May, Part 3

Each day I watch to see how high the granite is on the side of the temple.  It is coming along beautifully!  The members here are so excited!  There is a lot of interest by others too.  We are asked  often about when it is going to be done (fall of 2016) and what takes place there.  They are usually quite surprised that it will be closed on Sundays and there is a meeting house being built across the street.

This is the foundation of the meeting house.  Just beyond is where they are digging (blasting through the granite) for the new church owned high rise which will be 34 stories of apartments and retail on the ground level.

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With the prospects of a Family History Center being established here and new equipment being brought in to the library, there has been a call for local volunteers to prepare to fill needed assignments.  The Burnetts from nearby Maryland came in one day to see what we do here and learn what they may be able to do.  We gave them a tour and showed them what we do.  We had them do some inventory and scanning too.  Barbara Burnett is a stake index leader and was impressed with the quality of the library's card catalog and commented that they would be easy to index.  Soon there will be a couple come in, perhaps next month, and scan all of the card catalog.  Perhaps she will be one who will be instrumental in getting the indexing work done.  

There isn't room or work for more that just us right now, but there will be opportunities coming soon. 

We pass this fountain on the way to the library every day.  When they turned it off last fall for the season, I watched for the day when it would come back on, then I would know it was spring.  It came on a couple of weeks ago. It is at the Comcast Building.  The new Comcast tower they are building is in the background.  It will be the tallest building in Philly when it is done.  

We celebrated Jerrol's birthday on Friday, the 15th by taking a walk through Macy's and then going to dinner at a nice restaurant.  Macy's is an amazing department store.  We had heard about the organ recitals they have every Sunday and on special occasions, so it was fun to see.  It is a beautiful pipe organ.

You can see the organ keyboard on the side.

It's quite a fancy store.

"Meet me at the Eagle."

An interesting little bit of history.

 Jerrol's birthday dinner was at Del Frisco Double Eagle Steak House.  We had an amazing salad with avocado/ranch dressing and two large slices of bacon on top.  He had mushroom soup and I had seafood soup.  Both were extra good.  We split a 24 oz. porterhouse steak and had potatoes au gratin. 

They brought a small long shaped dish with 3 little desserts with a candle in the middle one.  They were cheesecake, lemon cupcake and chocolate mousse.

It was very good, and the service was awesome.

The building was beautiful too.

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Scanning highlights:
I found an interesting name and information in The Kartchner Family.

Irene Jex was born 28 March, 1943 in Spanish Fork Utah!  Who know I would find someone from my home town in a book in Philadelphia!

Barksdale-DuPont was one of the hardest books we have had to do.  It was too tall to scan, so we had to do it sideways.  That means every page had to be turned after scanning.  Also I had to try and hold it straight each time, and it was a heavy book.  Standing the whole time was a challenge too.

It was old and fragile, and I had to make sure it wasn't damaged any more than it already was.  I worry a lot about the books and it breaks my heart if I do something that damages them. It already looked like this.  I didn't do it.

It is a beautiful book.

I never expected to scan a book about Grace Kelly . . .  in German.

This book, The Book of the Irvings, took a little extra time to scan, just because there was so much interesting stuff in it. 

A nice picture of Washington Irving.

The shooting of Fair Helen.

"In the burial ground of Kirkconnell, near the Border, is the grave of Helen Irving, recognised by tradition as Fair Helen of Kirkconnell, and who is supposed to have lived in the sixteenth century. It is also the grave of her lover, Adam Fleming – a name that once predominated the district. Helen, according to the narration of Pennant (Pennant’s Tour in Scotland, 1772), “was beloved by two gentlemen at the same time. The one vowed to sacrifice the successful rival to his resentment, and watched an opportunity while the happy pair were sitting on the banks of the Kirtle, that washes these grounds. Helen perceived the desperate lover on the opposite side, and fondly thinking to save her favourite, interposed; and, receiving the wound intended for her beloved, fell and expired in his arms. He instantly revenged her death; then fled into Spain, and served for some time against the Infidels: on his return, he visited the grave of his unfortunate mistress, stretched himself on it, and expiring on the spot, was interred by her side. A cross and a sword are engraven on the tombstone, with 'HIC JACET ADAMUS FLEMING'; the only memorial of this unhappy gentleman, except an ancient ballad which records the tragical event."

This staircase made me think of Grandma Margaret Baadsgaard's staircase in her house in Lake Shore.  It was steep and scared me silly.

The Irvings lived quite nicely.

This "Strange Will" is about Mrs. Laura Nelson Kirkwood.

"Workmen recently labored day and night in Kansas City at the task of destroying a mission dollar home, the finest in that city.  The destruction is to carry out the whim of a woman who died two years ago, a whim whose mysterious impulse has never been explained or solved.  The home is the palatial mansion built by William R. Nelson, founder of the Kansas City Star and for years a leading citizen of Kansas City.  The desire to have the home razed was express by his daughter, Mrs. Laura Nelson Kirkwood.  Every trace of the home will be eradicated.  Every stone will be hauled away and every bit of wood will be taken elsewhere or burned on the premises.  To carry out to a further degree the wishes of Mrs. Kirkwood, every piece of furniture in the great home has been sold with an attached condition that it be taken at least 200 miles away from Kansas City, and every bit of jewelry and personal effects left by Mrs. Kirkwood when she died in 1926 also has been sold to persons who live at least 200 miles from Kansas City."   Weird.

We find newspaper clippings stuck in books quite often.  We hadn't seen one like this before.

We don't get quite so precise and detailed news like this now days.

Along with the weird, we also find the funny.  The following came from Keyser Family History, 1974 . They were in random places on the pages.  The author had a great sense of humor and appreciation for wisdom.

An finally, the thought for the month of May:

Manhattan Temple Trip

The senior missionary activity for May was a trip to the Manhattan Temple.  Sister Wrigley did a wonderful job of arranging for the Mega Bus to get us there and back, scheduling our temple session, and arranging for our Big Bus tour of Manhattan.  There were 14 of us who left from Philadelphia and another couple joined us from Pottsville, PA.

I have a whole new concept of New Jersey.  Most of what I have seen is rather nice country views.  We passed through Burlington County, which is where the Beck family comes from.

 We are about to enter the Lincoln Tunnel.

 After this, I won't be as apt to complain about traffic in Philly anymore, 

or anywhere else for that matter.

 The Manhattan Temple view from the street.

The temple is small, but beautiful.  It occupies only the upper floors.

I found a quote about the temple construction by Elder David R. Stone of the Seventy:

"My involvement with the building of the Manhattan Temple gave me the opportunity to be in the temple quite often prior to the dedication.  It was wonderful to sit in the celestial room and be there in perfect silence, without a single sound to be heard coming from the busy New York streets outside.  How was it possible that the temple could be so reverently silent when the hustle and bustle of the metropolis was just a few yards away?

"The answer was in the construction of the temple.  The temple was built within the walls of an existing building, and inner walls of the temple were connected to the outer walls at only a very few junction points.  That is how the temple limited the effects of Babylon or the world outside.

"There may be a lesson here for us.  We can create the real Zion among us by limiting the extent to which Babylon will influence our lives."

This is a group of the greatest people I know.  We had a wonderful time here in the temple.

A couple of Sister Missionaries took our group picture.  Typical sweet, awesome sister missionaries!

 

Jerrol found out that Sister Armstrong is from Moroni.  They had a lot to talk about.

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After leaving the temple, we began the rest of our afternoon which meant a taxi ride to the Big Bus tour stop.  I actually hailed a taxi in Manhattan!  The tour took us all around the city.

Here are some highlights:

That bus along side us is just like the one we are on.  It's a tight squeeze on these streets
with all the traffic. 

 

 Time Square wasn't as big as I thought it would be.  Places always seem bigger in the movies and on TV.

Recognize that ball?

We listened to the tour recording for a while, but the narrative was out of sync and didn't match where we were.  Mostly we just looked.

Here's the Chrysler Building.  I think it is the prettiest one in New York. 

 The Empire State Building.

This makes me think of Miracle on 34th Street.  This store takes up the whole block!

 This picture isn't very clear, but it is Madison Square Garden.

Nice hats on the missionaries.  We were worried about getting sunburned . . . 

. . . but mostly the buildings are high and block the sun and we didn't need them.

 I don't know what this building is, but it is wonderfully weird!  I caught the sun just right.

 This is as close as we got to the Statue of Liberty.

This is the newly finished One World Trade Center.

 Our tour took about 2 hours.

We took a taxi from the Big Bus stop to the Mega Bus stop for our trip home.  We didn't have time to go out to eat, so we got a hot dog at a food cart at the bus stop. (Lunch was brought from home which we ate on the way to NY.)  We got back to Philadelphia about 10:00 and took a taxi from the Mega Bus stop home.  That's four taxi rides in one day!

Manhattan is a very busy place!  I don't understand people wanting to live there, but I guess there are those who love it.  It is so much bigger than Philadelphia.  It makes being here much more tolerable by comparison.  I thought traffic was bad here, but now it doesn't seem so bad.

Of course the best part of the day was going to the temple.  I was so happy to be able to go.  It has been a while and it was just what I needed.  I love the spirit there.

I was asked to speak in sacrament meeting on Mother's Day on developing a relationship with the Savior.  It was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on what I have learned while on my mission and how being here has helped me strengthen my testimony.  I have learned that the Lord is very patient with me as I have to learned to improve and correct my faults and shortcomings.  I have also learned that much of my life I have been spiritually malnourished, and I have learned what is is like to be more spiritually fed by studying the scriptures for at least an hour each day and watching a Bible video each night before retiring.  I have learned to love some wonderful people here, members of our ward, the missionaries, the people we work with and others.

 My love for the Lord has grown so much.  I am grateful for the opportunities to learn to trust Him an depend on Him more.  I  have learned more about Him than I have ever known before.  His ways are so much better than my short-sighted ways.  His Gospel is the truth and He has the answers.