The Fount of Every Blessing

 It has been a week of blessings unmeasured! What wonders the Lord doth perform! We started our first day after the Sabbath in an interview with President and Sister Holmes and his counselors. They took such a personal interest in us and our life story, it felt like we were fast friends by the end of the interview. Not long after, they let us know we'd be assigned to work in The Discovery Zone at the Family History Library which we are absolutely thrilled about. It is a fun, interactive, and inviting place to begin our missionary service. 

We will be meeting people right off the street where it might even be their first interaction with our church. It's a little more casual environment, even our name tags call us Rob and Alley instead of Elder and Sister Dunlap. 

Because it was a holiday week, they had very little official training planned and we were able to attend both the Monday evening viewing and Tuesday funeral of my sister Kate without interrupting any shifts or missing any training. We kept marveling that we were even able to be in Salt Lake City at this time where we could gather with my extended family to memorialize and celebrate the life of my sister. Only the Lord could've executed such perfect timing. It was a beautiful service, with so many loving tributes and many past Tabernacle Choir members singing the musical numbers and closing hymns. We felt so blessed to be there.

 As if this wasn't blessing enough, attending the funeral was my daughter Madison that I haven't been in contact with for nearly 10 years. We were able to hug and finally talk. It was so wonderful, Rob and I shed tears of joy! We also got to meet her darling husband Franklin, who is an intelligent and kind young man. We so enjoyed hearing his conversion story and how he came to find the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in his home country of Peru. Both of them are attending school, working at jobs and living in the Avenues near downtown. I was so impressed to hear about Maddy's business she does with Social Media influencing. We are hoping we'll be able to see them again while we are nearby before we leave for India. Thanks be to God for this amazing meeting!

Thanksgiving was spent this year at Amy and Clint Duke's home, with chauffering services provided once again by the Rohlfings. They have been such godsends. We enjoyed such magnificent feasting, fun conversation and games, not to mention she let us do our laundry to boot! (Any missionary can appreciate all these incredible creature comforts.) 

 We got to meet Spencer's wife Victoria for the first time and her friends Kristina and Raines all originally from China. They were delightful! We love such gatherings with an international element. Thanks Amy and family for all your kindness and efforts. We had the best time!

The next day, because we now have free passes to TRAX and UTA, (yay, we are no longer immobile!) we decided to venture to Sandy to surprise our friends, the Eppersons, by showing up on their doorstep! Bishop Epperson was just about to head to a luncheon for the singles of his ward and he invited us along. Yay, more free food! What we didn't expect was to run into my longtime friend Lisa French, who had been invited by her friend to attend. Here again, we haven't seen each other in years and she had never had the occasion to meet Rob before. It was insta-friendship for them from the gecko! And it was another serendipitous happenstance that we thanked the Lord for.

  On the Trax ride home, who should sit down facing me but the same young man we had bumped into on the street twice the day before when we were taking a pre-Thanksgiving trot around the town. I only recognized him from the gigantic split in his lip. "Nicky, is that you?" Again, of all the odds of so many different scheduled runs, traincars, and seats, it was simply an uncanny "coinkidink". We asked him, "Nicky, why would the Lord keep having our paths cross like this?" We invited him to pray about that question, we gave him a copy of The Book of Mormon we had in our backpack and invited him to read it. We also invited him to Music and the Spoken Word on Sunday. It's all in Nicky and the Lord's hands now, we are only asked to invite and testify! But we came home with that warm happy feeling that the Lord is guiding and directing our paths on our mission and that He is truly the Fount of Every Blessing. 

Music and the Spoken Word with The Choir and Symphony at Temple Square
How can we keep from singing?