Called to Serve

It Was the Best of Times

It was the Worst of Times

Perhaps the opening sentence of Charles Dickens’ classic a Tale of Two Cities sums up our week for it really has been the best of mission times and the worst of mission times.  We will try our best to describe both:

The Worst of Times

The tragic terrorist bombing in Brussels of course makes it the worst of times.  So many innocent people, including four Mormon missionaries, were either seriously injured or killed.  Shortly after the attack we received a message from our dear friends, Elder and Sister Hydrick, who are currently serving in Kosovo asking if we were safe and we could only respond, “Are any of us really safe these days?  I guess all any of us can do is be aware of our surroundings and always be ready to meet our Maker.”  Our prayers continue to be offered up for the victims of this heinous act of violence and, of course, their families.

As a result of the attack our mission president has asked that all the missionaries be extremely cautious when using pubic transportation and if possible limit our use of it.  

Though the following incident pales in comparison to the attacks, as missionaries, we experienced a major disappointment this week, a disappointment that only a missionary can understand.  We have been teaching a young man for nearly five weeks.  This young man has lived a very difficult and challenging life having faced more hardships and heartache in his short 23 years than most of us will face in an entire life time.  His life was so difficult he tried to escape it by volunteering to fight alongside the Kurdish rebels for nearly eight months.  He quickly embraced the gospel and the love of his fellow Young Single Adults.  He found happiness in the Church - a happiness he had never experienced before in his entire life.  Last Friday he committed to be baptized on Sunday.  To say the least, we were all very excited about his decision.  Sadly, our excitement was short-lived when we received a text message from him late Saturday night calling the baptism off.  After meeting with him later it was clear that his change was influenced by a young atheist woman who told him to “run” away from us.  We still love this young man.  We worry about him.  We continue to pray for him.

Lastly for “The Worst of Times” - secularism is clearly widespread everywhere we go.  We are so thankful for the members of the Church who continue to hold firm in their love of the Savior.  This past week we spoke to a man while in line at Costco.  We struck up a very friendly conversation because he was attracted to our accents.  Turns out he is from Beijing and has lived here in England for over 16 years.  After explaining to him what we are doing here we gave him a pass-along card to which he replied, “My god is money.”  Sadly, he meant it.  As he walked away with his young daughter in his arms our hearts broke for him and the blessings of the Gospel that he is not enjoying.  We can only hope and pray that we have planted a seed.

 The Best of Times

We have been teaching another young man our in Stourbridge, which is a 45 minute drive from our flat, for the past four weeks.  We have the wonderful opportunity to meet with him two and three times each week.  He loves reading the Book of Mormon, which he says brings him closer to Christ and fills him with a sense of peace.  Admittedly, he is struggling with the prophet Joseph Smith and his translation of the gold plates.  Now here is where it becomes the “best of times.”  The other day he lost his bank debit card.  He frantically searched for it for several hours when the missionaries told him to pray about it.  Just a short time later he found the card.  Guess where it was?  Yep, he found it inside his copy of the Book of Mormon!  We suspect he will be baptized soon.

Now for another “best of times.”  We had the opportunity to join Elder Lo and Elder Laird to teach a young woman from Taiwan who is here attending the University of Birmingham.  The interesting thing is that most of the lesson was given in Mandarin Chinese and, just in case you didn’t know it, neither of us speak Mandarin, Chinese; nevertheless, the Spirit was very strong.  We loved every minute of that lesson as she was taught the Plan of Salvation in her native tongue.  Later we learned why we were invited to attend the lesson - according to Elder Lo, who by the way is from Hong Kong, the young Chinese investigators like to have “older, grandparent figures” in attendance!  We look forward to our next lesson with this sweet young woman and having her, along with the missionaries, over to our flat for dinner.

Finally, the last, and perhaps the best, of our “best of times” was an amazing trip to the Preston Temple with 28 Young Single Adults.  For those not of our faith, may we explain that throughout history, the Lord has commanded His people to build temples. Temples are literally houses of the Lord. They are holy places of worship where individuals make sacred promises with God.

We started our weekend temple trip with a fun KFC/pizza party Friday night and then enjoyed Saturday morning in the temple where we performed approximately fifty ordinances for our kindred dead.

Kynna enjoying pizza and chicken!

A Night of Laughter with Friends!

Jennie originally from Portugal and Chris

Meg, Jennie, Paul, David & Adam ~ ALL GREAT Young Single Adults

Sweet reunion with Joanne Woods who we served with in the
California Roseville Mission! 

Saturday afternoon we visited Chatburn and Downham, which are two beautiful English villages dating back to 1242 and 1292 respectively.  Chatburn is the location of a baptismal site used by Mormon missionaries in the 1830s and 1840s. This village, along with the neighboring community of Downham, was the location of a large number of Mormon conversions when the message of the restored gospel was first preached to the citizens of the area.  The first Mormon missionaries, included Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Willard Richards, Joseph Fielding.

The Chatburn villagers showed up in large numbers to hear Elder Kimball preach, which he did standing on a barrel in the middle of the village. At the conclusion of his sermon he offered to perform the ordinance of baptism for anyone who desired it. Heber described the scene that followed his invitation:

“When I concluded I felt someone pulling at my coat, exclaiming, “Mister, Mister.” I turned round and asked what was wanted. Mrs. Elizabeth Partington said, ‘Please sir, will you baptize me?’ ‘And me?’ ‘And me?’ exclaimed more than a dozen voices. Accordingly I went down into the water and baptized twenty-five. I was engaged in the duty, and confirming them and conversing with the people until after midnight.

“The next morning I returned to Downham, and baptized between twenty-five and thirty in the course of the day.

“The next evening I returned to Chatburn. The congregation was so numerous that I had to preach in the open air, and took my stand on a stone wall, and afterwards baptized several”  (Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1967).”

What a wonderful feeling to stand where these great missionaries once stood and preached the gospel.

Along the creek where hundreds of converts were baptized into the Church.

Three beauties ~ Chris, Sarah & Rachel

Beautiful Downham

Just a couple of local sweethearts.

Why We Here

Hard to believe we are already into our third month of the mission.  Just like all missionaries, this has been a wild emotional roller coaster ride from feelings of great joy to homesickness, but that’s normal, right?  

The good news is after being asked many times what we are supposed to be doing we are finally able to clearly and succinctly articulate our role:

1. Strengthen those Young Single Adults (18-30) that are active in the church through sharing our testimonies, our time and our love with them;
2. Reach out and rescue those Young Single Adults that have lost their way and help them find their way back into the fold; and,
3. Invite others to come unto Christ who have not yet embraced His gospel plan.

We are excited to serve … we love to serve.

Lesson Learned

We now understand and have a greater appreciation for the missions that our children and so many others have served.  It takes courage, it takes determination and it takes stamina to continue to serve the Lord by bringing hope to others in this world filled with hopelessness.  To that end, we, like all missionaries, are in a constant state of exhaustion; nevertheless, we will endure.  For our family and friends back home, please pray for the missionaries, let them know of your love for them, your appreciation for all that they do and, most importantly, please get involved in the work with them!

Humility

During last week’s Institute lesson everyone was asked to privately evaluate on a scale of 1 (never) to 5 (always) how true we are to the following statements:

____  I am meek and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29)

____ I rely on the Lord for help (Alma 26:12)

____ I am sincerely grateful for the blessings I have received from the Lord (Alma 7:23)

____ My prayers are earnest and sincere (Enos 1:4)

____ I strive to be submissive to the Lord’s will whatever it may be (Mosiah 24:15)

We invite you to evaluate yourself.

Elder Alston Turned 64

This was a birthday filled with eating cake … lots and lots of cake!  Chris made Steve’s favorite cake for his birthday, which just in case you are interested is carrot cake.  She made it on Wednesday so we could share it at our District Meeting and it was a hit.  This was a health issue … had the District not devoured it Steve would have eaten the entire cake by himself - not a good idea!  

(Speaking of District meeting - one of the young Elders accidentally swallowed a whole grape!  Not a problem, right?  Wrong!  He had to be taken to the hospital and sedated before it could be removed three days later!)

If that was not enough, Ruby Howell, one of our Young Single Adults also made Steve a chocolate birthday cake - what a very cool surprise and, of course, not wanting to be rude Steve forced himself to eat it as well … OK so he didn’t real have to force himself and he loved every bit of it.  Steve’s gluttony continued when one of the young men (16 years old) made him another carrot cake!  As if that were not enough to spoil the old man, Jon and Steph sent him a six pack of A&W Root Beer, which you just can't get over here.

Ruby's delicious chocolate, chocolate, chocolate cake.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Chris gave Steve the best birthday present ever!  It was a full day of sunshine, yep not a single cloud in the sky - amazing and I have no idea how she pulled it off, but she assured me that it was just for me.  In fact, it was the first full day of sunshine that we have seen since we arrived…it was WONDERFUL!  We took that as our P-day to celebrate Steve’s birthday and visited the Black Country Living History Museum.  It was an amazing day.

This picture was taken just before we entered the coal mine - hard hats and hall.
The life of a coal miner was dark, dirty, exhausting and risky!

It is called the Black Country because during its heyday, the sky was filled with coal dust
and the ground was covered in it - now its just beautiful.

These canal boats were used to haul virtually anything from Dudley to London.
Each boat could haul up to 3,000 tons of goods!
The loaded boats were pulled by a single horse and the trip to London took up to two weeks.
A family of four lived on the boats and that is the only life they knew.

This boat is an ice-breaker built in 1903.
The crew would stand up, hold onto the rope and rock the boat to break the ice. 

The canal people didn't waste anything!
The upright boat hull in the background was converted into an out house
once it would no longer float.

Isaak this one is for you!
Built in 1923, the Winston Churchill, a  0-6-0 tank steam locomotive
formerly worked on the tracks of the Earl of Dudley's mineral railway.

Happy Easter

Because none of the missionaries in our District had dinner appointments for Easter Sunday, we had a District potluck dinner.  We love hanging out with these young missionaries - they are so full of energy, excitement and love.  They are such a good example to us and we love each and every one of them.

Lest we forget, Easter is a time to remember all that Jesus Christ, our Savior, and our Redeemer, has done for us and may we take time to consider His simple invitation that has the power to transform us forever: "Come, follow me.”  We are far from perfect; nevertheless, we strive each and every day to follow Him ever more closely for we know that if we put our trust in Him as we continue to serve Him that through His grace we shall be an eternal family.  We simply cannot bare the thought of not being together with each other, with our children, our grand children and with our entire family throughout the eternities.  We are so thankful for the Lord’s atoning sacrifice and for the restoration of the gospel including the blessings of the temple in these later days which makes it all possible.

We love this expression and love from President Monson regarding those events of nearly two millennia ago; “I believe that none of us can conceive the full import of what Christ did for us in Gethsemane, but I am grateful every day of my life for His atoning sacrifice in our behalf.

“At the last moment, He could have turned back. But He did not. He passed beneath all things that He might save all things. In doing so, He gave us life beyond this mortal existence. He reclaimed us from the Fall of Adam.

“To the depths of my very soul, I am grateful to Him. He taught us how to live. He taught us how to die. He secured our salvation.”

I have made too many mistakes in my life to count; however, I put my trust and my hope in the Atonement that will enable me, as imperfect as I am, to return to our loving Heavenly Father.  It is our hope and our prayer that all those who read our blog will feel of our love for Him and our love for each and every one of you.

Lastly, I am so proud of Chris as she was part of the presentation of Savior of the World, which was performed on Saturday night at the church.  It was such a powerful presentation … not a dry eye in the house.