Week 11

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
March 13-19, 2011

Sunday, we spoke in sacrament meeting in the inner-city ward, named the ‘Independence Ward.’ The name probably derives from the historic area, Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and Independence Mall, but it might also reflect the independent nature of the people. There are certainly a lot of distinct individuals. I guess you’ve got to be tough to be a church member in a war-torn area. The crazy guy who calls himself the ‘ward president’ wasn’t there to tell everyone to sit down and be quiet, but all were fairly reverent even without his coercion.
Tuesday we went to Valley Forge with our director for CES as part of our ‘cultural excursions’. He is very thoughtful and kind to us. (no photos yet) We went to the home that George Washington rented for his headquarters and saw the area of encampment. It is a beautiful park with open areas, deer, walking paths, monuments, etc. We plan to go back and get more detail now that we’ve figured out how to get there. We are close to many of important historic sites but it isn’t like Nevada where you can see it for 40 miles away or you are on the only road in the valley and know it will get you there.
Salt Lake City has LDS chapels almost on every block. Jenkintown, PA, has Jewish synagogues at about the same frequency. There are two stores in town that exclusively sell Jewish items. The grocery store has displays of foods for Passover. Libraries and bookstores have tables with books about Jewish traditions. It is all very interesting but also very complicated. The synagogue across the street from our apartment has a museum associated with it. We’ll have to check it out.
Good news this week: Our apartment building will have air conditioning. We are told that they shut off the boilers for hot water to the radiators and switch over to cold water pumped through the system. I’ve never heard of such a thing. It is especially nice in that we won’t have to pay extra utilities for the AC.

Checkers = chicken, Liberty Man = taxi advertisement

Week 10

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
March 6-12, 2011

Saturday we left our mission boundaries – to go to the Washington DC temple. We took a couple young adults from the Susquehanna Branch along to do baptisms while we enjoyed an endowment session. We didn’t do any sightseeing beyond the temple. It’s a very impressive building, much larger and imposing than it appears in photographs. The smooth marble exterior shoots straight up out of the hilltop like a building from the Crystal City. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera.
On Friday we took the train down to the city center to see the Liberty Bell. There was no way I was going to discard my pocketknife to enter the building so we stood outside and pressed our faces against the glass to peer at it between the bodies of the weaponless wimps inside. Anyway, the real fun of this trip was riding the train and finding our way around the maze of buildings. Next time, to emulate Nicholas Cage and ‘National Treasure’ we’ll go out onto the grass of the mall, triangulate a position from landmarks, and bury the pocketknife. Then make a map…. Unfortunately, we again forgot the camera, another reason to return.
Here are some other photos from when we did remember to bring our camera. The first picture is of the library where we volunteer on Thursday mornings. The little part of the building in front was erected in 1810. All of the churches in Jenkintown started in that little building before they built their own churches. The next photo “Divine Lorraine”, we have no idea of what it means except it shines over North Philly. The last photo is of the William Penn statue which was supposed to be the highest point in Philly until they build lots of taller buildings around him. We drove down town after our Wednesday morning class but stopping and getting out seemed out of the question at the time.

some birthdays!

We have had some birthdays in our home these last few weeks.

Morgan turned 9 and Emily turned 11.

I have started to realize that my girls are turning into beautiful Young Women. I get a little misty eyed thinking about them in this way...where did the time go?

But then I realize this has been happening before my very eyes...

Emily came home the other day and ask me where I thought she should go to college...I stumbled a little since I had not even began to think about this. "Well," she says, "I think I want to go to BYU Idaho. That is a good place, right?"

You know, it is a good place and if there is her goal in the 5th grade....well, I say a prayer of thanks!

Morgan said in the car that one of her guy friends and her decided that "it was a Christian thing".

"What is?" I replied.

"I can't even remember now," she says, "But then my friend said 'But you are Morman...'"

"Oh?" says I...

Morgan says, "I told him I was Christian, TOO...and he said NO I wasn't cause I was Morman..."

She paused a little as if she was a little uncertain of what to make of this, so I said, "Well, you are a Christian since you believe in Jesus Christ. Next time he talks about this with you, you should let him know."

"Ok, that makes sense..." says Morgan.

I was pleased that Morgan had some foundation to say she was a Christian and help her little friend understand. But even more amazed that she was having what I consider a large conversation in the 3rd grade...guess that is a sign of the times.

Week 9

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
February 28 – March 5, 2011

The New Church – the Swedenborgs
Last Saturday we went to the Bryn Athyn Cathedral of The New Church, the Pitcairn castle like homes; Glencairn, and Cairnwood. Imagine being so wealthy that you could build a castle to keep your collection of medieval artifacts and Christian relics. Imagine that you could take the pictures of a castle from a fairy tale book and turn it into your home. Then, on the rolling hills down from your castle on the hill, build yourself a real gothic cathedral and fill it with the most beautiful stained glass (you do own PPG – Pittsburg Plate Glass), intricate wood carvings, and marvelous metal castings. Then to complete the picture, you have your own farm, school, and lovely little community for the people who attend the cathedral services. It is truly a beautiful place, idyllic like old European made new in America in the first half of the 20th century. In all its beauty and pomp, there is a hollow tone to the place.
We toured the grounds amazed at the art, Egyptian, Greek, Byzantine, French, German, and English artifacts. In some cases, carved shrines were lifted along with the surrounding castle stones from their European castles and put right in to the walls of Glencairn. We were given a tour of the cathedral by a member of the New Church and the members seemed to be largely devoted to worship of the beautiful architecture and ceremony of the cathedral and that any specific church doctrines mentioned were bland and almost incidental to the worship. It certainly would be an awe inspiring place to attend Sunday services. The grounds and buildings are kept immaculately clean and in good repair. There is free gourmet coffee (how I hate to miss out on free stuff) and there are no fees except for one special tour. There must yet be a large endowment from the Pitcairn family or other rich church members still in place.
We took these photos.

Week 8

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
February 21-27, 2011

Apartment Living
As we drove home from class last night I commented that I don’t worry about passing up our apartment building because we approach in the darkness it looms up in my imagination in front of us like a great ocean liner. Nana, steeped as she is in the scriptures lately, remarked that it looks to her like the ‘great and spacious building’ from Lehi’s dream. There is an iron fence around the complex but it’s nothing a person can hold on to.
Apartment buildings are ‘great and spacious buildings’ where strangers live closely without interacting very often. We try to break the unspoken rules of apartment anonymity of non-engaging each other and we give a cherry ‘Hello!’ in the elevator once in a while. At first we grinned at everyone and ‘Hello-ed’ like the fresh country bumpkins we really are, but now we give more business-like greetings, “Good Morning”, etc. Otherwise, in quiet mode, we all just stand so close in the elevator we can smell each other’s deodorant yet we pretend the others are not there.
The doors in our hallway all have louvers that vent the smell of what’s cooking among the 25 families on our floor. Stepping out of the elevator reveals tantalizing aromas of corned beef & cabbage, exotic Korean dishes, & baking cookies (that’s Nana). It’s a mystery how can we all be so intimate and yet so distant. Some days when we enter our floor it’s like coming into the church for a potluck dinner only everyone has taken their hot-dish into separate classrooms.
Down Town
Saturday Nancy had a Relief Society service project to make blankets to give to the hospitals for new-borns. I used the time to clean trash from around the building. The church really is a lighthouse in this area of the city. People really seem to want to just come in and relax with other members. In the evenings the foyer often has people sitting there talking as if they were in a living room at home. We’ve had two non-members who have come in to our classes and take part like everyone else. The basketball court is especially important in the inner-city. It’s in use most every evening.
We took a sister home after class the other night. It turned out to be quite a distance that she would have had to ride the bus and then walk through a neighborhood that was pretty scary. In the daylight the streets look just narrow and dirty. At night, they look dark and ominous. Every corner has imagined menaces. Last night Nana made dinner for a woman who was bedridden after surgery and we again made the journey into the dark streets of North Philly. When we got to the public housing, Nana hopped right out and went over to a group of young men to ask for directions to the correct apartment. The boys were friendly and helpful. The bedridden woman’s door wasn’t locked (she couldn’t have gotten up to open it) and Nana went right up. I think our fears are generated from watching too many episodes of “COPS” on TV. Sister B is in front of the church. Brother B is on the road behind the church.

Week 7

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
February 14-20, 2011

Sister Blattman has been cooking up a storm this week. She fed the Elders who live next door, made refreshments for our classes, baked loads of cookies for Zone Conference, and finished off with cream puffs for the singles branch ‘Munch and Mingle’ this afternoon. With all this baking our apartment has been toasty warm. And even though she isn’t excited about cooking, the both of us are still quite fond of eating.
Our service time at the library was short this week. We will have to build some trust there so the librarians will let us work during the hours the library is open to the public. The librarian has us enter by the back door before hours and as soon as it opens we are ushered out. Maybe they think we’ll be peeping through the stacks at people and saying stuff like, “Hey buddy, want a free Book of Mormon?”
Joseph Bannano was baptized Sunday (20th) in our branch. He claims he is no relation to the Italian mobsters from New Jersey but he’s a big guy, he looks tough, and he definitely speaks with a Jersey accent. There seems to be lots of converts in this mission compared to home. There are many Africans, African Americans (not the same groups and not always friendly to each other) as well as Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Koreans, and other nationalities that predominate some of the wards here.
A couple times for our daily exercise we have walked about the neighborhood and admired the big old turn of the century homes. There must once have been some sort of zoning ordinance that homes had to be made of stone, 3 stories over basements, and about 40’ wide x 40’ deep. Even subtracting for the thick stone walls, these homes must all have over 6000 sq. ft. of living space. The narrow roads in the neighborhood were built, we are told, following cow trails along creeks between rolling hills. When we walk along we are often on sidewalks with stone retaining walls and we look even farther up on the hillsides to see the big stone homes surrounded by huge trees. Some trees have branches that stretch over the roadway and shade the neighbor’s yards.
A minor miracle has happened to Elder Blattman this week. The dentist’s office manager called at the last minute and said there was a problem with too many appointments and could he wait a few days for the root canal. It felt like the governor calling at 5 minutes before midnight to reprieve an inmate on death row. Meanwhile, although tender to cold, the pain has all but disappeared. It may not be on the scale of raising Lazarus from the dead but we are counting it down as at least a tender (pun okay) mercy. More than the healing miracle, it saved us $1200 since we no longer have dental insurance.
We’ve picked up more students in our classes, nearly doubling the numbers from last week. Some of our students are from the poorer part of Philly and ride a train to get to class. We are starting to feel the pressure to keep up in lesson preparation. If we were smarter it wouldn’t take us so long to develop our plans and make our power point slides.
Keep up the letters and art work. Our apartment walls and cupboards are starting to look more homey. If we get enough children’s art work on our walls we can call our apartment a gallery and charge admission.

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.

Week 5

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
January 30-February 6, 2011

After feeding the Elders yesterday evening they split up and we took one of the Elders to meet Milton and his family. Milton could easily have been named ‘Rocky’ as his small living room in a crowded Philly suburb was filled with trophies and belts from boxing. Both the dad and the oldest boy were Miltons and both had impressive boxing records. The younger Milton, just 10 years old, had recently returned from Puerto Rico where he had won his third world boxing championship.
At first the dad sat slumped on the couch still in his work clothes, perhaps just tired, but letting his wife answer all the Elder’s questions. He occasionally gave short one word responses. The missionary was explaining many of the things from Preach My Gospel about enduring to the end, that is, the temple, patriarical blessings, the priesthood, etc. Sister Blattman asked them how they came to join the Church. The mom first started to tell the story and then he took over the thread of the story in a strong Philly accent. It was like listening to a humble Sylvester Stallone. He had read the Bible as a youth and had an intuitive understanding of the plan of salvation. His Pentecostal minister couldn’t answer his questions. One day after a big snow storm, the Elders were shoveling snow in his neighborhood and they met on the sidewalk. When they taught him the plan of salvation he knew the Church was true. He read the Book of Mormon and they became active for a time but had drifted into inactivity until recently. During the lesson the missionary mentioned father’s blessings and one of the little boys asked for a blessing to help him win his wrestling match. The Elder stuttered a moment, perhaps concerned that Milton didn’t have the Melchezidec Priesthood, and I jumped in and said, “Sure, you can have a blessing.” The father responded to the invitation to stand in and we ended up giving a blessing to two of the boys. Milton opened up after that and told us about growing up, moving away, and then returning to the neighborhood. He had been a sober young man who, unlike his friends, read the Bible often, and he attended the Pentecostal church. As a young man, a coach took an interest in him and sponsored him in wrestling and boxing and even paid his way to tournaments. That saved him from some of the trouble that could have entangled him. We enjoyed making friends with this family.

Week 4

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
January 23-29, 2011

We made it. The GPS only had to say, “Turn around as soon as possible,” a few times. Once, just outside the Mortenson’s house in Louisville, KY, an exit ramp was parallel to the roadway we were to turn on and Elder Blattman started up the freeway the wrong way but God protects missionaries and blesses their mistakes so we don’t have to sing “…and should we die before our journey’s through,” nor do Elder and Sister Blattman’s children have to suffer the humiliation if their parents had made national news for causing a massive traffic pileup as confused aged drivers going the wrong way on the freeway.
Our apartment is lovely. The Elders proudly brought us a desk without legs, a dining table without chairs, and a dresser without handles. Sister Blattman is enduring it with all the cheeriness of a newly minted-fresh-from-the-MTC missionary. The second night when we slept in the bedroom we awoke to a noise and Sister Blattman said it was just the heater fan. Elder Blattman checked and found the heater fan control door was painted shut so it couldn’t be that. In fact, there was little and no heat from the radiator. The wind from outside was blowing the blinds. The windows are old and loose with gaps for the wind to howl through. Last evening the maintenance man came again, banged on the radiator pipes, twisted a few valves, put his tools back in his bag, threw up his hands and said, “I dunno, it just laughs at me,” and left. Meantime, the plastic on the windows and the space heater is keeping us warm. And between Home Depot and Wal-Mart, we have everything we need to be happy.
Elder Blattman is a little embarrassed at the comfort he felt when walking into Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is universal; the same funny looking people, the same cheap stuff, and for us old folks, our prescriptions can be filled at any Wal-Mart in the USA. Ahhh! There’s a little of Homer S. in all of us.
There was a bit of culture shock for us at the inner-city ward meeting Sunday. A nicely dressed black man with a headband greeted us at the door saying he was president of the ward and to be seated, the other leaders would be here soon. Someone whispered to us, “Don’t mind him, he’s harmless. He thinks he runs the place.” We sat across the aisle from an evidently homeless man who could not quite make words to speak but waved his hands about in a friendly, welcoming way. We were expecting racial diversity but surprised at the mental problems. The Church’s Addiction Recovery Program was mentioned several times in the talks and lessons. The Bishop told stories of in the past having to post men in the hallways to protect the building during sacrament meeting. As we prepared for our class there this morning I shoveled snow on the sidewalk out front and cleaned off a brass plaque in the cement commemorating a policeman killed in the line of duty, presumably on that spot. Sister Blattman is comforted by the gated parking lot surrounded by a tall iron fence. There is a Burger King adjacent to the church so after class next week she will find solace in a Coca-Cola and I’ll find mine in a double Whopper.
We are on the internet now. We got a stick for the computer that connects us on 4G. We have no idea what 4G is, but it sounds impressive to tell people. We’ve Skyped to Matt and Heather so far. Sister Blattman is the tech wizard on that one. Feel free to email us or try Skype. Keep in mind we go to bed about 6:30 PM PST.
Home Sweet Home:
Elder and Sister Blattman
100 Old York Road APT E204
Jenkintown, PA 19046

Week 3

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
January 17-23, 2011

Here’s our CES group on the first week. Some couples in the group were leaving to be coordinators and office staff, others left to run programs on military bases, some were called to operate youth centers in Europe, a couple couples were teacher trainers in the South Pacific, and only a few were called specifically as teachers for Seminary and Institutes. There were all sorts of personalities in this group. The couple going to New Zealand were very pleased with their assignment. The couple that didn’t get selected for that assignment seemed a little miffed. For many couples this was their second or third mission.

The next photo is of our MTC district taken at the traditional world-wide photo spot. In the photo it looks like there’s a UFO sighting on the map somewhere in the South Pacific just below Elder Curtis’ right ear. Which reminds me that I realized during training that old men are generally not very funny. Our jokes are often in a context no one else is sharing or part of some obscure reference that hardly anyone understands. For example, if I were to call some wattled and jowled old codger with deep creases that push the edges of his mouth together so he looks like one of those wooden soldier nutcrackers a (I’ve lost you already haven’t i); well, if I were to call this old guy a ‘’Howdy Doody” it’s likely you might think I was just saying a quaint “Hello.” And then to explain it with, “Well, when I was a boy there was a black and white TV program for children...” I’m sure there would be some great arcing eye-rolls or that the squinty-eyed-tight-jawed look of someone stifling a yawn. We aren’t dumb, us old farts, we can see those stifled looks just like we could tell when you were getting ready to poop in your diaper, but we tell the joke anyway. Some of us old guys can’t slap you young folks anymore for your insolence, but we can still inflict pain with pithy jokes.
The newly minted Elder and Sister Blattman have been feeling somewhat like fish out of water so we’re adapting to walk on land. Here’s Elder Blattman prepared to go to the gym to exercise. Sister Blattman took to the circular track while her companion tried the machines.