In the Middle of June, Family and Friends

Oh how we are enjoying our experiences here in the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission!  What could be better that being in the mission field, working each day with missionaries and the excitement of that, and then getting to have family around!  What a bonus!  Tom, Heidi, Riley, and Brady Jones returned from a week of Delaware, New Jersey and New York City to land for about 24 hours in Philadelphia.  We got to go to dinner with them and then breakfast the next day at the Cambridge, in Chester, PA.  The food was GREAT, the area a bit sketchy, and the company divine.  We had an interesting experience while in the Hilton Philly Airport hotel.  There was a convention of Masons going on and I have never seen so many African Americans in fancy white dresses and purple and the men had purple aprons and hats and jeweled bandalos.  Very interesting.  Our sister-in-law, Chris Jones, is back in the east doing work again and she came to visit as well, meeting us at Tom's hotel after a side trip through the woods.  We took her to breakfast (which ended up to be brunch) too.  We said our goodbyes to Tom and family and headed next to the construction

site of the Philadelphia Temple.  Last weekend we watched them place the top-most steel framework that will hold the Angel Moroni.  Later in the day, unbeknownst to us, the steel workers placed the flag and a live Christmas tree atop it.  We learned this week that the steel workers always place a flag on the top-most part of a building, and the live Christmas tree signifies that no lives were lost in the steel framing of this building.  Below is the mock-up of the tower atop the temple.  They mock it up, cutting the granite and making sure each piece fits perfectly.  Then they will disassemble it and put it where it belongs on the temple.  The granite is beautiful.  It is a grey, with flecks of black, white, and crystal.  It is much like the other old buildings in town.  They want the temple to reflect the period of the rest of historical Philly.  It will have painted woodwork inside, just like Independence Hall.  There was a clean up of the construction area around where we are standing so we got to see some missionaries that we haven't seen in awhile and give them hugs. 

 After the temple we headed to the Franklin Institute where we saw lots of scientific items and displays and loved all of that!  There was a display of OLD things--typewriters, weights, TV's etc.  Among the display was a "Commodore" keyboard and floppy disk reader.  WE HAD ONE OF THOSE!!!!!!  Does that mean we are historic--or pre-historic?  Below is a photo of Dad and I in front of the Ben Franklin Statue. 

 This is another photo of the Franklin Institute, the Sports Room.  It is an amazing museum of interactive scientific things.  Wonderful for kids and something we will go back and visit.  There is also an IMAX Theater where we watched a documentary on sharks.

Aunt Chris spent the night with us and attended church with us today.  I had planned to make whatever Dad wanted for dinner but we got invited to go to Ridley State Park and attend a Korean BBQ with our special Korean friends.  It was a fabulous dinner with some awesome people who treat us so nice.

Us pictured with Sister Kerry.  She is such a sweetheart.  Her mother and son both attend our ward, too. 

Brother and Sister Jung.  We have eaten at their home twice.  She is a wonderful cook!

 This is Sun Ok Kim--we call her Sunny.  She owns the Cambridge Restaurant where we ate yesterday morning.  She is a sweetheart.  We visit her at the restaurant about once each month.

 This is "Granny"--Song Park.  She is the mother to Sister Kerry and is 94 years young.

 More or our Korean friends.  Center right is Bishop Kim (just got released) and on the left are Brother and Sister Han.  Brother Han is extra funny and teases us always (along with Bishop Kim) and Sister Han is a wonderful cook.  She prepared the spicy Korean Pork that we bought.  

Elder Jones eating some pork belly with bean paste atop.  For this meal they did not bring ANY forks, so we ate with chopsticks the entire time and actually got along pretty well.  What you cannot pick up you can stab...

Our week at work was good.  Elder Jones has been working with many sisters lately to help them with stress, getting along with companions, etc.  He has been doing a wonderful job and so enjoys the interaction. I had a particularly interesting week with phones.  When a missionary looses one I have to e-mail the church (who have a Sprint and AT&T rep just for that purpose) and they send me another one.  I then have to swap the phones, saving the contacts from the old phone to the new, activating the new phone,  Meanwhile, we take them a sub phone until the new one arrives.  So last Sunday we went to Wilmington, Delaware to give out a sub phone--the mic won't work.  Wed:  Head to downtown Camden, New Jersey as another missionary left his phone in the rain and it won't work.  Yes, he tried the rice trick, still does not work.  Thursday send a phone to a missionary who left his on the bus.  So this week I will be going back to all of these places to give them the new phones.  I have learned SOOOO much about phones the last 2 weeks!  Also we inspected 3 apartments this week and have decided that Elders do not know how to use a mop or simply do not want to.  We think that a Swiffer would be a good move for the mission in each apartment...Elder Jones also had his 3rd call this week for Elders locking their keys in their car...We have to keep remembering that we are dealing with 188-21 year olds.  But we love them all!  It makes our jobs varied and exciting.  One last item.  It rained 5 out of the past 7 days.  That is why it is green in Philly...