This past week, Diane and I had the opportunity to attend two different productions and to go to dinner with some of the Manhattan Temple Missionaries.
On Monday evening, May 22nd we joined with about 25 temple missionaries for dinner at Emmett O'Lunney's Bar and Grill (AKA Irish Pub) on 50th Street just off Broadway. We enjoyed a great meal (with price tag to match) before going to the Broadway musical, "Fantasticks", a popular play that has run for over 50 years and will close in June.
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| Front to back: Huntingtons, Harris, Grimley, Brown, ?, Congers, and Mumfords. |
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| Miyashiro, friend, Nabors, Holloway, Bean, Dransfield |
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| (Different view of top photo) |
Beloved by theatergoers for 50 years, The Fantasticks is a musical allegory about the romance of a young couple, Matt and Luisa, who find their relationship tested by their meddling fathers and a bandit narrator known as El Gallo. There isn’t much of a plot beyond boy meets girl, boy loses girl, and boy gets girl back—but the charm of The Fantasticks is in its poetic innocence coupled with a now-classic score by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt that includes “Try to Remember” and “Soon it’s Gonna Rain.”
On Wednesday evening, we attended "Oslo" across the street from our apartment at the Lincoln Center. We saw this Broadway Production, but must say that the language was way too "colorful".
Oslo tells the true—albeit little known—story of Norwegian diplomat Mona Juul and her husband, Terje Rød-Larsen, who together coordinated top-secret peace negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat in the early 1990s. Their efforts culminated in the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.
We continued our assignment inspecting the apartments of the young Elders and Sisters. While Diane was at physical therapy on Monday, I walked to 54th Street (from Columbus Circle-59th) and checked one of the apartments and made our report. On Friday, I spent the entire day at Nicholas Avenue, Harlem "babysitting" the Sisters' apartment while a new piece of flooring was installed in the bathroom where the floor had been "soft" for at least a couple of years, from what we understood from missionaries who had been involved in previous inspections. Sister Lee, a Korean sister from Utah, and Sister Bongolto from Philippines were very cordial and made me feel right at home before they went to their appointments.
It was pretty amazing to see how the worker had to make several trips to his truck over on 7th Avenue (about 1/2 mile) each time he needed a new material, the quick-set cement, and the grout which took from about 10 am to 5 pm. That is how they need to work in NYC for these small jobs--taking the old stuff out and bringing the new stuff in. Quite a walk, as we do a lot of here as we use public transportation.
[Diane: While Golden was babysitting the apartment, I was trying to run the family history center. For the last several weeks, the center has been full to capacity and a couple of times we had to send some home. While Golden was gone, I had three people that came in all needing help at the same time, two beginners wanting accounts and training and one wanted constant help with research in the Dominican Republic, which for me, is difficult research. Luckily, they were all very patient and were grateful for what I could do.
A few weeks ago, I had three people all wanting constant help and none of them were willing to sit and wait so I was bouncing all over the place trying to satisfy them all while Golden was working with someone needing him. By the time the center closed, I was exhausted.One of the sisters I was working with was from Russia, but in spite of not having many records for Russia, I was able to help take her family back three generations.
The miracles we have seen while serving in the family history center and several lives changed are amazing. It is such a joy to watch the light come into their eyes and watch when all of a sudden they are crying and don't know why. The Spirit of Elijah is real and is very active in touching the hearts of all who come into the family history center.]
This week, among the other things we did at the Family History Center, like preparing microfilms to sent back to Distribution (since they have been digitized and we need the room for a remodel in a small room where the microfilms are stored), and working with patrons that come in, I had the opportunity to work with a new convert while his ward was attending an endowment session in the temple.
Reynaldo Margola shared his conversion: Just after he had been kicked out of his apartment in Yonkers last fall, he began living on the streets. A couple of days afterwards, he met Elders who gave him a Book of Mormon. Having a cell phone, the Elders got his number. He said that it was really boring not having anything to do so he started reading that Book of Mormon.
The Elders began meeting with him at the public library where they taught him. He started to attend Church regularly in December and was baptized in February. Last Sunday at Stake Conference, he was sustained to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood.
By the time the ward was finished with their endowment session, Reynaldo had set up his FamilySearch.org account, entered in his grandparents and found records in Puerto Rico to extend one more generation, he had four female and three male family file cards printed for his parents and grandparents and some other family members. When I escorted him over to the temple where the baptismal font was readied for him and other members, he was thrilled to be able to be the proxy for some of his family!
Today, we attended church at the Inwood 1st Ward where we are assigned. After working with some of the temple and family history consultants there with their questions, the 3rd hour we provided a "Helping Others to Love Family History" experience with a member of the bishopric, Ryan Mangum. It was interesting to see how the family we had found had three sons and he also has three sons so it was easy to make the connection to turn his heart and give him additional experience with Family Tree.
In June we will be training temple and family history consultants in the Harlem 1st ward and the Harlem YSA ward along with the director of the family history center there. It is exciting to see how the initiative Find, Take, Teach and the new tools that have been provided on LDS.org make a real difference as we teach how to do one-on-one member experiences.
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