11 December 2016

Well another week has gone by and life and its challenges are great to learn by. I think my best experiences this week was with Pedro. He is a patron that comes in each week to have help with his family history. The problem is that he does not listen to much about how to do it properly but wants to tell us his story of how he came about finding a record and then trying to figure out how he is related to the people in that document.

The other missionaries in the center have pretty much written him off and refuse to work with him any more. They tell him that he already knows what to do and they are there to just teach the how to's of Family Search and then he was to do it on his own. 

When I was working at the Family History Library in Salt Lake three years ago I remember how difficult it was for several months because of no training and lack of confidence. I went to a class and the trainer made one comment that I have never forgotten and I decided that I would treat Pedro with this counsel. It was that some patrons come to the center but they really don't know why. She said to live by the spirit and it will direct you what to say and do and things will always work out.

From what I was picking up with Pedro, he just wanted someone to talk to and to listen to his story about finding his family. As I watched him, I found that he knew FamilyTree pretty well. I also knew that he was always very willing to help translate in Spanish when we needed it. I decided to ask Pedro if he would be interested in being a volunteer at the center to help us with translation. I told him that he knew FamilyTree well enough but that he just lacked confidence in flying his wings. He smiled and said that he would be happy to learn how to be a consultant with the patrons. His whole demeanor changed and he had a purpose to look forward to and felt needed and accepted.

When the other missionaries came in to relieve us, Pedro immediately said that he would go home now and stayed away from them as much as possible. It was really sad. I hope that he can become a really good asset for us as we do not have any spanish translators and I really like Pedro and maybe the other missionaries will begin to enjoy him.

When Pedro came back the next week, he started off the way he usually does by saying "let me show you something ok." He then tells how he found this record and thinks that it is his relative somehow, then he says "what do you think, or what should I do now." So, I started my first lesson. I asked him to show me where he thought that the record might belong in his family. When he showed me I asked him if the people in the document, born in 1848 could be descendents of the family of children all born in the 1840's and he could see that it would be impossible for them to be descendents. I then asked him if he could see if it were possible for them to fit into the earlier generation and they would not fit in that family either. His conclusion was that they were not his family.

I then suggested to Pedro that he had two options: One was to disregard the source and go to another one or two, he could create a family with the information on the source and then attach the source to that family and all the generations that were listed on the document. When we were through he had created three generations of a family and had attached the document to each member so that the family would never be split because of the proof he had attached. He was happy and wanted to do more. 

I think after a few weeks in doing this process with him, he will know how to analyze documents, create families with them, and then document the family. I told him that somewhere, someone was going to love him for the work he was doing and he gave me a big smile. I hope that I can change the attitude of the other missionaries as he gains his skills and confidence in family history. This process is also helping me get my confidence.

I took some pictures of our everyday life at the family history center.  I took pictures of the missionaries that come everyday and stand on the street and invite people to come in and take a tour of the art gallery we have covering stories from the Book of Mormon. These pictures are beautiful and all original. The artist lives in the stake here and has agreed to keep them on display for two years. 

Albert, our Security Guard just outside the FHC

Missionaries outside of the FHC and Temple 

The the church's building, they have security guards on duty at all times. This is the post just outside of the Family History Center.

Public Affairs Missionaries supporting the Blind School Christmas Carolers

Blind School Christmas Caroling outside the Temple and FHC

Golden in front of the Trump Tower

Police Cars surrounding the Trump Tower where President Elect Trump stayed during the election night.

27 November 2016

[Melanie] True to form, part of every family get together inevitably includes some discussion or action that takes us down memory lane. Well, Dad (true to form) fell asleep on the couch for his mid-day nap. Mom and I had just finished a lovely conversation and talk was turning to what to make for lunch. I saw Dad on the couch and knew his nap would be coming to a close soon, and I just couldn't resist. I ran to the bathroom and got a dollop of shaving cream on my finger. I transferred it onto his hand and began to gently tickle the hairs of his nose. I nearly snorted with laughter at the thought of what was about to happen - almost waking him and ruining the whole event - but I gathered my wits about me and tickled a little more deliberately. Sure enough, the shaving cream hand raised to his face to address the tickle and smeared the cream all over his glasses and nose.

Sleeping Goliath

"That Don't Be Funny!"

Mom and I were in tears with laughter at the sight. Dad even got a laugh, though he said, "that don't be funny!" We all begged to differ.

[Golden] "What a way to wake up!"  I had no idea that the tickle of the nose was reminiscent of my son Aaron's prank.  And then I had the mess to clean up, as well.  When one is awakened from such a sound nap, the realization doesn't sink in for a time.  Deja vu.  Some things just don't seem to change...whether in Utah or in New York City.  Oh, the memories!

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.

20 November 2016

I was talking about you this week, Suzie, to one of our patrons. She is Jewish and a professional ballerina but she is not the ballerina type. She is rather rough around the edges so she has tried to apply more of the upbeat music -- pop music to ballet. When I told her of your love of violin and that you were a fiddler, she got so excited. She wanted me to bring you out here to New York and let you play for her and her ballet team. She was hearing the music in her head and was dancing in the FHC. It was really fun to watch her doing the Irish jig.

This week I had to opportunity of working with the missionaries who brought their investigator in who was from Ecuador to find some family. He did not speak English, but the problem was that they did not have enough information for us to be able to find anything for him. We suggested that he go and talk with his siblings to see what they could remember and then to write stories of what he or his sibling could remember so that they could preserve the now and not lose any more history.

Early Morning View from our Apartment Living Room Window

My next challenge was working with a sister from Korea. They were trying to get the name of her husband's father so that they could do his sealing in the Manhattan temple. The problem was that they could not speak any English so to get them to understand any instructions was next to impossible. It took me over two hours to get into her account only to find out that we could not find him. I did not realize at the time that it was her husband's father so I finally just created him as a new person and gave her the temple card to go through. 

It did not make sense to me at the time, but after they left, I finally realized that we needed to be in her husband's account and not hers because her husband, who is living, is connected to his father which makes his father's record invisible to her in her account. 

They kept telling me that all the work had been done and all they wanted to do was the sealing, so I could not figure out why he was not in Family Tree. When I realized the living situation and the relationship, it was too late and they had left, missing all of the sessions they wanted to go to. 

I am not sure if I will ever get good at trying to explain family history to non-English speaking patrons. It is hard enough to explain it to members who understand most of it.

On Friday we had the opportunity to go to the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular.

It was amazing what they do with technology. They had ice skating, trolly cars driving through New York, drones flying in the air. At the end they had a camel come in with the wise men, sheep with the shepherds, and an angel flying in the sky over the manger. It was a beautiful nativity scene and the music topped it off.

Radio City Music Hall - Child's Christmas Dream (Toyland)

The Wise Men Following the STAR.

Lighting Effects across the dome of Radio City Music Hall - Trains, etc.

Dancing/Skating on Ice

The Rockettes 

The "Santa Phenomenon" - How he is Duplicated

The New York Rockettes Dancing Through the Tourist Bus

The traditional Nativity Scene was Spectacular!

Grandpa Adams after the Show

Elder Dransfield, Grandpa, and Nana Santa's new lead reindeer

Diane told of her week, and I wanted to share a bit.  On Friday, prior to our going to Radio City Music Hall to see the Rockettes, compliments of Mark and Susan Dransfield who have been working with the United Nations and representing the Church (they had just had a banquet and then invited the various Consulates to attend the Rockette's Christmas Spectacular) I had an amazing day at the Family History Center.  This is only one of the events of that day:

A couple who had just been to the temple came to the FHC with a question, as they had been told to ask how her son, who had passed away 7 December 2015, could have his temple work done after he had been deceased for one year.

I learned that this was a son of the sister's previous marriage and that his father was still living.  But this couple had been sealed together and they had children from this union.  I explained that we could update the information in the sister's FamilySearch account so it would be ready when that day came to print the Family Ordinance Card and have his temple work done.  He had already been baptized and confirmed.  He apparently died while attending school in Upstate New York.

I explained that he could be sealed to them.  This dear sister exclaimed, "You mean he can be sealed to me?" With my affirmative answer and this realization, she broke into tears as her husband wrapped his arms around her to console her. At this point, the Spirit was really strong.

I told her that she should schedule a time with the temple for the sealing and to get here early enough to have us print the Family Ordinance Card and get through Initiatory and Endowment session prior to Sealing on the year anniversary of the son's death.  As she left, she asked if she could give me a hug, which she did.

This was one of the best days of serving in the Family History Center here at Lincoln Square so far, and was one of three or four very spiritual experiences I had that day.

13 November 2016

This week had some interesting experiences in it and the event that will not be forgotten for many years. We were walking down to 43rd street to see "Matilda the Musical" a musical that was showing on Broadway. It sounded like a pretty good show from the movie that I had seen of it. The musical was very well done and I enjoyed it but, it did not have the zip that you would expect in New York on Broadway.

When we came out of the play around 10:00, there were thousands of people all around the Trump Tower and in the roads all watching for the results of the presidential election. It was far enough into it that they could see that Trump was on his way to the presidency of the United States, against all predictions made. For that many people, we were surprised on how quiet it was. Everyone was stunned and in shock for Hillary had an 89% chance of winning. It has been New York in Mourning ever since.

44th Street and 8th Avenue - Trump has more electoral college votes.

I guess what really impressed me was, here was a great lady within hours on potentially becoming the first female President of the United States, but because of a decision that she made five or six years earlier, she lost her opportunity. You might say, she sold her rights to be President of the United States for a message of porridge when she decided to use her personal server to handle national affairs and potentially use it for illegal activity.

US Flag on the side of Truck near Times Square, NYC

On Thursday, demonstrators were enmass at Trump Tower - Columbus Circle on 59th Street and Broadway. One of the new temple missionaries had just come from there when I met him.  He said: "I went out for two reasons; first - to get my wife flowers, and second - to watch the handing out of pacifiers to the babies demonstrating in front of Trump Tower."  Everyone here in New York projected Hillary to win, but many of us were involved in a special day of fasting for the Lord's will to be made known in the upcoming election the Sunday previous to the vote taking place on Tuesday.  Donald Trump winning the election was way different than the polls, and has been said to be the biggest presidential upset in the history of the United States.

On Tuesday, before going to "Matilda the Musical", at the family history center, Golden worked with an elderly lady from Japan adding information to her FamilySearch Family Tree.  She had lots of family group records that someone had printed for her in Japanese, but since she was not "fluent" with computers, she asked me to enter the information.  Of course, I could not read the Japanese characters, so she had to write the names on slips of paper as I added them in the program in English.

Her husband worked here at the church building for 30 years prior to his retirement and is called back sometimes when there is a real need that no one else can figure out with maintenance.

On Thursday, which is our day to serve at the Manhattan Temple, we were in a sealing session with President Mark Bench.  Toward the end of the session, while we were doing a family sealing, Pres. Bench asked Sister Winger if she was available to serve as a temple worker.  She answered a couple of questions that let her to say she was wiling.  I received an immediate impression that Pres. Bench was acting under inspiration and I mentioned it to Sr. Winger that I felt he was acting under the mantle of temple president, as this came "out of the blue" while we were readying that sealing.

On Thursday, I had an opportunity to work with a woman who was trying to find information about her uncle from Slovakia, who seems to have been a cipher.  She found the day before that he had been buried in New Jersey from the funeral home that had taken care of his remains after his death.  We found a couple of passenger lists in 1950 and 1951 along with photos of these ships.  She was from Groningen, Netherlands where her husband was from.  We exchanged a bit in Dutch, and she took my address and said she would send an old-fashioned post card from Groningen after she returns later this week.

Once again, I worked with Maria Quinones with her Peruvian family.  We found there were duplicates that needed to be merged which affected the family's temple work that she had recently printed on Family Ordinance cards. So after this, the family ordinance cards needed to be printed with the new information, and also had the opportunity to explain what the different colors mean on the temple reserved page.  As a member of the deaf branch, this was a real challenge of communication but she said that she learned more than she had known before.

Stephen Winston, the Young Men President in Inwood 1st ward is one of our new family history class members, and also the coordinator for the men's early morning temple shift.  I spent several hours putting a lesson plan together for his grandfather and great-grandfather's information as there are discrepancies in his Family Tree using the Find-Take-Teach outline the Church is now using to work with members.

6 November 2016

This last week as has been pretty routine and not a lot of change in schedules. I began trying to clean up my English line on the Fowlers. One of the lines is the Bradshaws and the Halls. I am of the opinion that English research is hard. I have families that have been combined with each other's children. The trick is to figure out which of the children belong on my line and which ones have to go. All I need is one record with enough information that will help me identify which town, and time period matches the known records. Right now I will just say, wish me luck and send your prayers. This is not my speciality by any means.

We got to work in the baptistry last week and what was going to be just one sister turned out to be two sisters and a family of five. It proved to be a great experience for the sisters that I was training and for the family that came. This was their son's first time doing baptisms for their ancestors in the temple and it was special to be part of their experience.

The FHC has been pretty slow. I spent my time on Thursday solving problems with mission microfiche and back ordered microfilm. Some days I wonder how anyone can communicate without misunderstanding. I am still working on the lost microfiche and will probably have to reorder and get settlement from Fed-Ex as they lost it, and I discovered that when microfilm is backordered it means that they have to make it and the minimum time allowed is 90 days and then it is whenever they get it done. That doesn't come across very good to patrons and I felt really uncomfortable telling them that. I did offer that he could get reimbursed if he wanted to cancel, but he said he was not worth the trouble.

The last two days they have been having the New York Marathon that usually brings in over 60,000 people and our apartment complex was right at the end of the run. I opted not to take the subway to church today because I was not in the mood to be nose to nose with strangers. Instead I attended the Manhattan ward that meets in our building. It was so nice to just walk around the corner to church. 

I have attached some pictures of the street where the race was ending. This is right outside our apartment entrance. In order to cross the barriers, we had to give the police our address. Security was really tight on all the cross streets were blocked from any cars or traffic all day Sunday.

NYC Marathon spectators - corner of Columbus Ave and 66th Street

A Maraton Runner celebrating her finish just outside our apartment entrance.

NYPD was out in force. Columbus Avenue in front of the Church Bldg and Temple.

While Diane stayed at Lincoln Square, I took the train to Inwood and numbers of people was very light.  Our second cohort group started today in the Sunday School FH class.  It was very successful and the 4 who were there got right in and started working on their My Family: Stories That Bring Us Together online booklets.  In the process they started to work on their trees and a couple were full trees and a couple were partial trees.

Next week when we introduce them to cleanup and standardizing, they will be in pretty good shape to do this.  I think this will be a good group and the printer finally got hooked up (although no paper) and still needs to communicate with Salt Lake, but we have made headway.

Getting back to Linclon Square from Inwood wasn't real heavy on the train until we got to about 79th Street and the crowds really piled in because that was the end of the marathon for the early runners and then they started to head back downtown towards Staton Island and the hotels, etc.  It was really difficult getting off the train at 66th STreet-Lincoln Square as the people were stacked 5 or 6 deep trying to get on the subway while I was trying to get off!  But they started to separate as I came through like we did when I was a kid and there was a herd of sheep in the road.  Dad would have one of us get out and start to walk in front of the car and the sheep would scatter to either side as the car drove through behind us.

On Thursday, after officiating initiatory and endowments, I got to stay longer and several sealings were completed for family file names.  So it was a good week for our own personal family history, even though it was quite slow at the Family History Center here in Manhattan.

30 October 2016

Time seems to be flying since we moved to the tower in Mid Manhattan. We love not having to take the subway so much and it is just a hop, skip, and jump to get to the temple or to the FHC. It has been cold and windy this last week, so we have not had a lot going on in the FHC. I, Nana, worked with a patron to show her how to make a readable copy of a document and another sister was a beginner on FamilyTree and with research, so I went through the basics to get her started and she seemed excited to go home and try it out.

On Tuesday, we usually try and go to the temple to do some of our own temple work and we were able to do an endowment session and a sealing session. On Thursday, it was President and Sister Roberts' last day for their mission. The new mission presidency took over in the afternoon. We have President and Sister Bench as the temple president with President and Sister Bean and President and Sister Nixon as counselors and assistants to the temple matron. They all seem really friendly and welcoming. It seems so nice to work directly with the presidency of the temple. They are like one of the workers with us because there are so few temple workers. Everyone does a bit of everything and we never know what we will do until our shift is over.

I took a walk in Central Park to just relax and enjoy green space. The trees and grass are beautiful and it is fun to watch everyone enjoying the park. It is so nostalgic from movies when I was a little girl. The horse drawn buggies really put a touch to the scenery and environment in the park.

 One of the Ice Skating Rinks in Central Park

Gift Shop Cottage in Central Park, NYC

By the end of the week, I was in need of groceries, laundry, and cleaning our apartment. That way, we can enjoy a clean house on Sunday. Whenever we need to get groceries, it is not hop in the car anymore. It is get your cart out and walk about a mile to get groceries. Then it is  a mile walk back home with our little cart full. When doing laundry, it isn't open your washing machine and put the clothes in, but get to the service elevator between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 and then after 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon. We have to take our cart full of laundry down 8 floors to run the washer for 40 minutes and the dryer for 60 minutes.

At least here, so far, we can leave the laundry and run up to the apartment and do some things up there until we have to shift the laundry. Then it is back to the elevator unless we miss the 11:00 a.m. time and then we must take the elevator to the 4th floor and walk down two flights of stairs to the 2nd floor so we can get off and get into the laundry. I did that once four times in one morning because the washing machine did not work and all of my clothes were soaking. The spin cycle did not work so I had to run the clothes through two cycles which put me past the 11:00 a.m time by ten minutes. That gave me the opportunity of hiking up and down two flights of stairs 4 times before I could get my laundry done. So be grateful for having your own washer and dryer in the house.

We went to our first Broadway musical on Friday night. It was "Fiddler On The Roof." It was really enjoyable and we had a fun night. We are learning that even the cheapest seats cost a lot -- $47.00 per ticket, so we try and space them out quite a bit.

We had two days of rain this week, and Friday was really cold. By the time we got about four streets away from the theatre where "Fiddler on the Roof" was playing on Broadway, our hands and face were fairly cold.  We stopped on Broadway and 57th Street at a hat vendor's street table and with Golden's bald head needing some protection, he purchased a winter fur-lined hat.  It was $15, but we only had $13.00 and the seller said we could bring the other $2 when we were back that way, in his words, "Maybe next year."

Is "13" a Lucky Number? This is the $15 hat

Diane on Broadway- Brrr, It's Cold!

Also on Friday, we voted our absentee ballots and sent the back to Utah.  Pray for our country and the morality of our people.  Next week is Fast Sunday and an opportunity to exercise our faith in behalf of our freedoms and inspiration as to make our vote really count!

King, Queen, and Princess

On Saturday, we saw lots of "Little People" who were dressed up in their Halloween Costumes for Trick-or-Treat at some of the businesses around Lincoln Center.  At the church, there were rooms being decorated for ward Halloween party and Trick-or-Treat and lots of work went into decorating the Cultural Hall for the 2-hour event.  It was interesting to see that even lots of "grown-ups" were dressed up.

"Construction Workers" and Cowboys on Lunch Break

Sunday was the "Come and See" Sacrament Meeting which is held annually at our Inwood 1st Ward.  It is the Primary Program and everyone is invited to bring their friends, investigators, etc. to "Come and See".  Then a light lunch was served.  After that, we stayed at Inwood for another hour working with Emily Davis, a ward member, on her husband Bryan's line.  Using the marriage she had already found and the 1920, 1910, 1900 and Florida State 1885 Census, most of the family (except one child who would have been born and died between census years) was identified for Bryan's great-grandmother's parents and siblings.  This provides 11 more family members that can have their temple ordinances done.

The changes in FamilySearch continue to make it easier and easier to find our deceased relatives' records and provide their temple ordinances.  It is very apparent that the Lord continues to hasten his work, and we just need to be obedient and do our best.  As we try our very best, we testify that the Lord will accept our efforts and we will be good enough to make it to the Celestial Kingdom.  We will never earn it because it has already been paid for by the Savior's Atonement. and we constantly see the challenges around us.  But the key is to follow the living prophets and we will be all right.

On our way back on the subway, we went one more stop to Columbus Circle (the south end of Central Park) and walked about three blocks hoping to find the hat vendor from Friday night, but he was not set up, we will will try again later.