October 21, 2014, Happy Birthday Elder Moore, Exploring Franklin

Elder Moore had a great birthday this week!  He got cards and phone calls from just about everyone in the family!  That made him feel so great and so loved!!  We had our district meeting on his birthday and our Brazilera, Sister Cruz, made him a delicious chocolate cake and everyone in the zone sang happy birthday and expressed a lot of love and appreciation to him.

 We went out to dinner to a sushi restaurant that night, called Fuji at Kendall.  It is near our apartment so we walked over. We love living the city life! It was really good and the first sushi we've have since we came here.  The waitress was so nice and helpful and even gave us a complimentary appetizer for being our first time there.

Saturday was the annual Charles River Rowing Regatta.  This was the night before, some of the racers doing some last minute training.

 This is the day of the regatta.  Not a great picture, but it proves we were there! The picture below is the start of the women's collegiate finals.

A rainbow over Boston!

 Just another pretty day in Cambridge.  Lots of late season sailboats on the river.

We walked back to our apartment via MIT campus.  It is so beautiful, especially this time of year!

I just had to share this picture which our neighbor, Sue Thoele, sent of the Maple tree in our yard!  Pretty spectacular!

 Saturday night we taught another marriage class. We focused on communication and unity.  Elder Moore taught the self/others model of communication and I shared some ideas on unity in marriage.  I shared four ideas that I had found on a blog by Lisa Jacobsen.  Here's what I shared:

1)  Don't lead private lives--no secrets or hidden things.  Share your thoughts, dreams, what is on your heart with your spouse.
2)  Don't make independent decisions--make all major decisions together and run most minor decisions by each other.  Aim to be one-minded in most everything.
3)  Stand together as one--"You and I are on the inside.  Everyone else is looking in from the outside."  Be protective of your unity.  Don't let family or friends try and divide you.
4)  Speak as one--Try using "we" and "our" rather than "I" and "my."  It's not about what I want or he wants, but what we want and what we are thinking.

We are loving our class.  We have such wonderful young couples in there who bring so much each week.  We have some good discussions and role plays and it's fun as well as hopefully informative.

On Sunday, Elder Moore and I sang in Sacrament meeting at church.  We sang Sally Deford's, "I Come to Him."  We have sung it before in Colorado and Hannah and I have sung it as well.  I still get stage fright after all these years of singing.  It got so bad a couple of years ago that I almost quit singing altogether.  Well, we agreed to sing in church and I prayed so hard that the Lord would take away my fear so that it wouldn't be embarrassing.  I truly humbled myself and petitioned the Lord and told Him I couldn't do it without His help and He answered my prayer in that very moment.  The fear totally left me and I was able to sing better than I ever have before (and I give all the credit to Him) .  It felt so good.  Mike and I blended so well and it was a wonderful feeling.  I just wanted to keep singing and singing!  It truly was a miracle, small though it may seem, but to me it was huge!  We had a wonderful piano accompanist, Kim Berkey, and a wonderful violin accompanist, Deborah Palmer.  There's a lot of talent in this ward! We got a lot of lovely compliments that made us feel really good.  It was a great experience and one to be remembered for a long time!  Hannah mentioned in her email this week that she sang that song in the MTC, so it's kind of a family thing!

For our p-day this week, we took a walk down memory lane.  Our family lived in Franklin, Massachusetts, from 1965-1969.  I was age 7-11.  Mike and I drove to Franklin and took a trip into my past! This was our rental home when we first arrived.  It's on Pond Street.  It looks much the same as when we lived there except for the new pop-out windows and the addition on the side. Our family rented this home until we bought a house on Janie Avenue just down the road in the same neighborhood.

19 Janie Avenue, Franklin, Mass.  This is where my love for New England began!  I loved this home and the quiet little neighborhood with all of it's beautiful trees and woods!

One of my memories of living here involves these woods at the bottom of our hill.  As I recall somewhere in these woods is an old abandoned train trestle and a swamp beneath it.  My mom told me to never go in there to play.  One day, a friend and I went in there and were playing on the trestle.  I don't remember how it happened and I don't remember being hurt, but somehow I slipped and ended up in the swamp!  I was horrified by how badly I smelled.  I went home and tried to hide my smelly clothes, but to no avail.  I was found out! I don't remember getting into trouble over it, but I never went into those woods again. Maybe that's where I developed my keen sense of smell (especially to foul smells)!

Our Elementary School

Our older siblings High School--It's been rebuilt and is really nice!

This is the first public library in the country and it's located in Franklin!

 Benjamin Franklin donated these books from his private library to the Franklin public library.

 

Benjamin Franklin said, A genius without education is like silver in the mine."

 When my oldest brother, Bob, went on his mission to Chile, my mom went to work to help pay for it. She worked as a secretary at Dean Junior College in Franklin.  It is a beautiful college and is located right across from the library.

When our family lived in Franklin, we were the only members of the church living there.  Now there is a stake center!  At the time we lived there, we drove to Foxborough and attended the Branch there.  Our dad, Charles Brady, was Branch President there for part of our time here.  Elder L. Tom Perry (one of the Twelve Apostles) was our Stake President.

This is Uncas Pond at the Franklin Rod and Gun Club where I was baptized when I was eight years old!

The Foxborough Chapel

We drove from the chapel to Patriot Place where we found this Ocean Spray cranberry bog out behind the Bass Pro Shop.  It looks like they may have already harvested it, but there were signs saying the harvest is coming up this weekend.  We were confused.  Anyway, it was pretty and interesting to read about how the harvesting is done.  They completely flood the fields with 18 inches of water and the berries float to the top and are then harvested.

One of the cool displays in the Bass Pro Shop!  The grandkids would love this place!  Turtles and fish too!

This is the New England Patriots football stadium.  Pretty impressive!  We are still Broncos fans though!

From Foxborough, we headed north to go to our temple missionary dinner and FHE, but found we were going to be way early.  So, we took a walk around Walden Pond.  It was very beautiful and peaceful and we could see why Henry David Thoreau was so attracted to it!  Did you know the pond is 102 feet deep? It's a swim beach in the summer.  There were some die hards there swimming in wetsuits!

Our dinner and FHE (family home evening) was wonderful.  We love associating with these amazing new friends we have made here.  The lesson was on prayer and many very special experiences were shared on how our Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers.  We are truly blessed to know He lives and loves us and wants us to be happy.  We know He hears our prayers and we are so grateful to Him for every blessing He sends to us and our loved ones!

Today, I got the special treat of taking this darling little boy to the park for a while so his mommy could take a little rest.  She's expecting a baby and is due any day now!  Our mission is full of so many wonderful and varied activities.  It's always a treat to see what each new day will bring!

One of our favorite missionaries, Elder Butters is going home this week.  It's transfer week and he's done.  He's one of our favorites and is our zone leader.  He was here at our apartment to meet us when we arrived in July.  He helped us move in! We have a cute, funny relationship with him and are really going to miss him. We had a little going away dessert party for him and a late bday party for Elder Moore tonight at Josh and Aubree Browning's home in Medford. They are a sweet couple from our marriage class that we have grown to love like our own kids!

Well, that's it for another week!  Keep smiling and remember to be kind to yourself and to others!  We love you!