Paella-fest!

One of the highlights each year for the young single adults, is attending the "Paella-fest."  Every May, Brother Bean invites all the YSAs to come to his home in Annandale, NJ where he personally makes a huge paella dinner for all to enjoy.  Brother Bean is the CES Coordinator over all the seminary and institute classes in this mission area.  He served his mission in Spain where he learned how to make and love a rice and chicken dish called "paella." He invites all the YSAs and those who work with them to come and eat and play at his beautiful home.  This is a great opportunity for the young single adults to meet YSAs from other areas.

Since many of our YSAs have no way to get around other than by the bus system, we advertised in our classes that we would be happy to take them to this activity and then also bring them home.  Brother Bean's home is in the northwest part of the state and is a good hour or two from many of their homes. We got permission from our mission president to borrow the mission van that seats twelve.  We left our apartment at 3pm.

Nuria, Penelope, Casey, Issamar, Alan, and Jose

Here is some of our group on their way to have fun!  It was just like riding with children again.  They were enjoying each other and would get loud, but also, this van felt every bump and it was fun to see those in the back almost hitting the ceiling on some big bumps.

The activity began at 5pm with the dinner being served at 6pm.  There was a 60% chance of rain that day.  The rain did come but it waited until the dinner and some fun volleyball games had been enjoyed.  Some even stayed outdoors and played volleyball in the rain and said that that was the funnest part of the evening.

Here are pictures of our groups as they came and served themselves:

We believe that there were about 75-80 young single adults at this activity.  It was great!  When the rain (and heavy humidity) arrived, we served food in the garage and headed indoors to play games.

The activity ended around 10pm because many had a long drive home.  It took us four hours to get home that night.  We dropped our students to their homes in Jersey City, West New York, Union City, and New Brunswick.  We got home at 2am.


Caldwell YSA Ward

The day after the "Paella-fest" (May 17), a new young single adult ward was organized in Union City. Brother Bean asked us to be in attendance that day.  There was much discussion in our Friday night class in Union City.  They were excited to be part of a young single adult ward.  It is to be a bi-lingual ward.  The talks and testimonies given that day were in English, but they are looking to translate into Spanish in the future.  There were no English hymn books in the chapel (maybe not even in the building) so when hymns were sung, the English speakers were asked to use their smart phones if they needed the words.  It was great to hear both English and Spanish being sung together.

For this new ward, all the records of those of young single adult age (18-30) in the stake were moved to this new YSA ward.  The wives of the new bishopric were called to be stake missionaries so they could "legally attend" the YSA ward.  There are 650 names on the records of this new ward.  On this first day of organization, there were maybe 20 to 30 YSAs in attendance.


Longwood Gardens

The Monday following this busy weekend, we had a planned CES outing to Pennsylvania to visit the Longwood Gardens.  The day was warm and humid but the gardens were beautiful.  The property that is now Longwood Gardens originally was owned by William Penn in the late 1600's.  Industrialist  Pierre du Pont purchased the property from a Peirce family in 1906 in order to save the trees from being sold for lumber.  DuPont made this his private residence and added extensively to the property.  Today Longwood Gardens is one of the nicest botanical gardens in the nation.

             Beautiful water fountain gardens along with a beautiful young lady standing near by :)

        So beautiful!!! Green leaves, purple flowers, wonderful sweetheart!

Natalie Bean, Sisters Young and Toy, me, Marshall, Rachel, and David Bean

Classes

These last few weeks in classes we focused lots on church history as we talked about the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and the events following.  This last week in class we showed the movies, either "17 Miracles" or "Ephraim's Rescue" so that the young adults could get a feel for the sacrifices of our pioneers and that they are modern day pioneers as many are the first in their families to join the church.

From this week's lesson...
    Years after the arrival of the Martin handcart company, a Brother Francis Webster sat in a Sunday School class, he listened to some Church members criticize Church leaders for the handcart tragedy. Unable to constrain himself, he arose and testified of the blessings of being in the Martin handcart company.
    “I ask you to stop this criticism for you are discussing a matter you know nothing about. Cold historical facts mean nothing here for they give no proper interpretation of the questions involved. Mistake to send the handcart company out so late in the season? Yes. But I was in that company and my wife was in it. . . . We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation. But did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism? . . .
    “I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the Angels of God were there.
    “Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No. Neither then nor one moment of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay and I am thankful that I was privileged to come to Zion in the Martin Handcart Company” (in William R. Palmer, “Pioneers of Southern Utah,” The Instructor, vol. 79, no. 5 [May 1944], 217–18).

May...FLOWERS

The wait is over!  Spring has sprung!  It is BEAUTIFUL!!! 

Flowers are everywhere.  Many trees flower first and then the leaves appear. Two weeks ago not many trees had bloomed.  But as they do, each tree takes its turn. First the magnolias appear, one of our favorites. They are only in full bloom a short time then another tree takes front stage.  Also, the vegetation among the trees has filled in and it is a paradise everywhere we look. Every time that we get to take a drive or a walk around a park, we marvel at the varieties and the beauty of the world around us.

Last year we called the magnolia tree a tulip tree.  When the blossoms first appear, they do look like tulips.  These pictures below were taken at the end of the magnolia season.

 Here again, we were at this park right as spring was coming in.  It would be more beautiful now. New Jersey truly has some beautiful areas.  We keep trying to remind ourselves that we are not here on vacation, but it sure feels like it.

May Young Adult Devotional

On May 3rd, Elder Lynn Robbins of the Seventy addressed the young adults of the church.  We have three young adult devotionals a year now that comes from Salt Lake for all the young adults in the world. The stake leaders have been encouraged to make these devotionals a big deal. Since we work with young adults in three stakes and one district, this time we went to Paterson to support the district with their devotional.

Paterson District has three branches; an English and two Spanish branches. We have loved working in this area and with these young adults.

The Paterson YSAs had a potluck dinner at 7pm before the devotional started at 8pm.  Fanny Morales is the District YSA Rep and she makes sure things are organized well and that the young adults have rides to class and the activities.  She is wonderful!  We wish that we could clone Fanny and have her influence in all the groups.

When we arrived that night there were a couple of missionaries there to help get the satellite system set up. By the time we were ready to eat, many more missionaries arrived, so we invited those who could stay to eat with us.

 Starting at front left:  Shantal De La Cruz, Drakenny Jimenez, Melquisedec Perez, Dorca Encarnacion, Secundino Anastacio, Issamar Birdie, CaseyAndino, ?, Christian Jimenez

Fanny Morales with the missionaries

Union City Institute

As we are still trying to organize our class in Union City, on May1st we went again to Union City to finally meet the young adults there.  As was posted in the last blog post, when we went the prior weekend, there was a dance in Queens and lots of the YSAs from Union City attended the dance, so we had a very small class.  This week there were ten YSAs in class.  It was a good class. We were discussing Section 132 which focuses on the subject of Eternal Marriage and is always a favorite topic for the YSAs.

 Front Row: Alan Castro, Penelope Gracia, Katherine Alvarez, Hancocks, Chris Quiles, Nuria Medina.  Back Row: Hans Brandes, Jarumi Casiano, Carmen Incarroca, Enrique Cuyuch, Jose Cedillo

Caldwell Stake called a new Institute teacher from their stake. Mario Martinez is from Jersey City and he came to our class on Friday in Union City and we all discussed some future plans for classes. Brother Martinez wants to organize a class to be held in Jersey City and to hold that class every Friday night.  We are to also hold our class on Fridays but our group is for the YSAs from West New York and Union City. This group is a close group and I know they like to go to each others classes, so we'll see how it goes.

As it turned out, when we went this last week, only two from West New York were there.  The ward there in Union City was having a Mothers Day dinner and social and that took one of our YSAs.  We had brought two girls from the New Brunswick Saturday class because there was conflicts with their class. We don't know where everyone else was. (They were not in Brother Martinez's class.) But, the four that were there that night, got acquainted and had fun. Issamar led a game of Charades that really helped to "break the ice."

Back Row:  Diego Bohorquez and Jose Cedillo

Front Row:  Casey Andino and Issamar Burdie

From this week's lesson:

“Through his personal association with the Lord, his translation and publication of the Book of Mormon, and the sealing of his testimony with his martyr’s blood, Joseph has become the preeminent revelator of Jesus Christ in His true character as divine Redeemer. Jesus has had no greater witness nor more devoted friend than Joseph Smith” (“Born Again,” Elder Christofferson, Ensign or Liahona, May 2008, 79).

 In the spring of 1844, Josiah Quincy, former mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, and then president of Harvard University, along with his cousin Charles Francis Adams, son of former United States President John Quincy Adams, visited Nauvoo. They spent a day with the Prophet Joseph Smith. Years later, Josiah Quincy wrote of his experience:
“It is by no means improbable that some future textbook, for the use of generations yet unborn, will contain a question something like this: What historical American of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destinies of his countrymen? And it is by no means impossible that the answer to that interrogatory may be thus written: Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet ” (Figures of the Past: From the Leaves of Old Journals [1888], 376).