Week 6

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
February 7-13, 2011

We went in to volunteer at the Jenkintown library this week. Starting next week we’ll help out on Thursday mornings. The place isn’t exactly Hogwarts-like, but there are really old portraits hanging above the bookshelves on the walls and at the bottom of each frame there is a little brass plaque that probably has a name of the person in the portrait but both the painting and the plaque are so darkened with the soot of age it is impossible to figure out who are these people. There is a big double sided fireplace in the middle of the library that must have once been very inviting on these cold winter days. The cracked varnish on the ancient looking library tables has been scratched with the names and notes of thousands of people who must have studied there over the years. Mounted on the tables there are 1920’s style reading lights with green shades. I think we will enjoy working there even if there are no magical or secret books.
We went for dinner at a member of the branch presidency’s home. They invited another couple. We were the oldest but not by so much and we had a nice visit. They were vegetarians apparently. They didn’t want us to bring anything but we brought along some flowers and who knows but we might have eaten them too..
Sister Blattman made an impression at the beauty parlor when she got her hair cut yesterday. She overheard the woman at the desk tell the stylist that the ’nun’ wanted her hair cut. Everywhere we go we are like walking billboards for the church, but our name tags are so small that it sometimes comical to watch people keep making furtive glances at our chests, or screw up their faces trying to focus on the small lettering. I guess small badges make for second looks.
The car needed new motor mounts and one can spend only so much time at PepBoys looking at car magazines so we took a walk. We climbed over piles of snow and ice, shivering in the wind until we found a Hoagie shop run by an Indian or Pakistani where we had our second Philly Cheese. So far Arby’s wins the contest for sliced meat sandwiches. It was so cold with the wind that on the way back we ducked from store to store trying to warm up. When we finally got back, Sister Blattman made a friend in the waiting room at PepBoys and gave her a Mormon.org card.
We had dinner with three other senior couples at the mission president’s home last night. We felt like the odd ones out in what could only be described as an odd group. Double negatives in this case do not make a positive. Nonetheless, the food was good and the company was pleasant. One senior couple is planning to recycle and serve what will be, if one counts their mission as youth, their fifth time.
Class size is increasing slowly but steadily. We went from zero to two in one class, and one to two in another with a promise of more people coming this week. Our students range from graduate dental students to unemployed young people living in pretty ghetto conditions. But all seem to have a testimony of the gospel and hope in the future.