Here Are What Things Look Like

This is the Family Proclamation that all the kids helped buy me for Mother's Day. Jenny gave it to me rolled up, unframed. We carried it all the way from Utah to New York and it faired well. I found a frame at Kohls and it worked perfectly. This picture is hanging over the desk in our front room. I LOVE IT! It makes me happy, because those are my most favorite people in the world.

Here is one view of our living room--above. The desk is at the left with computer on.

Here is the other view of the living room, with the big table and six chairs.

Here is our kitchen--small but usable.

And, we have a king-size bed, which is wonderful.

Here is Dick at the office in his cubby. He is the fleet (car) control manager. He's learning alot about taking care of cars. On Saturday, one of our cars was in an accident. The elder gave the man his insurance information, and the man took off and didn't give the elder his information. There are lots of little problems with the cars. A couple of them have been in the shop for several weeks. The mission got two new Ford Fusions and is getting three more. Wahoo for some of the missionaries.

Here's my cubby where I work on media referrals and correspondence to missionaries, stake presidents, bishops, and parents.

These are the Schoutens, the other office couple. Here they are in the supply room getting supplies that the zones need. They took them to the two zone conferences we had.

Here is our new Ford Fusion. We really have enjoyed this car. It's just the right size here in New York. From Detroit to New York, we averaged 34.5 miles to the gallon. We are eternally grateful for our GPS, which gets us all over New York. Without it, we would indeed be lost.

Here is our ward, the Inwood 1st Ward Building. Dick is standing by Brother Cable. Notice the metal gates around the building. Inwood Ward is near a very interesting part of town.

The past two days, we have had zone conferences. Monday, we went up in the northern area of our mission at a chapel there. And, today, we went right into downtown Manhattan and held meetings in the building where the temple is. The mission president is a fine man and instructed us very well on how to feel the promptings of the Holy Ghost. The meeting lasted from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with lunch in between. Here are pictures from both zone meetings.

Birthday missionaries: President and Sister Smith on the far right. Sister Cannon, Molly Cannon's mother, who just arrived a week and a half ago as a single sister missionary, and the other missionaries who had birthdays in June.

Here the missioarnies are singing "Called to Serve" to the sisters who prepared lunch for us.

The missionaries never pass up a chance to eat. They love to do that.

Because we were at zone conferences both days, we didn't go into the office. We'll have lots to do in the morning.

From Provo to New York

We finished the MTC on May 20th, but we were'nt going to leave Provo until May 24th. On May 22nd, our good friends, the Dennis', held a "going away dinner for us at their house. Those who attended were: Ron and Grace Marie Dennis, Mike and Maria Lund, Larry and Geri Wood, Richard and Mae Pattee, Phil and Lil Anderson, and Bob and Patti Moss, and Dick and I. What great people they all are. We have been fortunate to associate with theses wonderful people for over thirty years. A special thanks to Grace Marie for organizing and carrying out the dinner.

As we got to talking with our friends, they encouraged us to leave on Sunday instead of Monday.

So, after going with Jenny and Ryan and family to church and crying through Sacrament meeting, we left Sunday afternoon and drove to Laramie, Wyoming. The following day was quite a trek for us. The wind was violent and the rain pelting through much of I-80. A truck was overturned, so we took a different route down through eastern Colorado. There was a lot of road construction, but we finally arrived in Colby, Kansas around 7:00 p.m., where we stayed the night. The next day, we drove to Olathe, Kansas to see Amy and her family. We watched Elle

play softball. Here, she is practicing her throwing with Amy.

Here is Elle wearing the catcher uniform, but she really didn't play catcher. She made a couple of great outs while she played 2nd base.

Of course, no visit to Kansas would be complete without lunch at Lake Quivira with Bob Kimball.

He is always a gracious host and fun to be with. Scott had to work, so we went with Amy and the kids.

It's fun to be be grandparents when you have such good grandchildren. Here are Ashlynn, Sam and Elle with us.

We spent a day and half with the Kimballs and then headed off toward Detroit. We stayed in Michigan City that night and then drove to Canton, where we went to the Ford dealership and bought a new Ford Fusion. A picture of the car will come in later posts. We then met Stacie, Matt, the boys, and Shellie (Stacie's sister) for a bite of dinner. There was a concert in the park and we listened to that for a few minutes. Owen loves to clap and loves music. His whole body moves when he hears music.

The next night, we took in a Detroit Tigers game. It's fun to go to professional games even if the Tigers lost 6-0. We had fun anyway.

I was amazed at how good the two little boys were after sitting for three hours.

On Memorial Day, Matt's and Stacie's friends had a BBQ and invited several couples, and we also got to go. It was raining pretty hard, but these boys were outside in the rain playing soccer. Jacob got soaked (they all did) but they all had a GREAT time.

We enjoyed being with Matt on Sunday, when he was put in the bishopric as second counselor. Dick was able to ordain him a high priest.

On Tuesday, we left Detroit and headed off to New York. We drove part way and spent the night in Pennsylvania. The next day we drove through beautiful country until we reached the George Washington Bridge in New York, which was wall-to-wall trucks and cars--three trucks to each car I think. It took us one hour to cross the bridge, and then we got into really crowded streets and threw us for a loop. With the help of our GPS, we were able to finally get to Scarsdale and meet our mission president and his wife. They took us to our apartment and got us settled. Then, the next day, we went into the office. Here is our picture with the President, Richard F. Smith in the office.

We soon got to know Elder and Sister Schouten, who have been here since October. They are a great couple, who have basically run the office for six weeks alone, with some help from the Assistants to the President. They have been very helpful in teaching us what we need to do. I am doing all the referrals and a lot of letters to converts and new missionaries coming in. Dick is learning all about the fleet (cars) and the ins and outs of the movements of the missionaries. On Tuesday, we took the AP's out for lunch because one of the AP's was going home on Thursday.

L-R: Elder Raymond, Elder Dalebout, Sister Dalebout, Sister Schouten, Elder Schouten, Elder Snyder (who went home this week). We went to The Scotsman's Kilt to eat. No, we didn't have hagis. They didn't even know what that was. They had some great burgers though.

Here is the outside of our apartment building. Sorry I couldn't figure out how to turn the picture.

On Wednesday night, we took a train ride to the Manhattan Temple so that we could go through a session with the missionaries who were leaving to go home the next day. We actually saw Grand Central Station and rode the subway also. It was raining hard, but we had a great time

Here is the temple as you come out of the subway. In this picture, you can't see the Angel Moroni, but it is on the right spire. You just can't see it.

Here are the APs with Dick and I and the Schoutens.

More to come later.