Mission Arrival and First Days in New York

We are happy to finally be here in New York. We want to share our first few days here with you:

Wednesday was our day to move into our temporary apartment in west Rochester. We also spent time shopping for food and a few necessities. That night we made our first visit to Palmyra, this trip, to attend a missionary meeting at the Hill Cummorah Visitors Center. It was great to meet the 15 senior couples who work at the historical sites and the 34 young sisters. There was no time to see any of the sites that night.
On Thursday and Friday we spent our time in the office learning our respective duties. Elder Servoss will be the financial secretary and Sister Servoss will be the secretary over correspondence, newsletters, travel. We were glad that we had the four days of training in Provo. We are starting to feel comfortable with our assignments. That night we drove out to the John Young home in Menden for a senior couples pot-luck dinner. We got to see couples again that we had met on Wednesday night. This is the home that we will move into in a month or so. It is in a beautiful setting in the country. We will tell more about it later. After dinner we walked to the site where Brigham Young was baptized. We also went to the cemetery where the father of Heber C. Kimball and grandfather of Spencer W. Kimball is buried. We also visited the Tomlinson Inn, where Brigham and his brother Phineas met Samuel Smith and were sold a Book of Mormon. These last two places are within a mile of our next residence.
On Saturday we made another trip to Palmyra (about 25 miles from our present apartment). We attended a temple session and then went back into the village of Palmyra to have lunch. We then toured the Grandin Press building, where the first copies of the Book of Mormon were published. It was very interesting to see how the first copies were printed and bound in 1830. We then went back to the Sacred Grove and walked along a path through that sacred spot. There were a few rain drops falling and that made the walk very interesting. Next we drove a few miles to the Hill Cummorah. We drove to the top of the hill to where the Moroni statue is. Elder Servoss chose to walk back to the visitors center along the forested path. He tried to imagine what Joseph saw that wonderful day on the hill.
Today, Sunday, we drove to Pittsford to attend church. The Pittsford Ward is a large building, like you would see in Utah. Those members were very friendly and we enjoyed our time there. We may be assigned to another Ward or Branch once we move closer. The Ward building is only about a mile from our mission office (and both are about 17 miles from our present apartment).
We look forward to the coming week. We have four Zone Conferences this week, and we will be involved with them all. I will help inspect the 40 vehicles that we have. We look forward to meeting more of the young missionaries. Those that we have met so far are outstanding. It seemed a little odd to see the Assistants to the President (AP’s) driving a grey Ford Silverado pick-up. Mostly there are cars, but at least one of the Zone Leaders also have a truck. It should be an interesting week.
A mission is a wonderful place to be and we so love being able to serve once again. The gospel is true and we are thrilled to be here in the cradle of the restoration area.