Brian and I have been working really hard as missionaries and have felt God’s help and love as we have worked with job seekers here in New York City. We have also been looking forward to having some of our children come visit us for a magical Christmas in the City. We really enjoyed having Jessica, Ty, Matt and his fiance, Abbie here. We did a lot of sightseeing, eating out, and also played a lot of board games. Matt brought homemade fudge and apple cake to NYC, Abbie brought two kinds of homemade cookies with her, Jessica brought more apple cake, and Ty brought his famous homemade Christmas Crackle.
On Sunday, we attended church at the Union Square Building (Union Square 1st Ward), so we were able to show our kids our Employments Services offices which are in that building. They were surprised that we each have a large office and that there is a large common area where we have computers and tables that jobs seekers can use.
The Christmas church service was very touching to me. There were six special musical numbers with scripture passages read before each number. One sister played “The First Noel” on a French horn. The Primary Children sang, “Picture a Christmas.” (The Primary children are always a favorite part of the program to me.) And Bishop Baum spoke at the end of the meeting.
The street we live on does a great job of Christmas lighting on the trees. The building on the left side of the street is the ABC/Disney/ESPN (HQ) building. I think they do the lights on that side of the street.
