Home Again, Home Again, Jiggidy Jig

30 April 2017

We greet our family and friends once again this week from the mission field!  Thank you to all of those who wrote to us last week.  We even received a hand-written letter in the Royal Mail yesterday from a Kaysville ward member!  It’s just a little bit of heaven.  We love hearing from you and hope you are all well and happy and able to withstand life’s bumps and bruises.  Happy Birthday this week to my dear friends Lise and Kathy!  And congratulations to our nephew, Matthew, who opened his mission call yesterday to London!  We were hoping for Birmingham, but London is next best!

We’ve brought out the winter coats and heavy sweaters again earlier this week as Spring completely disappeared.  We were sure any minute it would snow.  So cold!  It’s killing me.  The weather here is one giant roller coaster.  I know it has been a little wet in Utah, too!  But despite the cold, it is green and beautiful and from the warm inside looking out, I love it.  Today, thank goodness, it feels a little more like Spring again.

Well, another week of new experiences here in the mission field.  England is a funny place with funny people.  Did you know there is a difference between England, United Kingdom, Great Britain, and the British Isles?  And you had better not call it the wrong thing to the wrong person.  Some get very testy.  We are not only learning the ABC’s of Public Affairs, but also our P’s and Q’s (those we should mind).  So much to remember!  Sometimes it’s harder than not having any political opinions,  :) 

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in the office, with much of the time researching addresses and other pertinent information of VIP’s for the British Pageant and making sure current VIP’s were still just that, and also making sure no one had died (seriously!).  I’m getting better at merging excel files to do letters and address labels, only because Amanda isn’t here to do them for me.   With the Prime Minister calling for an unexpected election, it has thrown everything political into a tizzy, so now we are bound to hold all VIP invitations to the House of Commons and the House of Lords until after the election.  It is a world history lesson every day.

I love this picture because I think Leah is adorable
with her Scottish accent, but also this is just a taste of
how beautiful the Preston Temple grounds are.
This is a walkway between the temple and the MTC,
passing by the Stake Centre. Leah is one of the
choreographers for the Pageant.

Thursday began our travel again for this week.  Not a different country or new place this time, but back up to Chorley for Pageant videoing and rehearsal.  We went up Thursday because the National Director for Public Affairs in Ireland, John Connolly, was at the temple serving for two weeks and invited us to lunch with him and his wife.  We are going to Ireland to do training the end of May and thought it would be good to meet him beforehand.  We enjoyed meeting them very much.  They invited us to their ‘Temple Accommodations’ apartment.  I won’t be complaining about the size of our tiny apartment . . . ever.  This apartment is less than half the size of ours, and when John was serving as a counselor in the Temple Presidency, they lived there for three years!  Wow!  Blessings on their heads!  After lunch all four of us went the 100 yards to the temple.  We did a session, and they began their shift as workers.  It was another great day.

Friday and Saturday were spent with the videographer for the Pageant as we (the royal we, that is) took video to be posted on social media and websites to advertise the Pageant.  And speaking of the Pageant, and the funny British people, and might I add Irish, John Connolly let it be known to us that it was highly unlikely that anyone from Ireland would be coming over to the “British” Pageant.  And couldn’t they have called it something else? LOL.  Old blood runs thick, isn’t that what they say?  There are clearly some underlying feelings between the British and the Irish.

So more about the videoing . . . Friday morning we went back up to Downham and Chatburn where Lord and Lady Clitheroe live (my new favourite place) to get some video of the land.  Heber C. Kimball and Joseph Fielding once preached there for a week and baptized nearly 100 people by the weekend.  This is remarkable because prior to their arrival, many other preachers had come to the town with no success and were scurried away.  But as history goes, as Heber and Joseph were leaving, everyone in the town stood on the street to wave good-bye to them, and Heber is said to have removed his hat as he was “walking on sacred ground.”  There really is a special feeling there that has more to do with just the beauty.  

We then went to the MP’s office in Chorley  (Member of Parliament) where we had a darling little 8-year-old girl dressed in 1850’s costume to present a VIP invitation to him and invite him to the Pageant.  Mr. Hoyle is very supportive of the Pageant and the Mormons and was so cute with little Kayla.  The afternoon and evening were spent grabbing cast members and support team as they began to arrive for rehearsal the next day for an interview.  It was fun to see those we met at callbacks in early March.  Friday was a long long day and we sank into bed exhausted Friday night.

We were up again Saturday morning early to begin videoing more cast members before they began rehearsal.  The highlight of the day was our journey to Preston.  I had arranged three families and costumes for them to dress up in.  We traveled to Flag Square, the center market in Preston, where Heber C. Kimball and Joseph Fielding first preached the gospel when they landed in England.  There is an obelisk erected there in the town square where they would hold street meetings, and we were right there, along with the families, inviting passers by to the Pageant with a Pageant pass-a-long card.  Because we were videoing, I think people thought they might be on TV, so they seemed willing to listen to our actors.  It was really fun.  

In case you are interested, here is a link to what one of our video’s look like and the story I wrote to go with it (with Malcolm’s guidance):

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org.uk/article/the-british-pageant-helps-family-through-difficult-times

We were happy that our responsibilities were finished at 4:30pm, as the cameraman was only on duty for eight hours, so we could make the two hour trek home at a good time and prepare for our Sunday duties.  Like I’ve said many times since our arrival . . .never a dull moment.

One of the best things about all of these new experiences we are having is the people we meet and the stories of their missions, or their conversions, or just their lives they share with us.  Sometimes I think for days on a part of someone’s story as I try to imagine going through the same thing, good or bad.   And usually something about the story comes just at the right time . . .something I need to hear.  Like this weekend, for instance, we were having dinner with the videographer, Peter, and I asked him to tell me a little more about him.  The first thing he told us that shaped his life was that his parents sent him away to Boarding School (like the one next to our office I mentioned in an earlier letter) at the young age of 12.  It was a very strict Boarding School.  As he described the regiment each day and the strictness, I pictured it much like Harry Potter’s Boarding School (without the Quidditch J). He was so traumatized by being sent away from his family at such a young age that he had to distance himself from his parents and learn “not to love them in order to survive.”  Can you imagine?   I just keep thinking about that over and over, and what that must have been like.  Maybe his parents knew just what they were doing, because he turned out to be very successful in all of his entrepreneur business endeavors, found his way to the missionaries at the age of 18, and has a great family and a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  But I can’t imagine sending a 12-year-old away, nor can I imagine being sent away at that age.

It was good to be back to our home ward today.  Every week we get to know our ward members just a little better, and it is difficult when we are gone so much.  We had the sister missionaries over for dinner, as Sister Jampapan from Thailand will be going home this week.  She has such a genuine spirit about her.  For instance, when we text the missionaries to tell them we are bringing them Subway for lunch and ask them what kind of sandwich they want, she always says “anything is fine.”  I do think she likes just about everything, but she is just so humble grateful for everything.  She is going home to a family that did not support her going on a mission, did not write even one time, nor was there any reason for her to call home on Christmas or Mother’s Day.  But she isn’t bitter, and always smiles and is happy to share the Gospel.  She says, “When I go home, I want to get a car and learn to drive, and I think Heavenly Father will bless me with this because I will drive around and pick up everyone for church.”   She is such a sweetheart.  I pray she gets her car.

Sidenote:  On the subject of cars, I drove the 5 miles to pick up the missionaries and bring them back to our flat for dinner . . . alone . . . first time alone for more than just to the grocery store across the street.  I did it!  And now I know I can do it again too!

We found out this afternoon that Elder Kovach, the only other missionary that was here when we got here, is being transferred this week as well.  We are sad to see him go too.  I’m sure we will see him again, as he has BYU plans after his mission.  We are going to take him and Elder Hatch to lunch tomorrow for a farewell dinner.

My favourite quote from my reading this week:

“When love is chosen over hate, then Sunni can sit down with Shiite, black and white are seen as equal, Jew and Moslem embrace, and Christian or Buddhist or Hindu can all say, ‘Welcome, we are glad you are here.’”

As I say goodbye this week, I ask for your prayers for my mom, that she can be comforted through this difficult time in her life, and that she can meet my Dad on the other side one of the days when she is asking for him.  I love her dearly.  It’s hard to watch those we love suffer, even from a distance.

We pray for all good things for you this week!  We love and appreciate you so very much.