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!