August 18-24, Moore Mission Adventures, Harvard and Fenway

We had another busy week in the MBM (Mass. Boston Mission).  On our p-day, we toured Harvard University and went to a Boston Red Sox baseball game.  We have so much fun with the Braithwaites!  These are some good memories we are making with them and it is going by way too fast!

The Braithwaites came to our apartment and we all took the subway up to Harvard Square.  First stop, lunch at Mr. Bartley's Burgers.  Here are a couple of reviews:

 "This Harvard icon is a short walk from Harvard Square. The side walk placard will help you find it. Small in size and ALWAYS packed, if you are lucky enough to get a table inside you will be entertained while enjoying the best burger and fries. The walls are covered with an eclectic mix of advertisements and memorabilia, some hysterical and others puzzling! The menu is a plethora of every burger combo and they boast that if you don't see it on the menu it doesn't exist. I had the Tom Brady, and who doesn't love that! The food was delicious. The atmosphere fun and interesting, and the staff attentive as one can be with a packed house!"

" We heard about this restaurant on Diners Drive-ins and Dives and we wanted to go see. It is a Cambridge landmark."

" This landmark place is a must!! I'm not a fry eater especially sweet potato fries. They were great! Frappe was delicious!"

A long line can either mean a lot of hype or a really good restaurant!  We enjoyed it a lot!

This is Nancy and I with The Mrs. Bartley!  She is the hostess and personally seats everyone!

Just a partial list of the burgers they offer.  The real menu has many, many more.  I got the Iphone burger and Mike got the Tom Brady.  I can't remember the descriptions for them but they were funny and the food was delicious. 

Our waitress was very a Massachusetts girl through and through.  We asked how to pronounce frappe, was it two syllables and french sounding, or was it one syllable and rhymes with rap?  She said definitely the latter, that this is Massachusetts and nothing's fancy here.

 After lunch, we took a self-guided tour, a $2.00 pamphlet with a map and little blurbs about the buildings along the way.  We tried to get on a real tour but were told the tours were over for summer and not starting up again until mid-September.  These are the main gates leading into Harvard Yard.

Dale and Mike found a nice spot in the shade to rest for a minute.

One of the concert halls and the freshman dining hall.

This is the statue of John Harvard.  It's also known as the statue of 3 lies. The three lies are as follows: 

1. That isn’t John Harvard.

Sherman Hoar

Even though the name “John Harvard” is written in stone on the statue’s base, the likeness is not, actually, that of John Harvard. In fact, there are no living representations of John Harvard.
In 1884, Daniel Chester French created the famous statue, and Sherman Hoar sat as a model for the head of John Harvard. Hoar later went on to serve as a member of Congress and a US district attorney.

2. John Harvard wasn’t the founder of Harvard University.

What? Yes, that’s right. The engraving on the statue states “founder,” but this is also not true. Actually, Harvard didn’t even attend the College. He was the first major benefactor to the University. He donated half of his estate and his library, which consisted of over 400 books.
Harvard University was officially founded by a vote by the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

3. Harvard wasn’t founded in 1638.

Close, but no cigar. Harvard University was founded in 1636. This gives Harvard the honor of being the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. (The oldest university in the world is Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in Khozettan, Iran, which was founded around 200 BC).
Harvard was originally called the New College. And its mission was to train clergy. Harvard received its official famous name on March 13, 1639, named for the renowned benefactor seated in “lies.”

 I got this information from the brochure and from harvard.edu/blog-news.
We learned a lot of interesting facts about Harvard and loved looking at all the wonderful architechture.  The freshmen dining hall reminded us of something out of Harry Potter.  Very cool!

Harvard Architecture

 We loved our tour of Harvard.  Afterwards, we went back to our apartment to rest up for our big night at the Red Sox game at the legendary Fenway Park!

Good times eating foot long hot dogs at a Red Sox game!

It was another great day of exploring our surroundings!  We are going to know this place like the back of our hands before we leave.  We are trying to do something fun every week before the cold weather hits.  The summer here so far has been unbelievably perfect!  Temps in the 70's and pretty much no humidity!  We are loving it!

On to our great week of missionary work....

Our investigators are progressing towards their baptism dates!  M is really excited to be baptized and become a Mormon!  He says he was born to be a Mormon and his whole life has led him to the Mormon church.  He has set a goal to read the whole Book of Mormon by Labor Day which is a week from Monday!  K is progressing as well.  He and his wife have some obstacles to overcome in their marriage, but we continue to work with them and pray for them.  They are such a cute family!  We taught our other K yesterday and his baptism is set for Sept. 27.  He was literally brought to the church.  He and his wife were drawn into the building one day when they were passing by.  He feels the joy and peace that comes from being in Sacrament meeting.

We love this sweet family!

 The sisters had a miracle on the train the other day.  They were riding out to a dinner appointment and a lady came up to them and asked who they were and said she was looking for a church and prayed that morning that she would be led to find one.  They talked to her the whole train ride and asked her to come to their dinner appointment with them and she said yes!  They taught her the Restoration and asked her to come to church. She is excited to learn more!

Kim, who we take turns reading scriptures with each day, prayed out loud with me (over the phone) for the first time in her life!  She was so excited and scared but she did a great job!  I challenged her to keep praying and to think about it as really talking to Heavenly Father like he was in the room.  She was so excited to tell the sisters and they were actually in the room with me when I was reading with her and when she said her prayer.  They were thrilled for her!!

Friday, we had interviews with our mission president, President Packard.  Elder Moore and I met with him for a few minutes and had a really good meeting.  He expressed so much gratitude to us for being here and said that we are definitely exactly where we should be serving.  He said the sisters sing our praises all the time.  They really are the ones who should be praised!  They work so hard and are so diligent.  We love them so much! 

One more miracle, did I tell you about Dollar Store Dan?  He's the Mormon turned Atheist that works at our local Dollar Tree.  I had taken him cookies and a Joseph Smith Pamphlet and wrote him a letter and asked him to pray about whether there is a God or not.  Anyway, we have seen him a couple of times in the store and he's always super nice to us.  He likes to pontificate on why the church isn't true, but he's really nice about it.  We have a list of less active members from our ward that we are trying to visit and Friday after our interview with the president we worked on the list.  We didn't know Dan's last name so we had no idea that he was one of the names on our list until we rang his bell and he came out and it was him!  We were so happy to see him and he seemed happy to see us too.  He ran upstairs to his apartment and brought down his little girl to meet us.  He has another little girl, but she and his wife were asleep so we didn't get to visit with them.  We had a nice visit with him and invited him to bring his family to church today. They didn't come but we hope to be able to continue our visits with him and his family. Maybe he is starting to realized that we aren't just coincidentally crossing his path, but perhaps there is some divine intervention going on here!!

Today, Elder Moore spoke in Sacrament meeting on Balance.  It went really well.  He did a great job! These are the 7 points of balance he covered that came from a talk by Elder Ballard:

1. We need to find a quiet place to write down our priorities and make a plan that fits the covenants we have made with the Lord.
2. We need to make short-term achievable goals that are well balanced and rank them by priority.
3. We need to budget our financial challenges.  That means to control real needs and measure them against the wants of our lives.  Get rich schemes don't work.  We need to avoid accumulating too many things of the world.  Balance is never achieved until we have our financial security under control.
4. We need to stay close to our families and friends.  Open and frequent communication in trusting relationships is vital for balance and our emotional well-being.  We need to help each other out with gentleness, love, and loyalty.
5. We need to make scripture study and prayer a regular part of our daily lives.  This is the best source we have to keep in touch with the spirit.  Reading scriptures in our family is an important way to maintain cohesion and correct values.
6. We need to develop a regular regimen of physical activity.  A balance of cardiac and strength building exercise works well for me.  Let's play racquetball!
7. We need to maintain a weekly family home evening with our children or significant others.  That builds the foundation for eternal families who learn to get along and enjoy life together.

 We also taught the gospel essentials class in Sunday School.  The lesson was on Eternal Marriage. The Braithwaites came to our church today to hear to Mike's talk and stayed for the rest of our meetings.  It was great having them there.  We fixed them dinner tonight for Dale's birthday which is this week.  We had pork chops and cheesy garlic potatoes, strawberry salad, and a zucchini, yellow squash medley.  We had Razzleberry pie and ice cream for dessert!  It was delicious.

Dale's first selfie! 

Happy Birthday to Dale!

We are so grateful for the opportunity we are having to share the gospel full-time.  We are growing in our knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ and we are growing in our love for our fellow man.  We realize every day that every one of us is just trying to find our way through this life and our Savior is our guide.  We need to let Him into our lives and follow Him by serving others, keeping the commandments, and living like He did.  We know He lives and loves us and we know that our Father in Heaven lives and loves us too.  We know that our Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers and all the prayers of His children. We are grateful for this knowledge and for the blessings we receive every day!  Life is good and can be even better if we put our lives in God's hands.

One final picture from our week.  Our sisters, Sister Roy and Sister Scott and I in our matching (style) tops at church today!  We sure love these sisters and appreciate their support and all that they are teaching us about how to be really effective missionaries!  They are amazing!

 It was another great week!  We miss our family and friends and love to hear from you all!!  Please stay in touch and know that we love you!