaving in just a couple of days.  He's been an outstanding mission president and it's sad to see him and his wonderful wife leave, but we know we'll learn to love and respect the new president just as much.   

Every Wednesday the branch has a volleyball night at the church, there's always a good turnout, the kids have a great time.  This is a lull between games!

On the 13th of June the senior couples got together for brunch on the Lower East Side and then visited the tenement museum.

The museum shows how the immigrant families lived back in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The building front has been restored, as well as some of the rooms inside, showing how small the apartments were and telling the stories of a couple of the families living there and the way they must have lived. 

This is a wider view of the street and of other buildings in the area.