Worldwide Devotionals for Young Adults
While on our mission, we have experienced some changes with the CES Devotional broadcasts. In the past the Church Education System has provided five devotional broadcasts a year. Starting this year, it was announced that they will no longer be called CES Devotionals, but Worldwide Devotionals for Young Adults. They also announced that there would only be three devotionals a year and the priesthood leaders were encouraged to make these important events. The church wants the young adults to come together and have a chance to associate with each other as well as hear and see the devotional.
This past year we noticed that the East Brunswick Stake was not broadcasting the devotionals. They would announce that there was a devotional but would encourage the young adults to watch the broadcast on their own. We figured that this was probably because of the time change from Salt Lake to here. The broadcast would not even begin until 8:00pm on that Sunday night.
Last year we had our own CES broadcasts with our New Brunswick Institute group. We always had a potluck dinner and then watched the broadcast in Spanish. (Some of those pictures from last year's devotionals are posted in the blog.)
As January was approaching and again there was no plans for the devotional to be shown in this area, we decided to encourage our groups to attend with the Scotch Plains Stake devotional. Half of our groups are in the Scotch Plains stake anyway, and they should be attending there. We picked up four young adults in the New Brunswick area and took them to the Maplewood Building (near Newark) where a potluck and broadcast was already planned. Since we were bringing some Spanish speakers that were not comfortable with English, Elder Hancock worked with the Scotch Plains leaders and we had a separate broadcast in Spanish in the Relief Society room. Here is a picture after the broadcast of those who attended.
The bottom picture is of the group that we work with. There are a few missing from the picture, but they all enjoyed the devotional and getting acquainted with other young adults.
Trip to Philadelphia
For our culture day excursion with the CES missionaries, we went to visit the Barnes Museum in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is about an hour and a half from where we live, but since we were traveling early on a Monday morning, it was a longer drive because of commuters.
When we exited the freeway, this is what we saw: The construction site for the new Philadelphia Temple! The Philadelphia Temple was announced in October, 2008. The ground-breaking was in September, 2011. Last year, in February, 2014, the Church announced that there would be a meetinghouse and a 32-story apartment building built next to the temple.
The purpose for going to Philadelphia was to visit the Barnes Museum. Brother Bean's secretary, Shaz, highly recommended this excursion. There were several in the group, mostly men, who were NOT excited to visit an art museum. (and were less exited once they saw what was there...)
Albert C. Barnes was born in Philadelphia to working class parents. By age 20, he was a medical doctor. He went into research as a chemist rather than clinical practice. He and a partner invented a mild silver nitrate antiseptic solution that was used to prevent gonorrheal blindness in newborn babies. Barnes became a millionaire by the age of 35. He sold his business right before the 1929 stock market crash. He then started to study and collect art. In his collection he has 69 Cézannes, 60 Matisses, 44 Picassos, and 178 Renoirs. He also has major works of Rousseau, Picasso, Vincent van Gogh and others. Barnes had quite the collection but he didn't like the attitude of some art critics, so he limited access to his collection. There were many works of art in his mansion that the world had never seen.
It is estimated that the Barnes collection is worth 19 billion dollars! (Elder Hancock's opinion is this is way high by $18.999 billion...)
After our visit at the art museum, we went to the Reading Terminal Market for lunch. On our way there we caught a glimpse of City Hall. There is so much history in Philadelphia and we hope to return some day to visit the historical sites there.
Atop City Hall is a statue of the city founder, William Penn. When City Hall was built, it was the tallest building in the world. For years, a "gentlemen's agreement" stated that the Philadelphia Art Commission would approve no building in the city which would rise above this statue. This ended in March 1987, when One Liberty Place opened three blocks away. One Liberty Place is taller than City Hall by 397 feet. After One Liberty Place opened, Philadelphia's major sports teams were cursed with a run of failures. "The Curse of Billy Penn" was lifted when construction workers in 2007, working on the now tallest building in Philadelphia, the Comcast Center, attached a small figurine of William Penn to the beam. In 2008, the Philadelphia Phillies won the world series thus ending the alleged curse. During the TV coverage of the parade which occurred two days later, Comcast aired an ad congratulating the Phillies which featured the small figurine of William Penn standing at the top of the Comcast Center. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Billy_Penn
Now for lunch:
The Reading Terminal Market is based off of the historical markets of long ago in the same location. The original market was built under the train station in 1892. Today, the Reading Terminal Market is one of the nation’s most successful public markets with more than 75 independent small businesses that offer an array of fresh and prepared foods, lunch counters, and places to eat and shop.
When we entered the market we all went different directions to get a feel of the place and to decide what to get for lunch. Elder Hancock and I decided that when in Philly, we needed to have a Philly cheese steak sandwich. It was good!
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| Yummy! |
Before we left, we had this picture taken.
Classes
Since Christmas break it has been great to be back on our schedule with classes. Some of our students went to their home countries for the holidays. It is good to all be back together again.
Having some great activities over the break has been a blessing. We met some new young adults that had not been attending Institute class and now they are coming!!!
It was announced that the Perth Amboy building would be under construction the first part of the year and that for church meetings, they should use the Scotch Plains Stake Center. Last week we went to Scotch Plains to attend the Perth Amboy ward and found out that we were an hour early. So, we attended the Plainfield Spanish Branch. This is a small unit, but they had a number of young adults. We plan to hold a linger-longer here soon and invite the young adults to join our Institute classes. We hope that little by little the program will grow.
While the Perth Amboy young adults do not have a location temporarily for Institute, we invited them to drive to Elizabeth and join with that group. Many in Perth Amboy have cars and for those who don't, we drive through Perth Amboy and pick some up. For the most part, this is working.
The Elizabeth group is small and with the Perth Amboy group added, it is a lot more fun for them. We are considering maybe keeping these two groups combined.
Left to Right: Ivan Ferrer, Berenise Mendez, Sheila Arevalo, Nefi Contreras, Benny Santos, Paulette Pinargote, and Isabel Romero
Playing Uno
Things here in New Jersey are going well. The weather, thankfully, has been cooperating and hopefully we won't see a repeat of last winter. However yesterday church was cancelled due to freezing rain. The rain came down and throughout the day it slowly froze on the sidewalks and streets. It wasn't too bad where we are, but was dangerous in other areas so church was cancelled for most. We went to the airport to pick up a neighbor late last night and found the less traveled streets, parking lot, and sidewalks where we live had a thin but slick layer of ice.
We recently met with the stake president of East Brunswick stake to discuss some concerns we have with the Hispanic YSAs here. It was a good meeting. We are enjoying working with the young adults and studying and preparing for the Institute lessons.
Thanks to all of you for your letters and love.
Elder and Sister Hancock
_____________Thought from recent class____________
“In the 1960s, a professor at Stanford University began a modest experiment testing the willpower of four-year-old children. He placed before them a large marshmallow and then told them they could eat it right away or, if they waited for 15 minutes, they could have two marshmallows.
“He then left the children alone and watched what happened behind a two-way mirror. Some of the children ate the marshmallow immediately; some could wait only a few minutes before giving in to temptation. Only 30 percent were able to wait”
“As time went on, [the professor] kept track of the children and began to notice an interesting correlation: the children who could not wait struggled later in life and had more behavioral problems, while those who waited tended to be more positive and better motivated, have higher grades and incomes, and have healthier relationships.
“. . . The ability to wait—to be patient—was a key character trait that might predict later success in life. . . .
“. . . Without patience, we cannot please God; we cannot become perfect. Indeed, patience is a purifying process that refines understanding, deepens happiness, focuses action, and offers hope for peace” (“Continue in Patience,” Pres. Ucthdorf, Ensign or Liahona, May 2010, 56).
