This morning we made our first visit to the Harlem Ward. The city of Harlem was the birth place of Oliver Hardy for all of you who remember the Laurel and Hardy comic team. If you don't I'm sure you can google them; they were a great team. You may remember, they were the ones who did, "Whose on first". Anyway, we had a nice visit and were able to see some of the families that we have visited in the past. We met the Bishop, the High Priest Group Leader and reacquainted ourselves with the Elder's quorum president.

At the Servicemen's group we had to pick up or escort 3 of our soldiers to church so that they could go, not having a battle buddy to go with them. It is quite a walk from the furthest barracks up to the Friendship Chapel. It is a pleasure to walk up with them to be able to make sure they can go to church. After church we   headed home for an hour to relax before our evening visits.

The first family we visited have a small son, dad is a linguist like so many other of our families; the mom however is from Latvia. The two of them met on line. He worked for Delta and wanted to make a trip somewhere to use his flight pass, so he chose Latvia where this young lady lived who he had been communicating with online. He made a few trips over and back, obviously they eventually got married. She was not a member of the church at the time, but she converted shortly afterward. A very sweet family.

The second family was the same we visited last night. This time the husband was home. We had a real nice and very frank discussion about how their future is going to be with him gone most of the next 5 years. We will visit them often over the next 4 months prior to his departure to help strengthen them and prepare them for the difficult time ahead.