The UK is celebrating Father’s Day today also, so we join with you in honouring our fathers from across the pond. My own father has been gone for over seven years now, and I still think about him almost every day, and often the quiet lessons he taught me pop into my mind. He was a man that taught more by example than words. These lessons come to the forefront of my mind often:
· If you don’t give your opinion on everything, then when you do choose to, people will listen.
· When you make a purchase, buy the very best. If you can’t afford to buy the best, wait to purchase until you can.
· Save, save, save your money.
· Treat people fairly.
· Work hard.
I also honour my son and two son-in-laws for the great dads they are. And I am very blessed with a wonderful father-in-law who has always treated me with love and respect. I am so blessed!
And last but not least, I am so grateful for a loving Father in Heaven and His son, the Father of this world, Jesus Christ. His atoning sacrifice allows us all to live with Him again. I am so grateful for that knowledge.
It has been a glorious weather week this past week. It has truly felt like summer. The temperature reached over 80 several days, including today. We pulled the fans out of the hall closet yesterday to keep it cool in our flat, and they’ve done the trick thank goodness. But at Church –- a hotbox. So you can guess how Primary went today. . . bless their little hearts. We aren’t complaining. It feels lovely. Someone at church said to me today, “We’re having Utah weather this week!” It feels good.
We were in the office Monday – Friday this week which is unusual, but there was plenty to do so the week sailed by. Tuesday was transfers for our missionaries, and we lost one Elder and one Sister. Our new Elder is from Pasco, WA, and our new Sister is from Sydney, Australia. She also is a trainer like Sister Wood, so she is only here for a week until they each get a newbie companion fresh from the MTC. We were able to help Sister Romero get her two very large, heavy suitcases to her flat while she rode her bike from the train station.
Thursday we took lunch to the four missionaries after their District Meeting. Instead of getting Subway sandwiches or Five Guys, I made Alisha’s recipe for burrito filling and took it in the crockpot along with 16 tortillas and all the fixin’s. One thing England does not have is good Mexican food, so the missionaries thought they had died and gone to heaven. All 16 tortillas were GONE! I wish I had brought more. If you need a good and easy recipe to feed a group, it’s a good one! (I make it just for the two of us and freeze portions in bags. Love it.) Thank you Alisha!
Because there hasn’t been any rain this week, Gordon has been outside watering the ‘garden’ most days when we get home and we have been able to chat with him a little. Friday he told us that the ‘decorators’ would be here on Monday to paint doors and trim. They are always making improvements to keep it looking so nice. I took the opportunity to ask him some questions about this place we live, and I found out the history. It’s interesting to me, so I want to journal it, but if you’re not interested, skip the next two paragraphs.
Before the current buildings were built ten years ago, this use to be a manor owned by the Eversleighs, thus, the current name of our complex, Eversleigh Court. It was a large L-shaped manor with a carriage house in back. I looked up Lord Eversleigh to see if maybe someone famous lived here, but, alas, Lord Eversleigh is just a fictional character in a book sold on Amazon. Wouldn’t that have been fun! When the Eversleighs sold the manor, it sat vacant for a while until some kids were messing around, started a fire, and the whole place burned down. Sometime after, the owners sold it to a builder who re-built the manor to look the like old one, but now instead of going into the actual home through the big double doors both in front and on the side, the doors take you to a hall and into separate flats. Each flat is individually owned. Some flats have two bedroom and some are only one. I asked Gordon how much our two-bedroom flat would cost to purchase, and he said about 180,000 pounds, or about $225k. There are 22 flats in all now in Eversleigh Court including the two back in the newer Carriage House. |
| Left: Front view – ours is second floor on the right Right: Attached to the left side – the ‘L’ |
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| Carriage House |
You may have seen on Mormon Newsroom that Elder Christofferson was here in England speaking at Oxford last Thursday to a group of law students. He spoke about the time in his life that he worked as law clerk for Judge John Sirica during the Watergate trials and all that he learned. Malcolm attended the symposium representing Public Affairs and said it was brillant. I read the transcript of the event and have been pondering Elder Christofferson’s message for the past three days. My favourite quote:
“Putting one’s integrity on hold, even for seemingly small acts in seemingly small matters, places one in danger of losing the benefit and protection of conscience altogether.”
Elder Christofferson believes President Nixon had “many points along the way” that he could have stopped the cover-up “with an awakened conscience.” Instead, he said the president got deeper into the cover-up conspiracy.
And Elder Christofferson’s suggested remedy:
“A life devoted to service to others allows conscience to flourish. Service provides a natural barrier against the ills that flow in the wake of self-will and self-interest.”
Service is an important part of my life. It keeps me grounded in doing the things I know will make me happy in the long scheme of things. I see so many examples of service from so many of my friends and family both here and at home. I see so many people in my generation taking care of aging parents. I’m so thankful for those who are taking care of mine! I see you serving your children and grandchildren, neighbors, and friends when there is a need. And all those who serve the children at Primary Children’s Hospital are a great example to me. I feel so blessed to be associated with you and learn from you.
I agree with Elder Christofferson when he said, “The life lesson I took away from this experience was that my hope for avoiding the possibility of a similar catastrophe in my own life lay in never making an exception – always and invariably submitting to the dictates of an ethical conscience.”
So there’s some food for thought this week.
We’ve been on our mission for over four months now, and Ron and I were just saying yesterday that we feel like we’ve finally settled in. The first month was like an exciting new adventure. But like even the best of vacations, at some point you want to go home. The second month, when it felt like we had been gone long enough and it was time to go home was difficult. Getting into the routine of getting up every morning and being out the door by 8:30 am and not getting home until 6:30 was hard. And we were so tired every night. And it was cold and dark outside. And the learning curve at the office was difficult. The third month I think we both spent being homesick. We thought about home, thought about all the things we missed, and it wasn’t getting easier. There was so much to learn, and I made so many mistakes, and my self-esteem was rapidly declining. I kept asking myself, “What was I thinking? What am I doing here!” And Satan was right there agreeing with me. Then, all of the sudden, things did begin to feel a little easier. We have learned so much about Public Affairs and feel like now we are helping with the work rather than being the newbies that need babysitting. We are still learning new things every week, but we have more of a grasp on our purpose and what we were sent here to do. There is still a list of things we miss (of course all of you are on the top of the list), things like our bicycles, our Acuras, our king-sized bed, McD’s $1 drinks, (by the way, has the McDonalds in Kaysville gone out of business yet? J ) but it’s no longer hard to get up and go to work in the mornings, we’ve learned how to cook together, clean together, and do laundry together, and we know neighbors and ward members and co-workers and we have fun with them. So life is good, and we think we’ll stay another 14 or so months.
Thanks for all your love and support through this journey of learning we are on. We couldn’t do it without you, nor would we even try. In your own way, each of you are blessing us more than you know. Thank you for keeping in touch . . . keep ‘em coming!
Happy Father’s Day to every dad reading this, and love to all . . .
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