First Week in Philly

We have been in Philadelphia for one week now and are almost settled in. We are happy where we are and have met wonderful people and are excited and engaged in the work already.  Here are some of the things that have happened over the last two weeks.  In the future I will publish once a week so the blog will be shorter. We didn't have internet until last Wednesday night.

    Making the Long Drive

We left a day earlier than planned due to snow coming to Utah.We played tag with a storm during our drive.Since we planned on meeting Ashley in Denver we didn’t have to push too hard, just enough to stay ahead of the storm. It was fun to spend the evening with her and Ed’s sister and her family who live in the Denver area.

It was interesting that we began ahead of the storm and then it passed over us while we slept in Independence, Missouri but we caught up to it as we drove to Columbus, Ohio to spend the night.  There was only about 20 minutes of really heavy rain during which Ed kept telling me that we should be out of it because he was looking at weather.com on his phone.  After a few minutes of this he went quiet and then announced to me, “Oh, my phone had just updated and we were in the middle of it.”  (“Yes, yes we are!”)

Not a great shot for focus, but the rainbow was awesome....

I drove most of the way, but on day five I decided I needed a rest.  It was in the evening and we were about 50 miles away from our destination and driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike so I asked Ed to drive.  I was able to relax see the beautiful sunset and rainbow along the way, even if it was through the rear view mirror on the passenger side.  

1     Moving In

Elder and Sister Christiansen emailed us on Sunday to say they had moved out of the apartment so we could come earlier if we wanted to.  It was a real blessing for us to be able to make the move on Sunday.  The apartment is very nice and the people at the building are as well.  It is a very secure building with a security person at the front desk 24/7.  These people are awesome.  This is a large building (350 +/- apts) and they know the first names of everyone.  There is only one way into the building and a key fob is required to open the door right in front of the security officer or she/he has to recognize you and can buzz you in.  We met Teresa on Sunday night and Brenda Monday morning.  They were very welcoming.  Everyone seemed to know that we were replacing the Christiansen’s and why we are here.  Nice!

We were able to get set up and wake up Monday morning ready to go.  It was fun to wake up to the sun coming up over the buildings. This is our view from the bedroom every morning for the next year!

1     Lunch At The Mission Office

Monday morning the weather was warming and clear. Elder Moulder and I drove our car over to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. We had our first taste of the work as we spent a couple of hours with the Christiansen’s talking through the work process.  At 11AM we all got into our car and the Christiansen’s trusted me to drive them around while they told us about getting to places that we might need. We used the GPS in our car to direct us to the mission office and Elder Christiansen kept saying I don’t recognize anything about the way we are going until we finally turned toward a street he recognized which was about 2 blocks from the mission home. 

We were met there by President Randall and his wife in the parking lot as it turned out and then the office couples and the young missionaries who are assistants to the President.  We felt very welcomed. We had lunch and then learned a little bit about each other after which we had a brief one-on-one with the President.  He asked us to continue to support the South Philadelphia Branch as the Christiansen’s had been doing.  We are happy to do so.

After we left the mission office we came back through town.  It was so confusing for me to be driving in a place with so much traffic and having no sense of reference for anything.  The roads are not straight and at one point I found myself in the middle of a 5 way intersection with red traffic lights around me and not knowing where to stop.  I stopped for a moment and then started again but I did so as the pedestrians and the bicyclists started across the street and one of them thought I was going to hit him and it was just not good.   

But we got through it and I didn’t kill anyone.

The Christiansen’s told us that they did their shopping in New Jersey because it was closer and faster so off we went across the Ben Franklin Bridge to another state to do our shopping.  It was a wonderful shopping place; a huge mall with every store we could ever need right there.  At least we are still in our mission boundaries!

    First Full Day At HSP-Tuesday

We began the day by getting on the shuttle at the apartment and meeting our new best friend, Sam, who is the shuttle bus driver.  We will see him probably twice a day for year, except weekends.  This shuttle is for two apartment buildings owned by the same company.  The shuttle drops us one block from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP) and picks us up again at the end of the day. 

We had our pictures taken for our security badges and received them in the afternoon.  We began going through our work with the Christiansen’s helping us along the way.  They have things very well organized so there is a place for everything and everything is in its place. The only problem is that they were using the Zeutschel scanner exclusively because there was another couple on the Copibook scanner. I was trained on the Copibook scanner and Ed was trained on the Zeutschel so he has his own work area and I have another work area on the other side of the room.  Mostly the process of getting the material to scan, logging it, doing the scanning, completing the two audits needed, submitting the completed scans to Orem and returning the items to the stacks at HSP are the same, so we should be good to go!

Nora inside the stacks getting information from the boxes of papers to scan. Some of the boxes are quite heavy and I was worried about letting Ed get up on the ladder.  As it turns out, he is doing just fine! 

1      On Our Own - Wednesday

The Christiansen’s left this morning.  We are all alone with only one day training on site.  I think we did pretty well.  I only set off the alarm once by going through a door before using my badge….all the while I was reading the words: WARNING: FIRE EXIT ONLY, ALARM WILL SOUND. Yes the alarm did sound and I quickly shut the door and uttered a quick “I’m sorry” before using the badge and running through the door and up the stairs hoping no one would notice it was me.

    Apartment Set Up

Once we were on our own we began setting up our apartment with the things we thought we would need for the year.  Seriously the word “need” doesn’t really belong here because for the most part we could get by without some of the things we have ended up buying.

We do “need” the internet for email, finances and staying in touch with family.  We also were told that this mission is a “technology” mission so we need to be able to communicate with the Mission President and the other missionaries, etc.

Ed had made an arrangement with Comcast before we came out and all we had to do was go pick up some equipment at their office and then they would turn on our service.  Well…. Hook ups do not always go easily and there were a couple of days this past week that were frustrating to my sweet husband.  But, I am so proud of him and his perseverance to get everything working.  Of course we had to have a TV (because Elder Moulder doesn’t like watching things on a little screen) and a printer and both our computers set up with wireless access……the list of comforts just kept growing.

Flowers brought home by Elder Moulder for no particular reason.  Actually the person he bought them from asked if it was a special occasion and he responded, "No, I get them just in case...."

Our living room.  The window is facing east.

The one thing that has been a life saver was the purchase (on sale) of two comforters because it really did get cold here last week!!

Friday Snow Surprise

We knew that it was cold Friday morning going to work, but when we came out it was snowing!  This was unexpected and surprising. It was not anything that stayed very long, but it was blowing and kind of a weird type of snow Friday night.  

Sunday Meetings And Our New Branch

We were excited to meet our Branch President and the people we will be spending our next year with each week at worship services. The South Philadelphia Branch has a lot of young couples who are finishing up MBA programs or other types of graduate studies. Many were on spring break, so the attendance was low today.  

This is our meetinghouse.  It is branch new and is the Philadelphia Stake Center across the street from the temple.  This view is from our apartment next door.  We attend meetings here even though the South Philadelphia Branch we attend is part of the Valley Forge Stake which has stake meetings at another building farther from us.

We had a fabulous Gospel Essentials teacher names Todd Hemperley. Todd recently went to the temple for the first time a week ago.  He is unique because he is in a wheelchair with no arms or legs. He has little feet and operates his electric wheelchair with his left foot.  He has a wonderful grasp of what is most important. On the back of his wheelchair is a sign that reads:  I'M A MORMON.  ASK ME ANYTHING in big red caps.  He has asked us to sit with him on the front row next week so we can hold the hymnal for him.  We certainly will!

This is going to be an awesome mission!!

Evening view from our apartment of the famous statue of William Penn (on the top without a light shining on him) in downtown Philadelphia.