{ new york - part five }

Sundays in New York were really fun. We went to church with the local ward and it was very neat to see what the church is like out there (still true).

On our first Sunday there, we rode the subway and then walked a few blocks. We weren't positive where we were going, so we were quite proud when we found the building and were even five minutes early. Unfortunately, as we were about to walk in the door, Orva did a big stink. Brad was packing her and reached down to hold her leg and came up with quite a mess on his hand. We realized her stink was dripping onto the sidewalk...and here we are trying to walk into church. People were in front of us and behind us and the missionaries were standing at the door shaking hands. I started laughing and frantically trying to find some wipes to make it stop dripping and to at least get it off of Brad's hand. We scurried into the church and found a bathroom. Brad didn't think he could clean both himself and Orva up, and I didn't want to take Orva and get it all over me. The three of us ended up going into the men's bathroom together to take care of the situation. Yes, several men came in to use the bathroom during the process of cleaning up - we sent them away. You can see pretty well in the picture how bad the blowout really was. It took us so long to get all cleaned up that we walked into the chapel just as the sacrament was being passed. We kept to ourselves in the back so that nobody would smell us and then notice that Brad's shirt had turned yellow and Orva was only in a onesie instead of her fancy Sunday clo. The pack was in such bad shape that we couldn't even carry her home in it. I managed to come through the ordeal unscathed.



My boss's penthouse was within walking distance of the temple. The local ward there meets in a chapel at the temple, so the Sunday we were staying there, we walked along the border of Central Park to get to the temple and go to church. It was really beautiful. When we got there, however, there was a sign on the door saying that the chapel was under construction and church was not being held there. The other locations were too far away to get to in time, so we decided to take a long walk home through Central Park (and of course we were not pleased about the fact that we didn't have to go to church, but still got the benefit of trying). While we were outside the temple, we did take a few pictures.







The Allens (my sister and her family) had come up to join us for some sight-seeing and they came to church (tried to, anyway) with us. Loren went far away across the street to try to get the picture of us with the whole temple. We realized while he was taking the picture that the rest of us must look quite silly. We were standing there on the street corner with quite a group (Brad, Orva, and I along with Laura and her five kids) posing and smiling. Anybody walking by would not have realized that we were posing for the photographer across the street. We laughed very hard at how ridiculous we must have looked.

*While we were looking ridiculous posing for the picture, Brad set our diaper bag down behind us. An hour later, as we were walking through the park, we realized we didn't have it. Brad remembered where he set it so he RAN back to try and find it. The whole time he was gone, I started to realize just how bad it would be if he lost it. My phone was in it and BOTH of our wallets were in it. Brad even had a lot of cash in the money clip on the outside of his wallet (sitting in an outside pocket of the bag...pretty much in plain view). I was flying home the next day...but all my ID and our credit cards were in the bag. I was already planning on having to miss my flight and just go home with Laura until we figured it all out. Then I started to think about losing the actual bag (my coveted giraffe print) and got REALLY sad. However, Brad rejoined us about an hour later with incredible news. He'd gone back to the temple and the bag was not there. He'd walked up and down the street trying to find it - looking in garbage cans and such. Finally he realized my phone had been in it so he just started calling it over and over again. After several tries, a police officer answered. Someone had turned the bag into him and he'd already sent it in to the police station. Brad caught a subway, went to pick it up, and came home with the diaper bag intact and full of all its contents - including the cash in the outside pocket. Amazing! I was so grateful...


Our Sunday Walk in Central Park










The Allen Family Visit

Make a Smilebox photobook