Stony Brook Summer Institute Invitation

Like our Institute invitation? (click PLAY above)

It's time to begin our Summer Institute classes next week so we've been getting our classes organized, preparing materials, and finding and inviting students to participate. This involves calling, visiting, emailing and even text messaging! This is far different from how classes are set up in the well-organized Church units we have known through the years. We must find our own students. The local leaders do not organize the classes. Nor do young people ordinarily search out a class.

Young single adults in New York, ages 18-30, are busy in school and/or work, sometimes with more than one job, and have great distances to travel to get where they need to be, some relying solely on public transportation. We began the Stony Brook University class with one student and now have eleven on the roll. This is progress!

We are so thrilled when our dear young people can find the time to attend Institute class. They strengthen eachother and add so much to our lives! It is fun for us to prepare and take some "home cooking" to class for them since we know they are at the end of a busy day, having had little or nothing to eat. They are so happy and appreciative.

Institute provides a great social and spiritual time to mingle. That's its purpose.

If It's Wednesday it Must be "Wicked"

Lamberts enjoy a New York Visit

With a couple weeks off from our CES mission teaching assignments, we entertained friends Peggy and Gary Lambert from Utah for a few days. We visited them on their mission in Bangalore, India so they returned the favor. And we filled every day with the wonders of New York!

"Wicked" was high on the Lamberts priority list as was Central Park, Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty, the ocean, Brooklyn Bridge and Harlem...with lots of food and laughter thrown in. We did it all.
And yes, it was Wednesday...and "Wicked" was delightful.

And Central Park is so beautiful in April!

















The long walk was serene, yet alive with visitors, sounds and splendid sights.

We took the time to visit with strangers on park benches, enjoy a the earth science musuem nearby and watch boating on Central Park lake.

It was a perfect day Spring day.

"In the Heights" - Broadway's Hottest Hit!

We went wild over this musical!

With the amazing original cast, incredible dancing and a gripping tale of hope and self-discovery, "In The Heights" is Broadway's hottest hit set in the neighborhood of Washington Heights above Manhattan.

On Friday, April 25, we were spellbound through the entire presentation - at least on a par with "Westside Story" and "Fiddler on the Roof."

The New York Times calls it, "A musical about chasing your dreams and finding your true home, with enough energy to light up the George Washington bridge!"

Writer/actor (singer/dancer/rapper) Lin-Manuel Miranda stopped for a picture after the performance of this top Broadway hit. What an extrodinarily talented cast of dancers and singers! One critic described "In the Heights" as "pure musical theater." We could easily seen it again - and probably will in the next year.

See a few video clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRNzUcG-zWI&feature=related p://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=6965146

Lin-Manuel Miranda posed for a photo after the show.
What a very cordial you man..and an extraordinary talent!

Long Island Beauty - Sagamore Hill

Our friends, the Wests, told us to go see the blossoms at beautiful Oyster Bay. We did. While sightseeing we spotted a sign - Sagamore Hill Historical Site. We had no idea what it was. We drove 3.8 miles. What an experience!

Theodore Roosevelt spent many summers of his youth on extended vacations with his family in the Oyster Bay area. (They lived in New York City.) In 1880, at the age of 22, Roosevelt purchased 155 acres for $30,000 on Cove Neck, a small peninsula two miles north of Oyster Bay. He hired an architectural firm to design a family home - all completed for $16,975.

The house and its surrounding farmland became the primary residence of Theodore and Edith Roosevelt and their children for the rest of their lives - being called " The Summer White House" during the seven summers Roosevelt spent there as President of the United States. Roosevelt died at Sagamore Hill in January 1919. His widow continuted to live in this lovely home until her death in 1948.

Come visit - walk through the rolling fields, look for wildlife, examine the giant windmill...or come up to the porch of this magnificant Queen Anne home and sit in one of the over-sized wooden rockers. We're just a short 30-minute drive away.

"Blossoms at Sagamore Hill"

Have you ever stood under a flowering cherry tree and looked straight
up? It's a perfectly inspiring moment...

Silk-soft pink blossoms
Puff out on thin black branches
Against the blue sky

-Japanese Haiku by Sister Sharon de Paula

Jodi and Jalaire in the Marriott Hotel Lobby

Jodi Losee McEwan must have really missed her visiting teacher! She traveled all the way from Highland Utah to visit for two hours.

Jodi and her sister Jalaire Taylor had been in Washington D.C. to drop off Jodi's 11-year-old daughter for a week-long People to People Program and were visiting historical sites in the east.

Jodi's only wish while in the east was "to visit Sharon in New York." We met at this gorgeous Manhattan Marriott on Lexington and 49th St. where they were staying. We found a little deli close by where we should have paid rent for the length time we were there. We chatted and laughed..and...oh, did I mention laughed? So fun!