Christmas in Chicago...

Christmas 2009

Being away from your family on Christmas was harder than we thought it would be.  This is especially true since last Christmas Eve, we ALL spent the night together!  Knowing that Christmas would be our LAST in our house of 23 years, it was a GREAT idea and we had a ton of fun doing it.  Here is a picture of all 19 of us (including our butler.. Egor, last row on the right).


Chicagoan's are a lot like Salt Lakers when it comes to seeing Christmas lights, however, instead of going to see Temple Square, they head downtime.  They either go up and down the Magnificent Mile or State Street or both. Wanting to "experience" Christmas in Chicago, we decided to head downtime one evening after all our appointments.  We had seen some of the lower part of Michigan Ave with its lights, but thought we ought to check out the rest of downtown. They hold a celebration called "Christkindlmarket" at Daley's Plaza which is located on Dearborn and Washington. It's a German market that offers unique crafts, gifts and a variety of entertainment, as well as German food and drinks. 

Tribune Building

On the way down, I took some pictures of some of the buildings and their lights.  The Chicago Tribune building is the white skinny one in the picture at the right.

The Chicago River looks a little bit on the cold-side, but kind of cool with all the lights around it.

Chicago River

The walk down to Daley's Plaza is about a 1.5 mile one-way.  Since we were down that way, we tried to stop by and see one of the 1st Ward's prospective elders.  However, the doorman (lady) said it was a business, however, the business hadn't been there for some time.  We opted to give her the Church DVD and little cake we had for him.  She was very appreciative.

Main Macy's Store

As we headed down State Street, we stopped to take a picture of the decorations on Macy's downtown store (it used to be the Marshall Fields Store).  It was a pretty crowded night.  Many families come downtown to look at the lights and attend the Christkindlmarket.

Chicago Theater

Just down the street from Macy's is the Chicago Theater. This theater holds live performances like Bill Cosby and Glenn Beck. It's a neat old theater, we may just have to check it out sometime.


We decided to head into the Macy's store.  We had visited the Marshall Fields Store back in 1984 when we came through Chicago on our way back East to attended the Hill Cumorah Pageant. It's an amazing building.  Everything is done on such a LARGE scale.

Macy's Ceiling

Macy's Decorations

Macy's Tree

At the Christkindlmarket 

We finally made it down to Daley Plaza to check out the German market.  It was pretty crowded and we didn't really go in & out of shops, but rather just walked around.  They had street performers that we watched and just kind of soaked in the atmosphere.  Luckily, it wasn't that cold of a night, so walking around looking at all the booths was enjoyable.  If it wasn't so crowded, it might have been fun to have checked each one out.

Tree at German Market

On some of the corners, they even had puppet shows going on.  I videoed one of them for a brief time.  The kids watching them were really getting into it.

We stayed downtown for a couple of hours. Around 10pm we decided to head home.  By this time, we had put probably 3-4 miles on our feet so we decided to take the subway home.  We grabbed the Red Line on State Street and took it to Clark & Division which is just a couple of blocks from our apartment.

Thursday night, we drove around to many of the Prospective Elders (PE) we have visited and those that didn't have any family in town, we invited them to attend our Christmas Brunch.  Terry (the lady in the wheel chair with MS) and Allan, a 72 year-old PE both said they would come, as did a couple of the Sisters from the Single's Branch that didn't have any family in town.  Of course the full-time Elders (Buckway & Otto) will be there as well.

As we drove back home, we stopped at the Walgreens just down the street from us.  As I walked in, I had a lady give me a GREAT quote.  We seem to get that once in a while.  Usually, it's about our name tags.  When we are in stores, we frequently get asked where things are located, since they see our tags and think we must work there.  Anyway at the Walgreens that night, I had a lady provide me a classic, that will SURELY be a "journal entry."  I think she was probably several bricks less than a full load.  As I walked by her, she looked up and said, "I don't NEED a name tag, I KNOW who I am!"  Good point, can't argue with that.

Friday night we Skype'd/Face Timed some of our kids/grandkids before going to bed.  We woke up to a White Christmas!  We found out that it had been 13 years since the last one here in Chicago!  We figured we must have just brought the snow with us from SLC.  We spent the morning getting read for our Brunch.  Jenny and her family Skype'd us while they opened their presents, then they watched while we opened a gift from them.

The two single Sisters that came to our Brunch were Tamry Juntunen and Charity Beatrice.  Tamry is a Psychologist, while Charity is a Criminal Defense Lawyer. Now that is SOMETHING I'd like to see. She's about 

4' 10" and skinny as a rail.

Later in the day we talked to the kids for a brief time and saw some of the gifts they got for Christmas. Did I tell you it was difficult being away from our kids and grandkids on Christmas?  Because of technology, we were able to see them, but what we REALLY wanted to do was HUG them!  All of them.

Later that night, while the full-time Elders were still here, Yasna (the Bosnian investigator from our building) came up for a short visit.  We were just getting ready to watch some Church DVD's with the Elders when she came.  So we had her sit down and watch them with us.  We watched "Joy to the World," and then, I put in "Reflections of Christ."  Yasna has a strong testimony of Jesus Christ so she really enjoyed these DVD's.  She even told us of a miracle that had happened in her childhood. She saw the picture of Joseph Smith that we have on our wall and asked who that was.  Sister Beck said that it was Joseph Smith, the first prophet of our church. The Elders asked if she'd like to learn more about him in another visit to her apartment and she said, "yes."  I decided that while they were talking, I'd just put in the DVD on the restoration.  She seemed to be very interested in it.  Normally, she seems to lose focus easily, but she really paid attention to this DVD.  When were we done, she asked questions about our church and our meetings.  She was happy to know that women participated and spoke in church and that all the members donated their time without pay to serve in the church. She said that was the way it should be. It was a GREAT way to end Christmas.  She is coming up again tomorrow (New Year's Eve) for dinner, another discussion, and to have the Elder's give her a Serbian Book of Mormon.  We'll keep praying for her because she really needs the gospel in her life.  She has committed to attend church with us this Sunday.

A “somewhat normal” week

Postscript to our 5 guy’s story: (Elder Swope & Elder Gonzalez, from the Logan Square Ward, met with the young man and his family the next week.  After the 1^st lesson, his wife, his son, and his brother committed to be baptized in January!

On Monday of this week, they had us join them for the lesson on the Plan of Salvation.  It was an incredible experience and they all committed to attend Sacrament Meeting with us in the Logan Square Building!  Sister Beck and I got to actually participate in the teaching.  Sister Beck shared the story of how Christ acts as our Mediator with the Father to allow us to return to him.  This was very beneficial for the wife to help her understand Christ’s role in the Atonement.

As our Stake President discussed with the Lake Shore 1st Ward and Branch leadership the week we arrived, we are to "Gather & Strengthen Thousands of Souls unto Christ... one by one."  Through this miracle, we are doing just that.  

A “somewhat normal” week in the life of Senior (title only) Missionaries, Elder & Sister Beck:

Every week changes, so I’ll just give you last week.  Sunday, up at 7:30am, light breakfast, get ready for church, and leave the apt by 9:20am to walk 0.2 miles to catch the “Red Line” train at Clark & Division. Take the train north, one stop and get off at North & Clybourne.  Walk 0.4 miles to the Newberry Academy School where we hold church.

Attend Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School (Gospel Essentials) in the Lakeshore 1^st Ward, and then attend the Lakeshore Branch Sacrament Meeting.

Walk the 0.4 miles back to the “Red Line,” back to Clark & Division, walk the 0.2 miles back to the apartment. If we have any appointments with Inactives or Prospective Elders, take the car to church and go visiting right after. Eat dinner about 4:30-5:00 pm.

Spend the rest of the night in the apartment, unless there is an activity or meeting in either the ward or the branch.  Last week, it was driving over to the Logan Square Ward (5.5 miles away) to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional with members from the Ward and Branch.

Lake Shore Trail

Monday, up at 7:30am, dress warmly (morning temps are currently about 10-15 degrees). Leave the apartment by 8:15am and head out for our morning walk.  Most of these walks are to the Lake Shore Trail, however, frequently we head off to the post office or to the store.  This morning walk is usually our exercise for the day and is usually done for about 1 hour (which we usually walk about 3.2 miles). The trail is usually clear of snow and ice which makes it so enjoyable. If the wind is blowing hard off the Lake, we’ll find another route.

Cool Apt with Stained Glass Windows

We like heading up a street we’ve never been before to check it out.  The little 2-3 story homes have the coolest old architecture.

Home after our walk, we have morning prayer and breakfast.  We read our scriptures during breakfast.  Then, we study and plan our day.  If we have previously scheduled a visit to one of the members we are working with (Brother Ortiz or Sister Proudian) we focus our studying on what we’ll discuss with them that day.  If not, we’ll plan our visits based on the list we have been given by the ward and branch to visit and the location of them members.  We try to group them together so we can minimize either our walking or driving.  It’s not unusual to walk to Brother Ortiz (about 1.5 miles away) or Sister Proudian (0.7 miles).

Frequently, Monday’s are a ½ day “preparation day” where we’ll go do our laundry, but only late morning or early afternoon.  Sometimes everyone is doing their laundry on Monday and if so, we move our day to Tuesday.  We carry our 3 clothes baskets up 3 flights to the top floor of our apartment building where the laundry and exercise room are located.  We try to fit 3 batches in the washing machines and then 5 dryer loads.  If they all fit, we get our weeks laundry done in about 1 ½ hours while we study and plan our day. It costs us between $12-$15 each week to do our laundry.  This past week, Monday was our laundry day.

Based on who we are visiting and what their ages are we’ll visit mid-afternoon if they are retired or early evening if they are not.  We prefer mid-afternoon if possible since parking is so much better.  Even with that, if we have to park on the street, it usually costs between $2-$5; only to find out they aren’t home.  Very few do we call in advance for fear of them NOT answering the phone, some we do call but not many. 

Monday nights we started holding our “Empty Nesters FHE,” however, we found this was really the wrong time of year to start that… too many people out of town or too busy with the holidays.  So after a couple, we pushed it until after the first of the year.

Tuesday, same thing for our exercise.  If it is snowing or raining we’ll go up to the apt’s gym on the 32^nd floor and use the treadmill and bike to get our hour’s worth. Once a month on a Tuesday night, we meet with all the other Senior Missionaries and the Mission President and his wife at the Mission Home for dinner.  This is always a great time.  That was the case this past Tuesday.  All the Senior Missionaries take an assignment for dinner, this month I had volunteered Sister Beck to do the deserts.  She made Cheese Cakes and Éclairs.  Needless to say, they were a huge hit and someone recommended that she be in charge EACH month of the deserts, however, in January she has the main course. After dinner, we always play a game or something.  This month, we sang Christmas songs and told of our favorite Christmases.  Of course, ours was last Christmas when all 18 of us spent Christmas Eve together at our old house.  It will be a Christmas we’ll never forget.

Wednesday, same thing again for exercise.  You think we’d grow tired of an hour’s morning walk, but the city and the Lake Shore are so fascinating that we don’t.  Plus, the Lake Shore Trail is one of the places the city keeps clear of ice and snow, so it’s a good place to walk without killing yourself.  But for the first month or so, my feet took a while to toughen up, but I no longer have any blisters.

Wednesday afternoon we were scheduled to meet with Ben Ortiz, the Mexican man we are working with to get prepared to go to the temple.  He’s the one that has had a stroke and the left side of his body doesn’t work very well. Ben is a very visual kind of guy.  He loves reading (about all he does).  He especially loves reading church (ours and just about anybody else’s) literature on religion.  A week ago we had left him a couple of the conference talk Ensign and assigned him to read President Monson’s talk on the 3 R’s. 

Because he is so visual, I wrote out the Temple lesson on “Worthiness” and gave him all the scriptures to read regarding it.  We made that part of our lesson preparation after breakfast. 

We visited with Ben on Wednesday afternoon.  He not only read President Monson’s talk, he also read several others, including one on faith.  When we asked him to tell us about them, he said his 24 year old son’s girlfriend had taken the magazine and left him some religious DVD instead.  His son, Steven is inactive and so we are thinking the DVD’s are probably “anti-Mormon.”  He wanted me to hook up his DVD to work on his TV and I “on-purpose” forgot to.  We are planning to get him a subscription to the Ensign, so he’ll have good stuff to read.  However, he ALSO wanted us to get him a subscription to the “TRUMPET,” which I believe is a Jehovah Witnesses magazine.  We told him he needed to STOP reading all these other churches magazines (he also has several Catholic ones that I think his brother brings him by or he subscribes to.  He says all churches have good parts of them and we told him we agreed.  But we reminded him of what the Savior said to him in the Sacred Grove and if he believed Joseph Smith was a Prophet and that he had the first vision, then he needed to JUST read the restored gospel and NOT everything else because it was confusing him.  He agreed to try.  We’ll bring him December’s Ensign next week and hopefully the son or his girlfriend won’t take it.  He also wanted us to watch some religious DVD’s or VHS tapes with him (i.e. The Ten Commandments, The Bible, The Greatest Story Ever Told).  We told him we would bring some DVD’s with us when we came next week and watch them with him.

Wednesday night, we also tried to reach a Prospective Elder (P.E.) we have been having trouble getting to for some time because of never finding a parking place.  We finally made it to his address (after finding a pay parking spot about 3 blocks away).  His address was a rehab facility that said he was no longer there and he didn’t know where he had gone.  We also tried once more to reach another P.E. we have stopped by 3-4 times.  His name is on the buzzer that lets you in the building but he never answers it.  I had called him earlier in the day to let him know we had been trying to reach him and at least got his voice mail, so we know his number is correct.  Once again though, there was no answer.

We then dropped by Terry Proudian’s rehab facility and visited with her for about an hour.  We made sure she had a CD player (which she does) because we have purchased for her the Book of Mormon on CD’s since she has such a hard time reading with her MS.  We invited her to Christmas brunch and had a nice visit with her.  She needs some more clothes (she is always cold) and her doctor is getting her a new power wheelchair, her current one is SO outdated.

After meeting with her, we tried to contact another P.E. that lived close to Terry’s facility, but couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere so we decided we’d just walk up to his place another day from our apartment.

Then we headed right downtown to attempt to visit a P.E. that was a convert to the church.  We had a hard time getting through his doorman (it’s a real classy building).  The doorman kept telling the P.E. (Kevin Herman) that I was “Mr. Elder” from his church.  Finally, I got to talk to Kevin and explained who we were and he said we could come up for a few minutes.

View from Kevin's Apt

Kevin lived on the 58^th floor of this classy building.  He greeted us at the front door and invited us in.  Kevin is 55 and single.  His apartment was just a studio (about 600 sq ft) apartment with just about room for his bed, a small couch, TV and tiny kitchen, but oh what views.  He looked north and with a direct view of the Hancock Building and the Lake.  He also looked down on the top of several smaller cool building downtown.  He said if we thought the view were good from his apartment, we needed to come back in the summer and go on their sundeck on the top of the building where you had a 360 degree view of the city and lake.

We talked with Kevin about his relationship with the church.  He said he was converted about 10 years ago in Battle Creek, Michigan (where he grew up about 170 miles away) and then came to Chicago shortly thereafter to take a job and the Drake Hotel where he is still working.  He said he really didn’t have a need or time for the church right now in his life.  He goes home (to Battle Creek) almost every weekend to visit his two daughters and two grandchildren.

We told him about the Lake Shore 1^st Ward and how it was located more downtown than the previous ward and invited him out.  He didn’t commit, but we had a really nice visit with him.  He is really a nice guy and we hope to visit him again, either at his apartment or at the Drake (since we walk by it almost every day on our walk down to the Lake Shore Trail). We left him a small banana cake, Heidi had baked and iced and headed off home.  It would be really great to find someone in the ward that had some of the same interests as Kevin and have him make a new friend, in the ward.  We think he just came to the big city 10 years ago and got lost from the church.

Thursday, same morning activities as always.  While we were studying for the day, our Elders (Bryner & Buckway) stopped by.  We asked them if they had dinner plans for that night and they said no, so we invited them and thought it might be a good time to invite an investigator from our building.  The Elders had met this lady from Bosnia one night when they came over to coordinate some of our activities and member rosters.

Yasna was moving from a two bedroom apt in our building to a one bedroom because her mother had died in July and she no longer needs the bigger place.  The Elder’s helped her move and then she had them back to dinner where they gave her a discussion.  She said she was Christian, but had never been baptized in any church.  Heidi had gone down to visit her with the Elders after she moved and took her some turkey noodle soup and homemade rolls.

The Elders went down Thursday night and invited Yasna to join us and them for dinner at our apt.  We were just having Lentil Soup, Rolls, and Salad, so it was easy to fit them all in.  She joined us and we got to know her a lot better.  She is really suffering from the lost of her Mother.  She has a sister and a couple of nieces who live in Chicago.  We need to have them all over sometime for a dinner.  While we ate dinner, the Elders gave her a short discussion on prayer.  She also wants to quit smoking so Elders are going to come back and give her a discussion on that as well.  She has committed to go to church with Heidi and I, but didn’t this week, hopefully next week.

She left just in time for us to head off to our Ward Missionary Coordination meeting we do each Thursday.  We thought it was going to be held at our apt but it ended up being at one of the Ward’s Missionary’s home.  We ended up walking there with the Elders, it is about 1 ¼ mile away.  It was a good walk, but because our dinner with Yasna went a little longer than we thought we should have really drove since walking made us a little late.  The ward missionary who hosted the meeting was the only one that attended from the ward (out of 5 ward missionaries), so we and the Elders gave him an update on our activities.  He told us the Bishop had authorized us to spend up to $100 on items for Terry Proudian for Christmas.  Since she really needs clothes we’ll have to see if we can find a way to figure out her size to get her some. We walked home down Michigan Ave in a pretty good snow storm.

Friday’s morning was the same.  With several visits to P.E.’s in the evening.

Saturday morning we headed out to Hoffman Estates where Kathy Fernandez lives.  Sister Beck had left her winter coat there when we stayed with the Fernandez’s our first night in Illinois before our apt was ready to move into.  Since Kathy’s house is “kind of” near the temple, we went there on our way to the temple to get it.  It’s actually about 30 minutes more north and west than the temple, but not too far out of the way.

We had a nice visit with the Fernandez’s before heading off to the temple.  It was fairly crowded this Saturday, so we only did initiatory since we needed to get back in town to attend the 1^st Ward’s Christmas Party.  Also, we stopped at the “This is the Place Store”, kind of a Seagull’s – Deseret Book place and had a set of scriptures Elder Bryner had purchased for his baptism next Friday engraved with the girl’s name.

We took several (five, I think) of the small iced banana cakes, Heidi had made and enjoyed a Chicken and potluck dinner over at the Lincoln Square Building. There was plenty of food and we had a good time getting to know more of our members.  We left a little early because the Elders wanted to get home.  We made it back to our apartment about 9:00 pm to get ready for the next week.

Most weeks are similar to that with visits in the Ward, we also visit the Inactive Singles throughout the Stake.

The Work..... and then some.

 Table set in our Apt

Thanksgiving.... 
It was strange having Thanksgiving Dinner without being surrounded by family.  I remember recent years where we had 40 family and friends in our home for dinner.  Here in Chicago, we invited a few inactive prospective Elders who were unmarried and Terry (a Sister with no family in town) who is in a wheelchair because of her MS. Of course we also invited the full-time missionaries.  All of the prospective Elders backed out (not feeling well), so it was just Terry, who we are helping to re-activate, and the full-time Elders.  

Thanksgiving Pies

Those that cancelled missed out on the usual GREAT meal and the associated six different kinds of pies.  The Elders couldn't believe the options they had for desert. But I could and I enjoyed everyone (well except for the coconut cream and pecan) so did the doormen who we took some food down to enjoy.

It sounds like our kids back home enjoyed their Thanksgiving without us and some got to try their hand at making some of Sister Beck's famous rolls and pies.  See... we KNEW they could do it.

We continue to work with Ben Ortiz, who is from Mexico and was once in the Catholic Seminary to become a priest.  His whole family, many who are now also in the U.S., are still all Catholic, however Ben has been a member since the early 80's.  About 20 years ago, Ben suffered a serious stroke that put him in a wheelchair with Doctors telling him he'd never walk again.  He proved them wrong.  While it is very difficult for him to walk (his whole one side doesn't work well), he does and walks to church every Sunday.  We continue working with him to prepare him to go to the temple.  Sister Beck likes to walk to Ben's home (it's 3 miles round trip), so I thought I would show you what that walk looks like.... well for now at least.  These pictures are from some warmer weather, the forecast is for 6 inches of snow and extremely cold air tomorrow.

This is looking down our street, Dearborn.  We are at 1111 North and Ben's home is at 1600 Orchard.  So we head out north on Dearborn, we have to go 5 blocks North and about 10 blocks West.

This is a common intersection we would walk through, streets are fairly wide, you just have to watch out for buses and taxis, neither one of them stop for ANYTHING!

Almost there.... The streets where we live are pretty safe both day AND night.  It's not unusual to find ourselves walking late at night, sometimes home from meetings, other times to get some late night exercise in.

Finally, we get to Ben's house, here on the right.  It is housing for Senior Disabled individuals.  It's not a bad place and Ben seems to like it.  In our lesson today, Ben told us about his Patriarchal Blessing that he received back in April 2002.  He said his blessing kept telling him, he needed to "GET TO THE TEMPLE."  We are excited for him.

As far as our Sister with MS, Terry, she is currently in a rehab facility and we visit her a couple of times a week.  Along with all her other issues, she also has trouble with her sight, so the Bishop is getting her one of those extremely LARGE print Book of Mormon.  We also are going to give her the Book of Mormon on CD. That way she can either read or listen and won't have an excuse NOT to.  We need to get her back to church so she can prepare for the temple.

Finally, we had a small miracle this past week.  We had taken our full-time Elders to their Zone Meeting because it would have taken them over an hour to bike there.  After, it was past lunch so we decided to take them to lunch.  Sister Beck said, okay Elder Beck, where are we eating, I said, "5 Guys, Burgers & Fries."  I started heading to one I knew of and the Elders said there was one closer, so we turned around and went to that one.  We found a parking space right in front of it (which is almost a miracle itself). While ordering, the man behind the counter saw Sister Beck's name tag (the only one showing because of our heavy coats).  He got all excited and asked if we were Mormon's.  Sister Beck replied, "Yes we are."  He exclaimed he was too!  Sister Beck said we hadn't seen him out at church and he said he hadn't gone in a long time but wanted to now that he had a family.  So we got his name and number and told him we'd hook him up.  We were the only ones he waited on the whole time we were there.  The miracle? In a city (counting suburbs) of 9 million people, we select a place to eat that has a member in it who hadn't been to church (but was looking for one) for many years, we selected his restaurant, he happened to be waiting on us and he saw Sister Beck's name tag.  Believe me, it WAS a miracle.

Only in Chicago...

Hancock Building

Chicago LOVES its TALL buildings. It has 12 of the tallest 100 in the world. New York city is second with 6 in the top 100.   The Hancock building is 100 stories tall.  While the Trump tower is 92 stories tall. Both however are smaller than Chicago's tallest building, the Willis (formerly the Sears) Tower.  It rises an incredible 110 stories above the ground.  It is still the tallest building in the U.S., but has fallen from #1 in the world to being only the 3rd tallest.

Willis Tower

The Willis Tower was built in 1973 and receives millions of visitors each year.  Sister Beck and I first toured it in 1983 when we came back East to do a church/country historical trip with the Rigby's. It was amazing then and perhaps even more amazing now (looking out of our window and seeing it every day and night). For those of you that live in SLC, the Willis Tower would be like have FOUR Church office buildings (26 floors) stacked on top of each other!

We had some good friends come through Chicago a week ago, Scott Child, his two sons, Geoff & Andrew, and Scott's son-in-law.  We arranged for our preparation day to be the same day they were here so we could spend some time with them. They had flown into Chicago to drive down to South Bend Indiana to attend the Notre Dame - University of Utah football game.  While the game didn't turn out too well.... we had a lot of fun (missionary speaking) spending some time with them.  They wanted to see some of the sights of Chicago.  So we started off with perhaps the number one attraction, the Willis Tower.  They've made some changes since Sister Beck and I were there in the 80's.  On the one side of the building, they have built 4 "ledges" off the side of the building with Plexiglas. 

Scott on the LEDGE

When you enter these ledges, it gives you the feeling that there is NOTHING below you.  It's quite a shock to enter and look down.  Here's Scott checking one out.  The trick was to try and get Sister Beck out on the ledge.  

Some family members will remember the episode on the Pyramid in Chichen Itza.  Sister Beck is "a little" afraid of heights, especially if there is noting around her for support.  She climbed to the top of the Pyramid and then turned around and almost died.  I wasn't sure how I was EVER going to get her down.  I finally had her sit down and slide out to the steps where the rope was for those needing help in getting down, cling onto the rope and slide down one step at a time.  

In the tower, she was getting lots of pressure from all of us, finally she backed onto the ledge, making sure she didn't look down. She just kind of backed out looking up at the camera until we all got in position for a picture.  I was SO PROUD of her... Here's the proof she made it!!

All of us on the LEDGE

I even ventured out and took a picture looking STRAIGHT down, that REALLY gave you an eerie feeling!  

110 Stories STRAIGHT down

It was a little hazy so we didn't have the best views of the city, but it was still fun to see the city from up above.


Sister Beck and I were surprised we could see our apartment building from the tower.  However, I guess we shouldn't have been surprised, since we can see the tower from our apartment.

Finding our Apt

After spending about 90 minutes in the tower, we found our way down and headed out to see the famous "Water Tower." In the  Chicago Fire of 1871, the Tower along with a couple of churches were the only buildings that survived.  It's a cool old building RIGHT in the center of town. 

Water Tower

We checked out the tourist center and the Child's decided they wanted to take the Subway up to Wrigley's Field.  Even though it was closed they felt like they needed to at least go up and take some pictures of it.

After visiting "Cub's Land," we went back into the city to find a "REAL" Chicago Hot Dog.


We found a little "dive" just off of Michigan Ave, where we all tried one of their DOGS.  Not too bad.


We spent about 4 hours with the Child's and then headed back to our apartment while they checked out more of Chicago before heading back to their hotel near Midway Airport.t

While walking to one of our appointments one day, we came across this bus stop with the BEST SEATS any where, so I had to stop and take a picture.

While Chicago has a lot to see and do, one of OUR FAVORITE buildings and sights is the one below.  We have been able to keep our streak alive, of going to the temple once every week (for the past 8 1/2 years).  While it's a little more difficult to do here because the temple is about 35-40 minutes away, it's still something we hope to be able to do all our mission.  Unfortunately, not too many Chicago members attend.  Too bad for them!

LOVIN' CHICAGO!

  
The MTC was unbelievable, every one needs to experience it.  If every ward member had that same experience we wouldn't need missionaries. While it made for some very long days (since we opted to come home every night), we still loved it and those returned missionaries that taught us.


A HUGE thanks to our family members who helped with our move, we would have never had made it without them!

We've been here for almost 3 weeks and we are loving it.  As many of you know who have followed our trek with our  "RIG"  (16' Penske Rental Truck, and trailer towing our Toyota RAV4), it was a REAL EXPERIENCE getting here. 1,600 miles across Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois to an apartment we'd only seen a couple of pictures of it on the Internet.

Luckily, the apartment which is on the 29th floor was nice (with INCREDIBLE VIEWS of the city), men showed up to help me unload the truck and RAV4, and everything fit into the apartment.

We are supporting the Lake Shore 1st Ward and a Single's Branch (that includes the entire stake). They are two brand new wards that were just split off from two other wards.  Most of their leaders (Bishop, Counselors, etc.) are all brand new with NO experience.

We don't have a church building to meet in so we meet in an Elementary School (Newberry).  Sacrament meeting is in the Auditorium while all our other meetings are in small class rooms.  

90% of the ward is made up of young yuppies in the 25-30 year old range.  Most have high powered, high paying jobs in order to afford the apartments they are living in.

 

Each Sunday we walk a couple of blocks up to the Subway, take the "Red Line" north one stop and then walk another 4 blocks to the school for our meetings.

Speaking of walking, we try to walk to all of our appointments and meetings since parking is so bad and EXPENSIVE.  After about 6pm, it's almost impossible to find a parking place on the street and if you do, it costs $5.00 for a couple of hours, plus you'll still probably have to walk several blocks to get to your meeting.  If you can't find a spot and have to use a parking garage, it will cost around $17 an hour (or more).  We done so much walking that my feet have blisters all over them.

The ward and branch have us working on Prospective Elders, Inactives, and part member families.  Plus the Bishop of the ward asked us to head up an "Empty Nester's FHE."  We've invited about 8 couples and it will start on Monday, the 22nd.  We'll start out in our apartment and see if they want to continue meeting here or move it around to other members.

We are working with a Sister who has MS and is confined to a wheel chair.  I need to go over and get her computer and printer to work for her.  She has no family in town so we have invited her to have Thanksgiving with us.

We are also working with a member from Mexico (very heavy Spanish accent), who had a stroke 20 years ago, to get him ready to go to the temple.  I think it will be a lot of work since he has a hard time distinguishing between the Mormon Church and the Catholic Church.  All his family is Catholic, but we'll work with him to bring him up to speed and then give him the temple prep classes.

Our view out our living room and bedroom is fantastic, especially at night.  We can see the Sears and Trump Towers as well as a small bit of Lake Michigan.  At night, Heidi likes to come in and sit on the couch with all the lights out and just gaze at the lights of the city.  It's unbelievable to think all the apartment buildings out there have hundreds, if not thousands of people in them and all are in our ward's boundaries.

So far the weather has been great.  In fact they turned off the air conditioner in our building in October because it's usually cold, but it's been in the 70's and we've been hot.  Haven't had to use our heat yet, but I'm SURE WE WILL.