4 December 2016

Melanie and Daniel and their family, Enoch and Jocie, arrived at NY Penn Station on November 21st from Bedford, Virginia where they live.  To make this a special Thanksgiving week, they came to spend the week with us and since the Family History Center was closed all week except Tuesday it gave us time to spend together.  It was also a welcome break from the regular day-to-day activities in Virginia and the kids did well traveling the Amtrak Crescent.

It was a challenge to share our tiny NYC apartment with them.  Thanks to inflatable mattresses on loan from some of our missionary senior couples who had come with cars so they could transport more than we who traveled to the mission by plane, we had accommodations that took up the entire living room/dining room floor.

We visited the Manhattan Children's Museum one afternoon and Enoch and Jocie really enjoyed the time there.

Enoch in the "Oval Office"-Manhattan Child's Museum

Enoch and Melanie in the "Dollar Bill" display-Children's Museum

 

Melanie and Jocie next to the VW Bus Display - Manhattan Child's Museum

Daniel and Melanie were able to watch a Broadway Show "Fiddler on the Roof" and walk through Times Square.  Not knowing that characters use the photo shoots as a way to generate income and being "harassed" to have their photos taken (they use the tourists' camera and ask $10 for the privilege of a photo), Spiderman kept asking to have his picture taken with them.  So they did, and when he asked for money they hadn't taken any with them but they already had the photo.

Spiderman and Daniel

Spiderman and Melanie

Melanie & Daniel Jean at Times Square NYC

Daniel and Melanie were able to visit the Manhattan Temple while they were here and we did the babysitting.  But one of the highlights enjoyed was the 90th annual Macy's Day Parade on Thanksgiving Day.  Thanks to the temple missionaries who hauled 30+ chairs and set them up on the corner of 66th Street and West Central Park and our being able to help watch the area, we were able to enjoy front row views of the parade.  And the clowns had a hay-day "dripping" confetti on Enoch and Jocie.

Early Thanksgiving Morning Awaiting Macy's Parade

Thomas the Train - Balloon

What is a Parade without a Marching Band?

Famous Tony Bennett, Singer - age 90 in the Macy's 90th Year Parade

In keeping with our regular family Thanksgiving traditions, Thanksgiving day was a time to prepare for a great meal.  Daniel fixed duck with all the trimmings, and the grandkids had fun helping create oreo cookie-candy corn turkeys and cut out sugar cookies.

Oreo Cookie - Candy Corn Turkey

Jocie, Melanie with sugar cookies, Enoch with "turkey".

Sister Adams (Diane) and Enoch fully engrossed in the process.

The Jean family took a day and went to see the Statue of Liberty from Battery Park in Lower Manhattan, but the tours were booked so they opted for a Ferry Tour and were able to see many of the sights of the City from waterways, which turned out to be a great opportunity for them to see NYC.

Before they left to go back home, Melanie wanted us to have a tree, so Diane went to Lowes and purchased a live tree grown at a tree farm in New Jersey.  Then Melanie and Diane with "help" from Enoch and Jocie made decorations and a paper chain.  Family members' photos were put on cardstock to adorn the tree and Melanie designed a 3 D Star for the top.

Our 'REAL' First "Homemade" Christmas Tree in NYC

Since it was Thanksgiving weekend, we decided to attend church in the Lincoln Square building where we live, the temple and FHC being part of the building, rather than our assigned ward Uptown at Inwood 1st Ward.

On Sunday afternoon, we walked through part of Central Park with Melanie and the kids to Belvedere Tower [Castle] the highest elevation of the park.

Jocie, Melanie, and Enoch at Central Park Boating Club

Enoch, Jocie, and Melanie atop one of the many gneiss rocks in Central Park, NYC

Adjacent to Belvedere Castle, New York Central Park 

Belvedere Tower, Papa, Enoch, Melanie, Jocie

Enoch at the inscription of Beveldere Tower, highest elevation in Central Park

Monday afternoon, Melanie and her family returned back to Virginia via Amtrak (about a 7 hour ride).

Tuesday evening, Diane served at the FHC but things were so quiet that no patrons came.  Because I had the 24 hr. flu and had been down all day, I stayed in the apartment.  Linda Martinez, the wife of our Area Medical Advisor, serving here with 6 Stakes helped in the Center.  This gave Diane the opportunity to help Linda with some of her family history and clear up questions and problems that she had with her family.  They are from Kentucky and Linda is a convert, but she was afraid that the entire section of her family history in question would have to be started from scratch.  However, they were able to fix many of the problem areas.  It is so interesting to see how the Lord works and how He guides the work.

Tuesday, Diane decided to focus on how she could do one good deed each day for the 25 days preceding Christmas - Light the World Campaign.  So today she worked with Edgar Herrera who is homeless but spends time at the temple helping with baptisms and he occasionally comes into the Center for help in charging his phone.  I check his email for him as he is trying to get help in retrieving his house in Guatemala and is promised emails from attorneys that that never come.

This week really seemed to be one of the busier ones as we served at the FHC.  We had microfilm room challenges, sent back three boxes of microfilms that had been ordered by patrons and were due for return, and quite a few people coming at the same time.  It is a challenge when I need to work with a patron with family tree problems that require a lot of concentration and Diane gets several others that all come in at once.

 On Friday, I worked with a patron who came in having a question about a common ancestor she had found in her free account at My Heritage (no idea who had submitted it).  Inspiration came to find the ancestor in the Institutional account we have at FHC and see if we could follow descendants in reverse of what we usually do in tracing ancestry back in time.  In a very short time, she added the information to her Family Tree and when we added the surname of the person who had the tree in My heritage to a marriage of one of her relatives, FamlySearch populated the entire family.  She exclaimed that it was miraculous for that to happen.  I just love when the Spirit is doing the directing!

On Saturday, It was a crazy busy day.  Among others, Diane worked with a black man who wanted to tell her his history of being in prison and trying to find information.  I worked with a member whose parents were members (as was she) born in Domican Republic.  When we finally got into her account, there was quite a bit of clean-up and merging of dupicate and adding other information.  She had come in just to print two Family Ordinance Cards for an aunt and another family member.

Ana Mercedes Hernandez had a copy of the baptism and confirmation record of her mother, Natalia but that information was not in FamilySearch.  Her father's work had been done in 1998 shortly after his death in Washington DC but she also had a family group (in Spanish) that was used to do some temple for her mother in 2001 for both her parents, as well as for a brother who had died.  But the information didn't match what was on her Family Tree in FamilySearch.

In calling a Support Missionary, we found that scans of these needed to be uploaded to memories and attach to her mother's detail page along with the information we gave to clear up the records.  But we weren't able to do it from the scans she had on her iPad.  Thankfully, her daughter Anatalia (13 years old) had her cell phone and took photos of the document and we uploaded the certificate from the mother's iPad.  All these were attached to Ana's mother's page so the Support Missionary could create a case.  We also requested approval from permission request for her to do an aunt's temple work given by her mother, the aunt's sister.

I love the way the younger people can maneuver around with today's technology!

Saturday evening, New York Stake (the 15 units on the island of Manhattan) presented a Christmas Concert "Carols on Columbus", an annual tradition here.  It was a great way to begin the holiday season and focus on the Savior of the World, as well as some of the more traditional music.  President Buckner, stake president spoke and bore his testimony to end a very full day and week of service.