Ross and Tammy: December 2013

This week, we picked up the elders and were off to the Trinity Lutheran Church to serve turkey dinner to people off the street. They have a dinner once a month called the “Soul Kitchen” where all are welcome. It was held in the basement of the church that was built in 1904. It had a few good interest points, one of which is Tiffany stained glass in the ceiling of the “chapel” and in the windows. They were “priceless” and beautiful. Most of the people were very humble and sweet. A lot of them seemed to be missing their teeth and a comb for their hair. We had over 200 show up and I swear I washed every one of their plates! The ladies in the kitchen were very kind but really needed a lesson from the Relief Society on how to serve. It took five of them three minutes to fill one plate. It was like the five stooges tripping over each other. I had to snicker. We came home feeling physically tired but spiritually strengthened. Looking forward to next month but this time I won’t be the last one out of the kitchen. Dang elders ditched us and left early with the other two elders from Tamaqua. Stinkers. They must have had appointments.

Anita Italian catholic "stuck in the 60's" Can out talk ANYONE~!!!!

We do Meals On Wheels twice a week, on Wed. and Fridays. Thanks goodness we have a GPS or we would have been going crazy. All of the people on Meals are very nice. Several are only living in the moment, if you know what I mean. A few, we just leave at the door and never even see them. Some we knock and go in to put the meal in the fridge. There are a couple that seem to want to talk or visit. This should prove to be interesting.

This is Tony and Scoobie Do his dog. Super nice has MS One of our "favorites"!!!

We finally got the internet!! Ta Da!! So we found a Staples and bought a printer. Except for Walmart, they were the only ones we could find that carried printers in this big city. haha Thanks to Brett, Ross stopped his frustration and got it running. Took a few hours!!!

Knocking on "less active doors"

We had our first visit to the hospital to give a blessing with the elders to a less active who had had a stroke. After, we went with the elders on a few appointments and finding less actives.

Not too many answered the door, we are finding that isn't unusual. The elders are amazing, they don't seem to get discourage but keep on knocking. We personally get cold, the wind always seems to be blowing bringing the "wind chill" factor down 10 degrees or less.

These are OUR Elders!! Elder Newbold from slc, Leavitt from Idaho.
They teach the Dominicans and we are learning to
speak spanish with them!!

Windshield of our Lexus!!!

This was the coldest day so far. We can tell it is going to be a long winter!! We must look for some thermals

Super hard to to scrap off!!!

On Fri., we drove with our Elders to join our other set of Elders (Parker & Barker) in Tamaqua (about 25 min. drive) for our District Meeting which included a set of Sister and one set of elders in Pottsville making a total of eight missionaries. We had to make it back for Meals.

We don't seem to ever get the same route.

On Sat. we drove to Pottsville (everything is "villes" or "town") fifty mins. away to pick up the Elders, get them back to Hazleton, go grocery shopping, made some sandwiches so we could head out to Reading for Stake Conference. We ended up the day with going with the Elders to the Adult meeting in Reading. Reading (Red-ing) is a REAL standard ward house which was nice to see and be in however because of the numbers we had to meet in the high school for the Sunday Morning session (1st time to attend a stake conference in a high school!!!) Reading is an hour and a half to drive to which made it a very long day. The thick fog didn't help the driving situation going and coming home on saturday. It was also Super foggy going and coming on Sunday morning for the regular session.

Nov. 3rd Sun. Sunday we were given callings by President Molano. Ross will be the new second counselor and I will be teaching the Temple Prep class. This week was fun. We had Kyle and Amy spend Sunday night with us. They brought delicious donut dough that we smoked up the apartment cooking but they were awesome. It was kinda sad when it came time to settle down for the night; they had to bring their own bedding, the heater stopped working and they slept in the smoke. Poor Amy's eyes turned red but we all survived. The next morning, we left early for the 2 hour drive to Philly. Wow, what a city. There was way too much to see at one visit but we did our best. In a nut shell, we saw the Liberty Bell, did a Independence Hall tour, visited Ben Franklin's grave, went into the church our forefathers worshipped in. visited the US Mint (where Ross lost his watch), saw the oldest still functioning street/alley, ate an authentic Philly sandwich, etc..... It was great (would have been greater if I had worn flats instead of heels, ouch!). We got through in time to meet up with the other senior couples for a tour at the construction site of the new temple. WooHoo! A couple of us got there early so the project manager (Elder Carr) sent us over early, Ross got a worker to open the gate so we could go in and take pictures. Ooops! NO ONE is allowed in there but we got a few great pictures before being hustled out. We also were given a piece of granite from the bottom of the foundation. What a keep sake! After our meeting, Kyle and Amy left for home and we went to dinner with the group. Three of the 12-ish couples ended up at the Mission Home for the night. The Crumps (from Bluffdale) drove us home the next morning on their way back to their place in Montrose. Good down to earth people. During the rest of the week, we did our Meals On Wheels and attended the DC Temple. Since it was our Stake Temple Day, there was a special meeting on the seventh floor (the Priesthood floor) after the session we went to. What a beautiful edifice!