Oh, The People You'll Meet!

 It keeps happening. We just keep meeting more and more people we love and care about! And EVERY DAY could literally merit its own blog if I went into all the details. For the sake of protecting identities and respecting their privacy, we'll use just first or last names. (But you know who you are and why we want to remember you forever!) But for the reader's sake, I will try to be brief and condense our experience, mostly aided by the pictures I'm trying to be better at. 

Sabbaths are the happiest day of the week for us. To walk a block and get to listen to Music and The Spoken Word live each Sunday morning is a special spiritual experience that people travel halfway around the world to have, like Sally from Indonesia that we met on Temple Square. (Many people are grateful to have you take a picture of them instead of a selfie so it's an easy conversation starter.) Turns out, she was interested in getting a Book of Mormon and other literature about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in her native language of Bahasa so we walked her over to the Conference Center to get her that before she got on a flight to Las Vegas.

And who also showed up after the concert was over but our last week friend Nicky! It was soon evident he was more interested in getting his temporal needs met than hearing the pleasing word of God. We directed him to the many organizations that help the homeless in the downtown area since we have been directed to not give money directly to people asking for handouts. But we still thought it took some initiative on his part to show up so we praised him for that and told him to come back anytime he's ready to feast at the Lord's table for the Bread of Life and the Living Water that will never leave him wanting!

Because of all these unexpected encounters, we were late meeting up with Rob's son Mori who was in town. Nothing like standing up your own son! It was grand to spend time with him at our apartment, feed him some pie that we procured at the single's gathering, have a good chat with him, and send him merrily on his way back to Idaho Falls. 

Rob and Mori share a love for Old Man hats!

Then off to church we went. We are probably the only LDS congregation that holds church in a chapel that looks like a Catholic Cathedral; all the ornateness minus the crosses.

 

The Joseph Smith Memorial Building ala Hotel Utah Grand Ballroom

Our ward consists of all the full-time senior missionaries serving in the Church Headquarters Mission, led by President Holmes and his counselors. It's like being in a Zion Society; happy, helpful people so full of love for their Savior Jesus Christ and genuinely interested in your personal welfare too. You can strike up a meaningful conversation with anyone you sit by and find common ground instantly. I can't recommend the missionary life more highly for anyone looking to find meaning and purpose and great friends in their life. I will comment specifically about some of these dear people later. 

Later that afternoon we got ANOTHER visit from one of our children! We have seen more of our kids since deciding to serve our mission, we did NOT expect that blessing! Rob's daughter Kinzi came for a visit and introduced us to her new beau Tom! We took an immediate liking to him and think they make an absolutely darling couple. Four thumbs up from us!! He works for the church and was getting a church car to drive to a conference. How convenient to just pop in from Burley, Idaho where they live for an introductory visit. Please, come again! We are thrilled to meet you Tom!

As if the day wasn't full enough to overflowing, we realized we had more pie to share so we invited the other India Mission Visa waiters over to our "pad" to get to know them. They live above and below us in the same Garden Apartment complex. The Neffs and the Bairds are both going to the New Delhi Mission in Humanitarian capacities. They are ahead of us in the queue for visas so once we hear of their imminent departure, we can start thinking we're next. 

Our entire week was spent in the Training Zone where we were taught and nourished by the kindest, most helpful people on the planet. Each day we would hear great presentations about The Doctrine of Christ, The Doctrine of Temples and the Doctrine of Family History. Then these experts and friends taught us many new skills and abilities on the Family Search website and apps. (And they fed us alot too!) One of the training missionaries turned out to be a friend from my past- Sister Hughes. We were young mothers together in Yalecrest Ward back in the 90's and it was so rich to reconnect and do a Heinz 57 "Catch-up" of the last 30 years. We were both much greyer but I had a completely new husband since I saw her last!  Her husband is also serving with her but he was out with a gombu so we look forward to future times with both of them.

All of these dear missionaries did something I hadn't been able to do for many years- get Rob enthused about doing Family History! Sister Miller and Sister Howell have been our personal mentors who both welcomed us to the mission with loving open arms and saw to our every need. But it was the one on one time they each took to help us with our family lines that gave Elder Dunlap some Elijah moments he'd never had before. It was a joy to watch.

Sister Howell (up) Sister Miller (down)