Beach Fun

On Saturday, August 9, 2014 there was a regional YSA Beach Activity.  This activity has been advertised in all the Institutes in New Jersey for the last two months. Our stake, East Brunswick Stake YSA, was in charge to host it.  That means that all our Institutes were given food assignments and were expected to support the activity. The plan was to meet at Island Beach State Park at site #20.  This area was really nice as it was away from the town of Seaside Heights and all the commercialism and people there.

On this map of New Jersey, it shows where we were.  Down by Tom's River there is a sliver of an island.  That's where the beach party activity was held. In October 2012 when hurricane "Sandy" went through, this area was hit hard. Everything has been rebuilt now.

The weather was perfect and the water temperature was too.

A tent was put up early in the day to hold our spot.  Later in the afternoon as the tide rose, the spot where the tent was put up was in a puddle of water.  They moved the tent back about 20 feet and that worked better.

Here is a photo of all the CES missionaries at the activity here to support their groups.  The three couples are all from Arizona:  Strouds (Eager), Hancocks (Tucson), and Pittsons (Queen Creek).  Sister Toy is from Idaho and Sister Young from Wyoming.

Hancocks at the beach

I love this photo.  Elder Hancock and Stroud sat in their chairs, but as the tide came and went, they just stayed put...From Elder Hancock:  "Ahhh!, this is the life... Are senior missions supposed to be this much fun?"

As the waves broke you could see just under the surface of the water, sea rays riding the wave. Lots of fun.

YSAs and Brother Bean having fun.

It was great to see some of our New Brunswick and Eatontown Institutes mingling and getting acquainted.  That's what these activities are all about!

The NJ young single adults.

August Seminary & Institute Broadcast

Earlier this week, on Tuesday, Aug. 5th, Brother Bean encouraged us all to meet in New York City in the same building as the Manhattan Temple for a broadcast from Salt Lake.  The plan was to meet up with other CES Directors and those working in the church educational system.  This was our first attempt to take a train on our own into NYC and then navigate the subway system, again on our own, and meet up with everyone else.

We decided to take an earlier train just in case we got lost or got held up.  As it turned out, everything went fine and we got there early, so we walked down the street from the temple to ABC Studios and window shopped, etc.

Our first train tickets.

Later in the day, waiting for our train to get back home.









Institute Classes

Within the last week, these pictures were taken with four of our different groups:

Paulette, Isabel, and Nefi

In Elizabeth our class is starting to grow.  Isabel in the middle just joined the church three months ago.  She is from Columbia.

In Tom's River, we had a going away party for Elder Leon (and us.) Since there are no young single adults in our Institute, Brother Bean  asked us to close down the Institute in Tom's River and try to start up an Institute in Perth Amboy instead.  We will miss the great people we have met in the small Tom's River Spanish Branch.

In New Brunswick after our lesson, some from the English Institute class joined us for a game of Uno.  One hand of Uno went on for thirty minutes!

A week ago on a Saturday night, after we worked to clean the church building, we went to "Rai Rai Ramen" an authentic Chinese restaurant.  Julian (from Singapore) had to order or give suggestions for most of us.  Five of these YSA's are our "bug guys" and in our Insight Pest Control Institute.