Settling In and Looking Back

A couple of weeks ago, Dave (our mission president) called. As we talked about SK and me returning to England, Dave said in passing, "Think of all you were able to do while you were home in Gilbert."

I've thought about that often since then. I wrote about lost time in the last blog. Yes...there is the matter of that 8 hours lost somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, but what about that 5 1/2 months we were in Gilbert? Was that lost time? We were in an apartment, with few of our possessions (stuff), with no ward to speak of (No one was attending church, and our records were in our home ward 6 miles away, and few ward members even knew we were home without that weekly gathering. The ward boundaries we were living in as far as we knew were temporary, and our Oxford Ward had no idea where we were.) We felt like "A Man Without a Country," so to speak. (That's a great story if you ever want to look it up....many in this country today wouldn't understand it at all.)

We felt slightly adrift, no real prime directive guiding our everyday life, no sense of belonging to a ward, even though the leaders of the ward we lived in contacted us. It wasn't that everyone wasn't kind and welcoming....they were! It was just that we were on track and fully submersed in our Oxford mission, and it came screeching to a halt before we had time to even think about leaving.

It was the sweetest of miracles - how we ended up renting an apartment south of the Gilbert Temple. Our home is currently under lease to a great couple - who would have vacated had we asked. Why would we ask? We were thinking we would be back in England in a matter of weeks.

But we left Oxford breathlessly, with barely enough time for goodbye's thrown-together suitcases and a very fast clean-up of the apartment (with a lot of help from the Bishop's wife, the Elder's Quorum President's wife and a few dear YSAs). We got off the plane in Phoenix, collected our luggage, and sat down in a deserted area of the airport, somewhat bewildered. All of our children volunteered their homes, yet there was that troubling idea of isolating in a much-needed bedroom in any one of their houses, and being waited on for 2 weeks....and then what?

Melissa's cute ministering sister just happened to have heard that very day about a lovely basement apartment south of the temple. Melissa also got wind of a bed for sale from a nearby friend. In a short 24-hour period they furnished it and supplied it with enough food to last through months of quarantine!

We were comfortable. The couple upstairs are amazing individuals, and more than kind. They quickly became dear and cherished friends. They were recently home from their mission and we found we had much in common. We had sacrament meeting with them many times, as well as family home evenings. So often we came away from them lifted and spiritually strengthened. Their testimonies shone through in everything they did and said.

Each of them have family living nearby and we met many of them. They are good people who inspire goodness. We will be forever grateful for that friendship which grew in our lost time.

Our daughter Lia met a wonderful and kind man last year. Early this year they began to talk of marriage. The wedding was performed in the Brigham City Temple, and we were two of the four guests to attend. The other two were his parents, and his father performed the wedding! It was the sweetest of experiences to sit in that sacred room and see the joy in Lia's eyes and to observe the love they have for each other.

We spent some delightful time with Lia and Ed and got to know him a little better. We are so very happy for them. They are combining a family of two little girls and three little boys. We played games with the little girls and worked on projects with them. We will be forever grateful for that time with Lia, Ed and their children in the midst of our lost time.

We returned to Utah 3 weeks later to be at Eliza's baptism. Her father baptized her and SK confirmed her. What a sweet time! We listened to 6-year old Bekah say the opening prayer, a tender and heart-felt prayer. We played games into the night with Ed and Lia and thoroughly enjoyed their company. We will be forever grateful for that island of time to get to know Ed during our lost time.

On both trips to North Salt Lake, we stopped at Zion's National Park and tried in vain to take in the beauty of that place. "I scarce can take it in," as the song goes. It is magnificent, and we were in awe everywhere we went in that area of the world. How can we not be thankful for that experience?

Two of our grandsons worked for our friends while we were in Gilbert, and popped in to see us in our apartment often....sometimes eating lunch. We always asked them to pray. What a sweet blessing to hear a young man pray. And what a window it is into his soul. We are so very grateful that was part of our lost time.

Our children and grandchildren spent time with us, and we with them. We had a little time with our cute missionary granddaughter, evacuated from the Paraguayan mission about the same time we left England, and now serving in Orem Utah. How blessed we were in our lost time!

We spent time with dear friends from way back. How wonderful to sit together and just enjoy each other. One of them - Valerie is battling (and it truly IS a fierce battle) cancer, and we are grateful that we were able to spend time with her and to join with Mark and all her family and friends to pray for her strength to conquer. That was so valuable to us, and it happened during our lost time.

On most mornings, we awakened a half hour before dawn (at the earliest it was 4:15 a.m.) to walk anywhere from 2 to 4 miles. We often walked around the temple and temple lot. 5 times around equals 3 miles roughly. What a strength is was to see the temple lit up against the darkness in the pre-dawn hours and to feel it as a beacon in our lives! I shall always treasure those walks that we took in our lost time.

SK worked on indexing, tallying up thousands of records. What a lovely thing to do during lost time.

We each gained weight as we served as taste-testers for Melissa's budding new ice cream business. If it wasn't ice cream, it was brownies from Erin (she built a magnificent wedding cake out of brownies for our little family gathering/reception for Ed and Lia in Gilbert.) Or maybe partly responsible were the trips to a local soda shop with a dear friend, where we settled into our routine of a soda and a cookie. Perhaps not so important in the eternal scheme of things, I am so grateful for those times that were not just about food - promise.

"Purpose in this Place" is a phrase I heard on a podcast. I've come to believe there is always a purpose to a place and time, whether we see it or not. And sometimes we see it only in looking back. Looking back now, I see that there was much purpose in Gilbert from March to September 2014.

I promise that I will try to be more brief in my ramblings from here on out!