24 May 2019: We're Comin' Home

I had a difficult time remembering what year it was as I began this blog - writing in the skies presently flying over British Columbia on our way home to Oregon.   How many times have we mentioned the wonderfulness of Oregon and how many times have we invited people to come, visit us. Of course, most of the people we know in England, when they come to the USA, visit New York or Utah - but some will come to Oregon.  Last night as we said goodbye for the last time, myriads of eager YSA - our brilliant and clever children - ran up to take pictures and get hugs and tell us that they are really, truly coming to see Oregon and our “famous” beach house.  Only famous to them because we invite them so frequently and although no one has ever seen it - and only a few have any connection to the state at all - they are intrigued and excited to visit.  We will be thrilled to see them.  We are excited to be going to Oregon because some of our dear family is there waiting for us and the rest are coming to the Family Reunion in July.  Plus we do have a couple of dishwashers and garbage disposals there and we have really missed them.

I cannot begin to describe how magical and life changing this mission has been for both of us, how much we have grown to love the YSA, the missionaries and all our various friends and connections, both in the Mission and Leeds Stake as well.  We believe in eternal families and that means eternal friends.  One of our American friends who is living in Leeds with her husband temporarily as he teaches at Leeds University, shared with me a phrase from a friend of hers back in Nebraska where they live. 

This phrase will only make sense if you do this:  Get yourself a Book of Mormon and read this wonderful allegory. It’s not long, but quite powerful.   Like the Bible, The Book of Mormon is divided into smaller “books”.  Go to the first one which is called First Nephi named after the Prophet Nephi and go to Chapter 8.  When Nephi was a young man living in Jerusalem about 600 BC, his father, Lehi had a vision of a beautiful tree which we call “The Tree of Life” This vision is speaking about our life on this earth and searching for the love of God. In the vision, Lehi sees a path leading to a beautiful tree covered in white fruit, symbolic of the Love of God.  He has made it to the tree and tasted the fruit, but he sees his family at the beginning of the path surrounded by concourses of other people and many impediments to keep them from coming to him.  As they press forward, they must make decisions so as not to be distracted or lead away from the path, but continue to press forward.  Our friend, Rachel shared with me the following thought which I related to many of our new friends in England:

“If I don’t see you on the path - I’ll meet you at the tree”.

Now as our missionary colleague , Sister Lyle would say after making a joke, “Do you get it?”  But it’s not a joke.  It’s simply an inspired direction to help us make the most of our life here on earth and return from whence we came - our home in Heaven with God and Jesus Christ and all our dear family and friends. 

Fast forward to the end of the flight and our meeting with our Stake President Lake to be officially released.  This occurred just a few hours after we disembarked from the plane to be met by our strongest support group Jon and Ellen who have looked after our various belongings while we were gone. President Lake kept smiling at me and remarked that he remembered how I was a bit reticent when we met 18 months ago as we prepared to leave.  It’s true that in the beginning of this decision process, I only moved towards the mission because I knew Tim (we’re no longer missionaries so back to first name references) had long wanted to go on a mission so the first thing I did was CONSIDER praying about it.   Eventually I got to ACTUALLY praying about it and at that point I began to feel positive energy and encouragement that enabled me to be excited and more than simply supportive of his feelings, but actually “all in”.  I think that’s an important distinction because once I determined it was what the Lord wanted me to do, I was able to see the blessings, the tender mercies and even the miracles in my life leading me in that direction.  Not that it was physically easy since for months before we left, I had not felt well until finally I was diagnosed with pneumonia.  However, we proceeded ahead and eventually, everything was “sorted out” as our good friends in England would say. 

We express thanks to many there and here who have been so kind to us. There in England for enthusiastically welcoming us into their lives and sharing with us their knowledge, thoughts, opinions, brilliant culture and love.  Here in the USA for house sitting (thanks Ron & Cat) and for supporting us through prayer and word. Particular hugs to our most diligent blog readers and card senders: Miriam, Jurek and Cal. (and their supportive spouses) and our artists/authors/skypers daughters and grandkids.  And we must mention those who actually came to visit: Mindy, Shona, Pam and Danielle, Jackie, Mike and Brittany.  Also cousins, Tami, Mark and Katie; and those crazy kids, Marel, Tom, Allyson and Billy.  And most of all the famous, “WE GO HEROES” themselves: Cristian, Celia, Clara, Sabrina, Elena & Caleb. We are most grateful to everyone involved in this glorious adventure.  What have we taken away from this?  A strengthened knowledge and belief of the Great Plan of Happiness given to us by our Heavenly Father and overseen by our brother and Saviour (English spelling) Jesus Christ.   Also, in amazement, the pleasure of serving with those who do so with humor, diligence and faith - even the full time missionaries in the “Greatest Mission in the Universe” and teaching the beautiful, intelligent, hard working and ever humorous Young Single Adults of the Leeds Stake and serving with them and all of their leaders who we count as eternal friends.  Hope to see you on the path.  Open invitation to Oregon.  It’s not Heaven, but it is very nice. 

Love you all,

Dana & Tim 

home to Tillamook ice cream

Goodbye to our YSA friends

Last FHE earlier in the week

Elder E dancing over the Prime Meridian in Greenwich 

With Sister Wassmer at Harry Potter

Chinatown visit for dinner between shows

Sister E about to enjoy Hamilton 

Goodbye to our YSA friends

Goodbye to our YSA friends

5 May 2019

Wow!  We’re well into May now and we are starting to realize this wonderful experience of our mission is winding up.  We’ve lots of things to report about since our last post. 

The Institute was closed for 2 weeks around Easter….the week before and the week after.  In the UK, both Good Friday and Easter Monday are “Bank Holidays”, meaning it is a national holiday.  Leeds University was actually closed for a 4 week Easter break; not so the Institute.  We spent the first week of our break from teaching by inspecting the 10 missionary apartments that are in the Leeds Stake.  That took 2 full days visiting 5 each day.  We spend about an hour with each set of missionaries (usually 2, sometimes 4).  Sister Edvalson does the inspection itself, clipboard in hand and sees how they are doing with cleanliness, tidiness, state of repair (or disrepair), etc. while Elder Edvalson takes photographs of each room of the flat to submit to the mission office.  We then take a photo of the missionaries to send to their parents so they can see how they’re doing.  Sister E leaves them a bag of her homemade peanut butter balls as a treat and we make the 30 minute drive to the next flat.  At lunchtime we sometimes treat the missionaries we’re with to fish & chips and it’s always uplifting and fun to be with these young and enthusiastic missionaries.  (In our Zone we have missionaries from China, Germany, Serbia, Russia, Wales, The Philippines, Canada and the United States). 

We also attended a Zone Conference on the day between our flat inspections.  It was a long one lasting from 9 am to 6 pm.  We love the Turveys (Our Mission President and wife), but there are limits to how long we can enjoy sitting and being instructed!  We were going to go out to dinner with the other senior missionaries after that Conference, but we were all too tired, so we just went back to our respective flats! 

On Good Friday, we held our Devotional and Pancake Breakfast as a Brunch, and had 25 turn up!   We showed a collection of Church videos regarding Easter and the Savior’s atonement, it was very moving.  Many of the YSA then went on an all day hike to Malham Cove in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.  Upon their return, we hosted a double movie night, with part 6 of the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice followed by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (finales of both series).

On Saturday April 20^th we took 3 of the office sister missionaries (Sisters Jackson, Lyle and Wassmer) on a trip to the Yorkshire Dales National Park.  We visited Bolton Castle, West Burton, tried to go to Aysgarth Falls, but all the parking lots were full, the Wensleydale Cheese Factory (where we had a delicious cheesy lunch), then drove home another way through Kettlewell, Skipton and Ilkley.  It was a gorgeous day through some of our favorite country with temperatures in the low 70’s—a heat wave for here.

On Easter Sunday, we attended the Dudley Hill Ward in South Bradford where we spoke.  It was a full house with a nice choir.  Sister Edvalson was asked to speak about serving a senior mission while Elder Edvalson talked about the Savior and His Atonement.  Then that evening we had an Easter Dinner for those that weren’t invited somewhere, with about 6 of us in attendance.  One of the YSA that works at Lidl, a local grocery store, contributed a surplus turkey he’d been given so we enjoyed a feast.  That evening we streamed the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square’s Easter concert, to which we had about 15 in attendance.  We felt it was a lovely day.

On Easter Monday Elder Edvalson took our car in for its MOT (Ministry of Transport) test, think annual safety inspection and emissions testing.  While there I met a young man about Marel’s age who was a roofer.  He had a flat tire which needed replaced so while we both waited the hour for our work to be completed, we had a nice visit.  He is from Rugby (the home of the sport of Rugby), and lives with his partner, a chef, and their 2 year old son.  He showed me pictures of his son Elijah and I remarked how he was named after one of the most famous prophets of the Old Testament.  That led into me explaining why we were here, about the Institute, and the Church.  I learned a lot about roofing in the UK, and he thought it would be fine to have 2 of our young missionary friends come by to tell he and his family our message about the purpose of life.  It was a fun conversation, and nice to do some “finding” while there, since most of our time we are spending with those who are already members of the Church.

For three days late in week 2 of our “break”, we were able to travel to North Yorkshire, County Durham, and Northumberland and visit places where our ancestors were from.  For Elder E it is the Smurthwaite family, and for Sister E it is the Naisbitt family line.  We visited multiple sites where Christening, Marriage, burial and census sites have been recorded and took pictures of each place and uploaded them to FamilySearch for all to see.  It was a great time seeing these places where these parts of our families came from. 

Mixed in with the family history visits, we also went to Beemish, the Living Museum of the North, which has an 1820’s coal pit town, a turn of the 20^th Century Edwardian town, and other historical venues.  They were all connected by transportation types of the day, so we rode an old double decker bus one way and a tram the other way.  It was interesting to walk down into the coal pit mine and see the working conditions of the miners.  I’m so glad I didn’t have to do that…..but thank you to the ancestors who did and kept the family going. 

We also drove to the northernmost town where we have missionaries in the mission, Alnwick.  We had been here last summer with Marel to visit its castle, Harry Potter experience and gardens.  This time, after having a great Italian meal of Roman style pizza (we met the chef from Rome), we visited the Cragside Country Estate near Rothbury which was the home of William Armstrong, a shipping and war materiel magnate who was also a prescient home designer.  He constructed a hydroelectric power plant to be the first home to have electrical lighting, and many other firsts.  It was beautiful and felt like a Northwest National Park setting.  He had imported and planted hundreds of evergreen trees, rhododendrons, and azaleas so the grounds were outstanding.  He also hosted Queen Victoria and her family in the day, for which he added lavish accoutrements to the home.  It is well worth the visit should you ever venture to northern England.

Then on April 28 we spoke in the Leeds First Ward (our home ward).  We spoke regarding the plan of happiness and the desire of Heavenly Father to give us the gift of Eternal Life.  That night, we hosted a YSA Fireside at the Institute where the Stake Patriarch and his wife spoke and answered questions regarding Patriarchal blessings. 

This past week, we were back at it teaching each of our classes, doing the meals and the visiting and mentoring that comes with being open from 10 am to 10 pm each weekday.  It is nearly exam time now, so our library and other study rooms have been much more used this week as everyone is “revising” (studying for exams).  On Friday, we hosted our last movie night before we depart and showed The Other Side of Heaven (about Elder John Groberg’s mission to Tonga in the 1950s) in preparation for The Other Side of Heaven, part 2 (about his time as Mission President in Tonga later on) which is debuting in June.  It was well attended and is such a heartwarming and spiritual movie.

This weekend was the Leeds Stake Conference, so we were asked to speak about our mission experience here.  We decided to read selected quotes from this blog that would give an overall flavor to what it has been like.  Our first draft was about an 18 minute presentation.  We were given 10 minutes to speak, so it took several edits to cull out enough material and still have a message that flowed.  It turned out very good, and the visiting Area Authority Seventy, Elder Joaquim Moreira from Portugal loved it and got up to thank us while we were still at the podium.  He was a most interesting and entertaining speaker, which we were happy to listen to with his interesting message.  It turns out he was a professional clown!  He is now employed by the Church as a Seminary and Institute Director in Portugal, much like Brother McMorn does here…..and they know each other from Europe CES training meetings.

That’s about it for this installment.  We’ve just got 2 weeks of teaching left before we go down to London for a few days. 

We send our love to each of you!

Elder & Sister Edvalson

Sisters Jackson, Lyle, Wassmer & Edvalson at Bolton Castle

Our Leeds 1 District:
Sisters Teo, Walker, Elder & Sister Edvalson, Sisters Smith and Chambers. 
Elders Neck, Sychugov, Dromey and Mueller 

Elder & Sister E at Kirkby Stephen

Our Hotel at Walworth Castle 

The Sweet Shop at Beemish 

The dental clinic at Beemish 

All about the firsts at Cragside Country Estate 

Countryside Crag Estate

17 April 2019

          A month from today will be our last class here at the Institute, but let’s not go there yet.  I’d rather begin at the beginning of April because May will come soon enough.  We are looking forward to going home, but we know we will miss our Senior Missionary life here in England.

          April 6 and 7 was the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and we had full houses of YSA as we streamed the conference here in the lounge live from Salt Lake City.   Since there is a 7 hour time difference, our two sessions ended each day at 11:00pm.  We also served a dinner in between sessions here so no one needed to leave.  Saturday we had pizza and Sunday was make your own sandwich bar.  Since then we’ve had a fair amount of discussion on which talks were the favorites.                

Elder E’s favorite conference talk was by Elder Kyle McKay of the Seventy. The title of the talk was, “The Immediate Goodness of God.”  This was the first time we had heard Elder McKay speak and he was a compelling speaker for sure.  One of the main phrases from his talk was:  “Even while we are patiently waiting upon the Lord, there are certain blessings that come to us immediately.”   He started by telling a story about his young 5 year old son coming to him and announcing:  “Dad, I’ve figured something out. I’ve figured out that soon for you is a very long time for me.”   He proceeded to talk about how time can sometimes seem long to us if we are waiting for a certain blessing but we can be assured in so many different ways that the Lord is there, is aware of us and is sending blessings - some easy to recognize and others not as much - but still as loving.  He concluded his talk in this way:  “I bear witness that Jesus Christ is the Great Deliverer, and in His name, I promise that as you turn to Him with real intent and full purpose of heart, He will deliver you from everything that threatens to diminish or destroy your life or joy. That deliverance may take longer than you would like—perhaps a lifetime or longer. So, to give you comfort, courage, and hope, to sustain and strengthen you to that day of ultimate deliverance, I commend to you and testify of the immediate goodness of God”

Mine was the talk by Sister Sharon Eubank of the Relief Society Presidency about the light of Christ in our lives.  She spoke of how all of us have times of darkness.  The Lord said, “Fear not, doubt not.”  She ended in this way:  “I testify you are beloved. The Lord knows how hard you are trying. You are making progress. Keep going. He sees all your hidden sacrifices and counts them to your good and the good of those you love. Your work is not in vain. You are not alone. His very name, Emmanuel, means ‘God with us.’ He is surely with you.

Take a few more steps on the covenant path, even if it’s too dark to see very far. The lights will come back on. I testify of the truth in Jesus’s words, and they are filled with light: ‘Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’”

The next week started a three week long Easter Break for some of the University students.  Many, especially the younger ones - went home for the break, but we have still had plenty of students here.  The first week, our good friends from home, Jackie, Mike and granddaughter, Brittany Cannon came to visit for a couple days.  In their supportive way, they jumped right into the activities here attending our Chinese Hotpot dinner and  our “Book of Mormon” Class.  The next day we took off for one of our favorite spots, York complete with visits to the Harry Potter stores on the Shambles and, of course tea at Betty’s.  Also lots of good conversation and story telling.

We finished off the week attending our Institute Director’s 8 year old son, Barnaby’s, baptism.   Brother McMorn is about Marel’s age and has 4 delightfully active and hilarious boys.  

We are teaching no classes this week so Elder E. And I are inspecting missionary flats.  Of course, we love these young missionaries - the same ages as our YSA and full of faith, energy, humor and goodness.  I bring them peanut butter balls, Elder E. Fixes anything broken and we make lists of what they still need in their flats - be it floor lamps or mold spray. 

This week we also went over to East Yorkshire to visit our friends, Elder and Sister Fox.  They are from Sacramento serving YSA and supporting the Ward at Hull which is about 60 miles from Leeds.  We became friends at the Mission Training Center and since we are all in the England Leeds Mission, we see them periodically at conferences, but have not had a chance to get together.  They are leaving a week before us so they invited us down for dinner and to see the William Wilberforce House/Museum since they share our admiration for this courageous 18th Century philanthropist who lead the fight to end the slave trade in Britain.  The museum is well done, comprehensive and inspiring if you ever have a chance to stop in Hull or take the opportunity to watch the fabulous Michael Apted movie made in 2006 called “Amazing Grace” - one of Benedict Cumberbatch’s earlier films.  (He plays Wilberforce’s close friend, William Pitt who became Prime Minister.). Seriously, you will love this film.

We are looking forward to Easter where we will be speaking in the Dudley Hill Ward   Speaking of talks, we will be giving our Mission Homecoming  talk in our home ward - Willamette - Sunday, June 30th at noon in the West Linn building.    We will be home on Memorial Day weekend, but our kids come into town end of June so that’s how we scheduled it.  Now back to reality - the mission.  Thank you dear friends for all of your support.  We can feel the prayers here on the mission.  We are truly blessed to be able to serve the Lord Jesus Christ in this way.    Love, the Edvalsons 

Ps - again - major thank you to our cousin, Miriam Walther Clark for facilitating this blog for us. 

Visiting the William Wilberforce House

Fun with missionaries at Zone Conference

YSA watching General Conference

In front of the York Minster

Tea at Betty's with the Cannons

31 March 2019

Hiya from Yorkshire!

It seems hard to believe that another 2 weeks have passed by.  And what do we have to show for it?  For one, the days are getting considerably longer.  Today is the beginning of daylight savings time in Europe, so our sunset tonight will be at 7:38 pm.  Sunrise was at 6:39 am so we already are having 13 hours of daylight.  That is a welcome change.  It is also Mother’s Day in the United Kingdom, so the Primary children sang to the mothers today and Sister E along with the rest of the women in the congregation was given a rose and some chocolate.  So it’s been a good day all around.

We attended the Leeds 3rd Ward for Church today.  One of our YSA is leaving for his mission this week and was speaking in church.  Nathaniel Leonard has been called to the Norway Oslo Mission and he will be reporting to the MTC on Wednesday 10 April in Provo, UT but in the meantime, his parents are taking him to General Conference in Salt Lake City this coming weekend and visiting some of the sites in Utah beforehand.  That will be a great kick off for his mission by getting to do that.  We had a party for him on this past Friday evening at the Institute instead of our regular movie night.  It was well attended by his YSA peers as they came by to wish him well.

We also had transfers this past week within the mission.  There were some reconfigurations of zones and districts which gave us an additional set of sister missionaries in our district.  We also lost 2 of our district members, and consequently gained 2 others.  Elder Kolega, who is from Croatia has completed his mission and has returned home.  He was the only missionary from his country serving in the church.  He already knows that he will be called as a counselor in his branch presidency upon his return.   We will miss him.  He is from the hometown of Kresimir Cosic, of BYU, Yugoslavia, and Croatia basketball fame.  Our new district leader is Elder Sychugov from Moscow, Russia.  He is full of enthusiasm and has good leadership skills.  His companion is Elder Neck who is from Wales.  We lost Sister Herdegen, a Mandarin speaking missionary from Nevada and gained Sister Walker who is beginning her Mandarin speaking mission here as a companion to Sister Teo, who is from Singapore and lately Shanghai, China.  We also have in our district Elder Dromey, originally from Toronto, Canada but lately from Provo and his companion Elder Müller, from Hamburg, Germany who together are our Zone leaders.  We have added a sister’s companionship serving in Morely consisting of Sister Smith, from the Dallas TX area (she has competed against Mansfield TX teams) and Sister Chambers who is from Utah.  You can see that we have a diverse group of missionaries representing several different countries of the world which makes for some fun and interesting training meetings.  We love them and love getting to know about so many different cultural backgrounds.

In our lessons the past 2 weeks, we have covered the following topics.  The Redemption of the Dead and The Resurrection and Judgment in our Doctrines of the Gospel class.  Becoming Instruments In the Hands of God, Repentance and Forgiveness, The Power of the Word and Preparing for the Judgment in our Teachings and Doctrines of the Book of Mormon class.  In our Friday Devotional class we presented a review of His Grace is Sufficient (classic Brad Wilcox talk from BYU) and the Blessings of General Conference (lead in and teaser to our live streaming of Conference this coming weekend).   We have such a good time preparing for and giving these lessons and there are always great questions and discussions that ensue from them.  We’re going to miss doing these, even though the preparation time and research is sometimes intense.

We had a great Saturday on 23 March 2019.  It started by attending the baptism of 2 YSA members in the Leeds First Ward.  We had Kieran McGrenaghan who is from Leeds and Verchen (Zemin Li) from China.  They are both students at the University of Leeds.  We are always delighted to welcome these great young people to the Church and to the Institute and to welcome them to the covenant path of discipleship.

That was followed by a trip to Ilkley for lunch at our favorite restaurant Bettys with Sisters Lyle and Barrus from the Mission Office staff and then on to Skipton to tour Skipton Castle.  Skipton bills itself as the gateway to the Yorkshire Dales National Park and is our favorite town to visit.  We attend church here on a rotating basis and they meet in the old courthouse which has great acoustics and a fabulous organ and organist.  Five of our YSA attend this branch and our district leader and his companion are assigned here.  It is about a 45 to 60 minute drive away from the Institute, depending on traffic.

The castle dates from 1090 AD but was founded in its current form in 1314.  It has survived virtually unaltered from its last modernization more than 300 years ago.  It is remarkably intact and easy to visualize people living and occupying it.  On our drive to and from we saw 100s of sheep, some of which now include newborn lambs, which is always a heartwarming sign of spring, especially here in England.

Yesterday, it was a beautifully sunny day so we walked downtown to have a late lunch at Mommy Thai restaurant.  Our daughter Marel recommended it to us as someone on her Twitter feed said it was one of the best Thai restaurants in the world.  It was great and we told the owners that our daughter from Alaska highly recommended it!   They were surprised that their fame had reached the frozen North.  We then concluded our walk by making a stop at the Lindt Chocolate Store to replenish the sweet tooth cabinet in our flat (adjacent to the dental floss cabinet ().

The university schedules are quite different than those we are used to.  The University of Leeds begins a 4 week spring break now with classes resuming on 29 April.  We at the Institute will carry on with our regular classes, taking “only” a 2 week spring break around Easter.  We will not hold classes the week before and the week after Easter.  We’re not sure how many will be attending our classes during these “break” weeks but ours is a 14 week semester and all the classes have to be presented.  The students can still get course credit by attending 11 of the 14 weeks.   They can also arrange with us to do make up sessions or assignments.

Well, that’s the report for this time around.  We rejoice in the joy found in following our Savior Jesus Christ.  We love serving with missionaries from around the world and love the people of Yorkshire.  Sister E always wanted to live here.  She just had to wait until Elder E retired!  Happy springtime to you all!

Cheers!
Elder & Sister Edvalson

Lunch at Mommy Thai in Leeds

Baptism of Kieran and Verchen

Elder Kolega, Sister Teo, Elders Neck and Dromey, Sister Herdegen, and Elder Muller predicting their future before transfers

Sisters Barrus, Lyle and Edvalson in Ilkley

Visiting Skipton Castle

Sister E and Sarah Bentley from Skipton

Sam Carter, Megan Clayton, and Georgina Corre enjoying buttermilk syrup!

Missionary meeting at Institute with pizza for lunch in the car park.

Sister Edvalson's favorite name for scones. And they're from Bettys to boot!

19 March 2019

Hi-ya from Yorkshire,

We have been blessed to remain relatively healthy during our - soon to be ending - mission here.  Of course, Elder Edvalson is almost always healthy anyway, but I balance that out by being almost always recovering or going into another cold or some kind of similar malady. But -  It’s been over a year since my last cold and I was foolishly  expecting my wonderful stash of Costco Dayquil provided by Tami and Ricola cough drops provided by Allyson - to manage to last me through to the end.  Not so.  A week ago I started getting a little shaky which is a warning to watch out.  I managed to teach my Wednesday night class on mostly adrenaline - which works pretty good as long as you can go upstairs and crash after a couple hours - which I did.

I spent the next 4-5 days mostly sleeping - rather glorious in some ways - but that is not what we are here for.  Finally, I went into the GP (General Practitioner) to see if anything nefarious was going on. Nope - just a cold - expect 2 weeks of this embarrassingly lazy behavior before I could pull it together again.  I figured it had ended up as a sinus infection because I’ve faced that before and after 4 days of antibiotics, I would be just fine.  But England is very concerned about the over diagnosis for antibiotics - especially in the elderly (that would be me) so although she gave me a prescription, it came along with a kindly diatribe on the USA and their irresponsible use of antibiotics.  She’s probably right, but they did seem to work back in my old life.  Anyway, I don’t mind picking up the threads of my active teaching/partying/preparing classes lifestyle as long as I can be assured I”m not contagious.  I don’t want to infect any of the students, of course.  She assured me it was nothing and I should just buck-it-up-buster….so here I am.   I teach a class tonight -which actually I’m looking forward to.  It’s taken me a few days to put it together - sleeping in between, but I rather like it since it touches a lot on Family History - so I guess I”m ready to rejoin the humanity below the penthouse.

Looking back on the calendar  to the beginning of March, I recall the fabulous day we Senior Missionaries spent touring, visiting and eating at Temple Newsome - one of the beautiful estates dotting the countryside.  I know we’ve reported on this before - even this particular house since we spent a day there a year ago with the Jeffrey Cannon family.  This time, Elder E. organized a lovely catered luncheon for all 29 Senior Missionaries and then a guided tour of the house.  We all learned a lot - almost all - a few of the. Newer missionaries who are still learning the different Yorkshire accents, had a problem understanding the guides.  Most of the estates also include a working farm and it was a great day to walk through the stalls looking at all the new baby livestock and the daffodils everywhere.  We are among the few old timer missionary couples now so we really like getting together when we can.  We’ll miss them, but we hear there’s a Mission Reunion already planned this coming October in Salt Lake City so we can meet up with a lot of them then. 

The other big doings here was the dedication of the Rome Temple, quite an historic experience for many.  We had several YSA who flew to Rome to attend one of the Dedicatory Sessions and see the beautiful grounds.  Since Elder served his first mission in Italy (Milan in the north) and Allyson served her mission in Rome itself, we’ve watched with great anticipation for the Temple to be finished.  Allyson and her fellow missionaries used to picnic and play soccer on the grounds where the Temple now stands.  It’s a great blessing for the Italian saints and an historical moment watching footage of the President of the Church meet with the Pope.  The message is peace, harmony, family, kindness, service and following Jesus Christ and we are grateful to teach that with other believers.

We have emailed and skyped with our replacement missionary couple and we are very excited to meet them.  They asked President Turvey to give them an assignment with lots going on and he responded with this one.  Of course, we feel like these YSA are our children and want the best for them and we are so happy to feel great about the new couple.  We feel quite like friends already.  Thank you dear friends and family for all of your support as we continue in this wonderful mission.  God bless you.

Sister and Elder Edvalson

temple Newsome extensive grounds

ballroom

touring the mansion

senior missionaries

YSA enthralled with tales of Ben's engagement

Rome temple at night

4 March 2019

Greetings from England!

We send our love and greetings from the land of crumpets and clotted cream (two things we’ll definitely miss after we return).  But from what we read in the news, we’re grateful to be here.  There has been only one evening where we had a few snowflakes, but we’ve had a couple of weeks with temperatures reaching to the 60s with the daffodils now in full bloom.  Even though Leeds is about as far north as Edmonton, Alberta it has a much milder climate due to the Gulf Stream current giving England its milder climate than would be expected.

Our normal schedule continues with our teaching 3 classes per week along with keeping the Institute building open from 10 am to 10 pm on weekdays.  We get some help along the way with our support specialist Marian Rider, who works from 10:00 am to 3:30 pm Monday through Thursday which gives us a chance to slip out to buy all the supplies and groceries we need for the meals that get served here on Wednesday and Thursday evenings and the Family Home Evening treats for Monday evenings and the ingredients for pancake breakfasts and movie night treats on Fridays.  We’ve become proficient grocery shoppers as part of our calling.  We will miss the meals we eat together with the Young Single Adults, but we won’t miss the “washing up” (as they say over here) and will be glad to use a dishwasher and garbage disposal once again!

One of our out of the routine events since last we posted was that our stake hosted a regional dance on Friday 22 February 2019.  We had a number of challenges to pull it off though.  We were all set to borrow a lot of Christmas lights from an adjacent stake which the YSA from that stake had promised us, but it turned out they didn’t have permission to loan them out…..so at the last moment and with the blessing of our stake presidency councilor over YSA … we made a quick trip to IKEA and procured a goodly number of strings of lights to decorate the cultural hall.  We had 2 different kinds of music offered at the dance.  There was a live band hired which plays “Ceilidh” (pronounce KAY-lee) band which plays Celtic music and has a caller roam the floor to do dance instruction.  They would call this barn dancing and it was quite fun.  Sister E and I even got out there and showed our moves!  During the middle of the dance, while the band took a break, the YSA played their playlist of contemporary music and had a more traditional dance.  Then the band returned and wrapped it up with another hour of barn dancing concluding with the “Holey Poley” (Hokey Pokey)….which was a surprising hit!  The 2 Elders Quorums of the wards that use the meetinghouse were there at 11:30 to supervise the cleanup and did a great job.  By the time we got back home and put some things away, it was 2 am before we went to bed.  One thing about being YSA missionaries…..we keep YSA hours!  (Which for us seems more routine than not).  We had visiting YSA from 17 different stakes from as far away as London come to the dance….so in that sense, it was a success in bringing a large group together.

Last Monday we also got to go out and inspect a new prospective apartment for the sister missionaries in the Wharfe Valley Ward.  It is also NW of Leeds about a 30 minute drive away from the Institute.  They needed a new place to live, and this one turned out to be just what they need.  So the mission office started the paperwork, and we hope it works out for them.

Yesterday we also got to teach a Temple Preparation lesson with 2 of our YSA who are preparing to be endowed later this year….Katia Wesby and Katie Clark.  They are roommates and such fun to be with. 

We also were visiting with one of our Zone Leaders who is from Hamburg, Germany.  His parents are their stake YSA adviser couple and had heard that the Leeds YSA were famous in the Europe area for all the activities and things they are doing.  It turns out that about 6 to 9 months ago, our area advisors the Skoubyes, who are stationed at the Church Europe area offices in Frankfurt Germany, had asked us to send a list of all the things we do in regards to YSA activities.  We sent them what we did each week as a routine.  They then sent it out as an example to all who work with YSA in Europe.  So I guess we’re famous in the circles we run in!  Actually, we’re very blessed to be serving in a dedicated Institute building.  There are only 3 of them in the UK (London, Manchester and Leeds).  With this facility, and the opportunity to live in the building, it becomes easier to offer so many different courses and social networking and study places that church meetinghouses can’t provide.  Plus, we are situated about 1 block from the main University of Leeds campus, so our students come here to study between classes, eat their lunch, take a nap, play some pool, foosball or table tennis, and use the building Wi-Fi to help do their homework.  So you can see why we feel this has been the perfect mission for us!  Great facility, great faculty, and great students!

We visited 2 outlying wards the last 2 Sundays.  We attend one of 10 different wards or branches which constitute all the units in the Leeds Stake.  A week ago we were at Dudley Hill Ward in south Bradford and yesterday at the Keighley Ward which is a suburb to the northwest of Leeds about a 50 minute drive from the Institute.  We keep a chart of which wards we’ve attended and now figure we’ve made our last visit to some wards.  This has been another blessing of being here…..we’ve gotten to know so many great Latter-day Saints for whom we will always have a soft spot in our hearts.  The Bishop of the Dudley Hill Ward Terrence Rooney was an MP (Member of Parliament) for a number of years and now serves as a Bishop after having served with his wife a full time YSA mission themselves to Birmingham.  He invited us to return to speak on Easter to their ward about the blessings of serving a senior mission and about the Saviour (notice the British spelling).

In our Teachings and Doctrines of the Book of Mormon class we have reviewed how the Bible and the Book of Mormon both witness of Christ, teach about the blessings of prayer and revelation and our need to be spiritually reborn among other things.  In our Doctrines of the Gospel we’ve discussed the Sacrament, the Apostasy and the Restoration.  And in our breakfast devotional we’ve reviewed a classic talk by Elder Jeffrey R Holland called “Lord, I Believe”, a recent BYU devotional talk by Elder Ulisses Soares called “Always Remember Him” and a talk by Elder David A Bednar called “A Welding Link” (Family History---I bet you know who taught that lesson!).   Then on Thursday evenings we served lovely meals of tamale pie (tamale ingredients with corn bread baked on top) and baked chicken with potatoes and sun dried tomatoes.  We end up having about 24-28 sign up for our Thursday night dinners.  There are usually 50 to 60 who come to Institute, but some don’t arrive until dinner is over.

By 10 pm each night, I have to make the rounds through the building, looking at my watch and reciting the line from Pirates of Penzance…..”I love you all with affection unspeakable……but it’s the top of the tide and you must be off”.  With that, we clean up the detritus from the evening and clamber back up to our 4th floor apartment, and if we’re lucky, talk to Marel or Allyson for 30 to 45 minutes before deciding we need to go to bed!

We think we might just want to sleep for a while and stare at the ocean for few weeks after coming home!   But….no time to think about that now….there’s another lesson to prepare!    You know, of course, that we love YOU all with affection unspeakable…..Cheers for now!   

Elder & Sister Edvalson

Sister E and Hannah Hawkins in the kitchen

Hannah and her Rolo cupcakes

Sister E and Jonathan Viner, our local Manchester City fan

The decorated cultural hall and Ceilidh band warming up

Brothers Parr and Bentley...our high councilors over YSA and institute

The Leeds Zone after a recent training meeting

17 February 2019

17 February 2019

Greetings to all our dear family and friends,

We try to write an entry for this blog every two weeks.  It’s now been more than three.  However, to be fair, as they say here, we have been extremely busy the months of January and February.  When I sit down to write, it’s usually a lesson or ideas for an activity or occasionally some quick family history research - but - enough excuses.  Here’s the news.  

We have 90 days left in this mission so we better get it right.   It’s still fun and educational and inspiring and exhilarating and lovely.  We will finish out this term May 17 then take off for London for a couple days to see “Hamilton” and “Harry Potter” then back here to attend the Institute Graduation ceremony and meet our replacements - quick training of about a day or less then hit the skies to get back in time to attend the Memorial Day tribute at the “Graves of the Glorious Trustys” in Tillamook, Oregon, USA.  

But I forgot to fill you in. Here goes:   Our Institute director was gone a week or so end of January so we taught his classes as well as our own.  That was an exhausting week as I recall.  Also our population of YSA has absolutely exploded since the beginning of the year.  That means more cooking, cleaning and marathon talking with everyone we can.  In addition, our Institute Student President got married and our Secretary left on a mission to Brazil so we’ve been doing some fill-in hoping to see some new officers soon.  

We are loving our Book of Mormon Class, but it does take a lot of study and preparation.  It’s a 2 credit class so longer than usual.  The students are smart, spiritual, fun and friendly so we feel at home there.  The shorter Gospel essentials class is small, but that’s a good thing since it’s really for new members or investigators so we can spend lots of time chatting and answering questions.  We’ve had 20 or so at the pancake breakfast devotional every Friday morning and 35 or so at Monday night Home Evening - always fun, but potentially messy.  We’ve made lots of new friends and just keep enjoying the old group as well.  Last week we had an activity called “Bake a Date” wherein the guys bid on cakes the girls make and vice versa.  Whoever baked the cake the bidder wins, is then taken on a date using the selling price of the cake as a date spending amount.  Does that make sense?  Everyone had a great time, but whether the dates happened or will happen is a mystery to us.    We celebrated Chinese New Year (year of the Pig BTW) so we pigged out on some dumplings we learned how to make.  Lots of guest Chinese students attended as well.  

We believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is lead by a Prophet of the Lord.  I have seen enough miracles in my life to truly believe one can have their prayers answered by the Lord.  We also believe that agency is very important to our Father in Heaven thus we feel free to pray about any counsel given to us by the Prophet as well as any questions we have about our own personal lives.  This year the Church has cut one hour out of the usual 3 hour Sunday meeting schedule.  The extra hour is spent in reading and studying the scriptures at home with our family.  Our family is each other, but we also have Skyped with the Alaskans and the Texans and participated with them in discussing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We’ve found this extra hour on Sunday a great blessing for even more exploring of the Lord’s words.  This is only one of the wonderful changes the Church has made over this last year.   To list them here would take up all the room I just filled with news so grab yourself a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and ask them what was their favorite new blessing from the Prophet this past year.  

We love you all and look forward to seeing many of you.  We also look forward to massive sleeping, a big kitchen with a dishwasher and garbage disposal, our backyard and the beach.  But we will miss our dear dear friends and children here in Leeds, BEAUTIFUL Yorkshire, England.  In fact, I can’t think about it anymore so ta ta for now (as Pooh - he’s English, you know)  would say.   

Sister E. And Elder E.   (you can see how casual they’ve all gotten that they call us by nicknames now). 

dumpling making

It's Elder Edvalson's birthday. And he's Still younger than I am.

The teacher, Sister Teo from China

Our wonderful mission district

Getting instructions for the Bake a Date bidding

With our friend David right after his baptism

We celebrated with our friends touring the amazing village of Saltaire.

Sister Barrus and Sister Lyle work at the mission office