The End is Near!! A Week of "Lasts"!

Our whole mission has been a wonderful, faith-promoting experience!  The things we have loved and have felt that we were sent here to do were: 1. Teach the young single adults (and a few older ones) institute classes that strengthen their testimonies; 2. Help the stake and ward leaders realize the vital importance of having Institute available for all the young people in the stake; 3. Develop meaningful, lifelong friendships with the young single adults in our branch and the elders and sisters in our area; and 4. Have the added bonus of being able to work in the temple one day a week. 

Hearing a girl in our YSA branch, after being asked to express what she was thankful for during a Thanksgiving themed meeting, say that she was thankful for the deeper understanding, appreciation and love for the Savior that she had gained from attending Institute made everything worthwhile.
 

This is after our last day working at the Manhattan Temple.  We loved serving the Lord here one day a week.

One last dinner with our district before transfers.

We had a tender mercy thanks to Hallelujah Praise the Lord Automotive!  Our engine needed to be replaced, this auto shop was recommended by the senior missionary over mission-owned cars.  They were efficient, professional and reasonably priced and we felt very blessed that they were able get everything ready for our long trip home.

Sis. Palmer was the mission seamstress, she brought her sewing machine to every transfer meeting and the missionaries brought their mending.  I usually sat by her and helped with hemming and other handwork.  We always had good conversations!

At transfer meeting last week we were in the "departing missionary" picture!

Class at South Shore was fun ... we had some of the youngest students on record, a 2 year-old and a newborn!

Some kids from our Plainview class listening intently!

This sweet girl, Kara, came to our class at the US Merchant Marine Academy, she's not a member of our church but was a dedicated student!

Every Wednesday night we watched our branch play volleyball, this was our last time there!

It was such a blessing to see a couple of our Institute students go to the Temple to get their endowments.

A last Sunday filled with meetings and a Monday filled with packing cleaning and one more FHE and then we start the long trek home with sad hearts at saying good-bye to so many wonderful people, but with eager anticipation of happy reunions with sweet family and friends.
We loved our year in NYNY South!

NOVEMBER - LAST SIGHTS AND SOUNDS

We were able to do several fun things during our last month here in New York.  Here's just a few pictures of the highlights ...

This was an interesting rock at the Museum of Natural History.

This is a meteorite, we saw a piece that was part of the one that made Meteor Crater near Winslow AZ.

There were still more autumn leaves at Bethpage State Park.

This is the flagship Macy's store, I wanted to see if their Christmas decorations were up.

I loved looking at the lights, even though this was early in November!

We were able to go to the Federal Reserve, they store gold for many other countries ... there are billions of dollars worth of gold there!  

It was cool seeing The Empire State Building lost in the clouds.

Elder Bushman was happy to stand in front of the house that was his mission home when he a young missionary, it's across the street from Central Park. 

I thought it was interesting to see this man doing yoga in Central Park.

Metropolitan Museum of Art - we spent a couple of hours here and only scratched the surface, we saw the Egypt exhibit, some of the artwork of the Old Masters, and a bit of the Greek exhibit.

We got up early one morning to catch the sunrise at Jones Beach.

It was beautiful and we picked up quite a few interesting sea shells!

The decorations inside Saks Fifth Avenue were pretty amazing.

We were able to go to Radio City Music Hall and see the famous Rockettes!

Inside the theater.

The grand foyer!

Rockefeller Center looking toward "The" tree and skating rink! They're lighting the tree on Dec. 2, I guess we won't stay to see that!!

Rockefeller Center, looking toward Fifth Avenue.

Autumn Leaves

This post will just be pictures.  They said the leaves weren't as bright and vivid as usual because there wasn't as much rain this summer but they have been beautiful to me and we've taken a few pictures that I wanted to post by themselves for me to remember and you to enjoy.

October's Highlights!

We had lots of good things going on in October, a visit from the Warrs, which I covered in a separate post and all of the following ...

The month of October started out right with General Conference.  All of our young people were invited to watch on Sunday at our apartment.  

We enjoyed visiting, eating, and playing games between sessions.

There was a chance that a hurricane was headed our way but it ended up veering out to sea by about 600 miles, it still stirred up the water pretty well.  I wanted to see it so we went to a beach that we hadn't been to before, Robert Moses Beach.  The waves were pretty big, the camera definitely doesn't do it justice.  I love watching the ocean!

This is the lighthouse at Robert Moses Beach.

Farmingdale celebrates Columbus Day in a big way, they had a street fair that lasted for a couple of days and a pretty impressive fireworks display that we had a perfect view of from our porch.

They also had a parade with cub scouts, girl scouts, and the fire equipment from 10 different fire stations (I decided to keep a tally because there were so many!) !!  Several of the fire departments had bagpipe bands!!

This is at transfer meeting, most of the missionaries park in this small parking lot, it's a tight fit and if you're in a hurry to leave you don't want to be the first one in!!  We always park across the bridge over the train tracks.

This is a view of the city from the bridge that we walk over to get to our car after transfer meeting.  I can't believe we only have one more transfer until our mission is over!!

This is the porch at Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt's home.  We finally got to go into the house, but couldn't take pictures inside. We had wanted to go in when the Warr's were here but didn't realize that the tickets that I got were for 2 weeks later!!

Just had to get a picture of this sign to Holbrook!! Only 2500 miles from the "other" Holbrook!

We were able to go back to Old Westbury Gardens, when we went before we only saw the house.  The gardens were really amazing!

We had to try having Candy Corn teeth after Institute just before Halloween.  This is Zach.

Here's Heather and Liz.

Looking very fierce, Brichel, Amalia, Lani and Mareena.

Our fearless leader!

We went to a football game on Halloween to see one of the guys in our YSA branch, Jeff Kidd.  He's the starting quarterback for the LIU Post football team.  He did a great job, throwing 6 touch down passes!!

AND NOVEMBER IS HERE!! We're ready to make the most of our last month in NYNY South!!