Friday, February 28, 2014

February 2014

We are having the coldest winter ever! February brought the "Polar Vortex" to New York. We have had snow, rain, snow, freezing rain, snow, lightening and thunder, snow, negative wind chill temperatures, snow, sun, and more snow! It's crazy! But the work goes on and our missionaries have braved the cold every day! We love them and are proud of their great attitudes and warm hearts!

Shoveling snow on Valentines Day
Don't think the snow will ever melt!
We welcomed a new couple to West Point. Elder and Sister Lotz will be serving as Military Relation missionaries. We are so glad they are here.
We also had Sister Blaser and Sister Callaway come to serve in the Employment Center in Manhattan.
Sister Leslie and Sister Laycock left us to return home to American Fork Utah. They have been such a blessing serving in Goshen with the name extraction program.
Sister Pead serves in the Employment Center, Sister Laycock and Sister Leslie before they left to go home. Sister Blaser and Sister Callaway
We had 13 new missionaries join us this month. So glad they are here.
The Finlayson's are a little bit excited. Their grandson, Elder Miller has been re-assigned to our mission.
We are always so blessed to have President Greg and Sister Jill Freihofner and President Dave and Sister Maryelen Brown join us for dinner
Sister Aleccia, Sister Ng, Sister Groberg, Sister Hall, Sister Smoot, Sister Boseman, Sister Ramirez, Elder Gagnon, Elder Johanson, Elder Long, Elder Ficklin, Elder Miller, Elder Shurtleff
What a blessing it is to have Elder Ficklin back with us. We missed him and we are so grateful for his return.
The new missionaries arrived in between storms. Tuesday night the snow came and stopped our transfer meeting. We quickly put the Elders to work shoveling the driveway, then arranged rides for all 13 to head out to their new areas. We had 13 missionaries going home and had to have them get rides to the mission home to be able to leave. It snowed most of the day on Wednesday and then cleared up so that they could all fly home to their families.



These missionaries that went home have been awesome. We will miss every one of them.
Elder Heywood, Elder Gonzales, Elder Barnard, Elder Hernandez, Elder Vazquez, Elder Ordaz, Elder Picoli, Elder Matthews, Sister Richardson, Sister Lancaster, Sister McCurdy, Sister Parkin, Sister Keanini
Return with Honor

Elder Picoli and Sister Richardson's parents came to pick them up at the mission home. It was so exciting to watch out the window and wait for each family to come. Their reunions were so sweet! We don't get to see this part of their homecomings and it was a treat to be a part of them.
Brother and Sister Piccoli with their cute son.

Sister Richardson's parents
Our mission was invited to bring 12 international missionaries to the UN for a Focus on Faith Series meeting. It was great to be a part of the discussion on the World Wide Humanitarian Service that the church offers. We have so many wonderful missionaries from all around the world and it was a privledge to take them to the UN for the morning.
Elder Passmore and Elder Kerr from the USA


We have missionaries from Mexico, Spain, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, New Zealand, Tanzania, Kazastan, Italy, Brazil, Japan, Philippines, and the USA
It's been a very busy month. We also had Mission Leadership Council, New Trainer Meeting, New Missionary Training, Sisters Conference and Zone Conferences. We are now up to 272 missionaries in total. What a blessing it is to serve with each one of them!

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Sister's Conference - February 2014

We had an awesome day with every sister in our mission together. We have the most amazing and dedicated sisters who serve here in the NYNYN mission! It was such a blessing to watch each sister, young or older, mingle together and express their love for each other and for their missions.
We had two beautiful musical numbers from sisters in the China Town zone, North Manhattan zone, and Westchester zone. Each group sang in the different languages spoken in their zones. It was very touching. We had Sister Jill Friehofner and Sister Maryelen Brown speak to the sisters. President and Sister Morgan both spoke also. We gave each sister a silver chain with a NYNYN logo pendant on it.
We love each and every one of our sisters. They are beautiful daughters of God and women of faith.
Sister Lotz and Sister Maryelen Brown

Sister Jill Freihofner and her darling daughter Charlotte
We had a wonderful lunch of a huge salad bar for all 100 sisters and I made 200 homemade heart shaped sugar cookies for each sister to frost and decorate for dessert. The tables looked so cute all decorated with hearts, cookies, frosting and sprinkles.
We were so lucky to have our friend Shannon Call and her darling baby Axel there to help today. We couldn't have done it without her. The Call's have become our adopted family in New York. Thanks also to Ryan, he is a huge help with anything that we do. We're so blessed to have Ryan here with us!