Edvalsons in England: August 2018

I notice our last blog was the first week of August. In fact, I had to go back and make sure because it’s now the end of August. This month we’ve settled into a kind of easy going type schedule spending time with YSA, young missionaries as well as our Senior Missionary friends.

Every Monday night we hold Family Home Evening. Every Wednesday night we cook dinner and hold what has become Family History Workshop/sit around the table in the kitchen chatting until 10pm when we start showing everyone the door. No - we do not have to keep that 6:30am rising time that the young missionaries do. Hallelujah for that. Friday morning we serve pancakes and a devotional and then a 7:00 pm movie night as usual.

Let me just mention one of the blessings of this summer schedule. Most of the students have gone on Holiday along with the official Institute staff.

That makes it easy for some who are just coming back to church or who perhaps felt uncomfortable in the big groups, to come, learn and socialize with us and become familiar and comfortable with the Institute setting. We have enjoyed getting to know and help them feel welcome. Our movie last Friday was Star Wars, A New Hope chosen with one young man in mind who happens to be a Star Wars Nerd. He was very excited and came complete with robe, extra Light Sabers and a Storm Trooper mask for great effect. This more open schedule allows us to more easily follow the Savior’s teachings of loving the individual in whatever way we can.

We have also spent more time with the missionaries as we executed our “Inspecting the flats” assignment. We spent two days inspecting all 10 of the flats in the Leads Stake which means a checklist of things to do to keep their flats clean, sanitary and uncluttered. Definitely a challenge for some of the 19 year old missionaries. Sometimes the schedule works so we can take them out to lunch or dinner. We helped teach an investigator with one of the Sister companionships. That was wonderful. We have become experts in taking care of mold and mildew - a big problem here and of course, we always bring them peanut butter balls. One of the Elder companionships treated us to chocolate cake (as bribery they put it so we would give them excellent marks). The cake was delicious and the bribery was on. Their flat looked pretty good so they got good marks in spite of the cake, but we certainly appreciated their extra efforts.

One Saturday we traveled up to Durham with our Senior Missionary friends, the Flockharts. We spent the afternoon in Durham which is a beautiful Cathedral city. We had been there once before in the winter time so it was fun to walk around the city more as well as visit the amazing and beautiful Norman Cathedral. Then we drove down to the village of Bishop Auckland to see a pageant about England. Here is the advert:

Kynren - An Epic Tale of England the action-packed live blockbuster performed by a cast and crew of 1,000, taking you on an amazing journey through 2,000 years of history, myth and legend. Kynren, a world class show brought to life with magnificent sets, combat, stunts, horsemanship, stunning pyrotechnics and amazing special effects set to a thrilling original soundtrack. Kynren is a captivating experience for all the family, it really has to be seen to be believed! - complete with fantastic fireworks and flag waving to “Land of Hope and Glory”.

Try to see it if you are ever up here in Yorkshire in the end of August through the beginning of September. It was very enjoyable. My favorite part was when the gaggle of perfectly trained geese ran through the set with several darling little English lasses. Can you train geese?

We also spent the day with some friends from our Stake who used to teach here at the Institute. They gave us a lovely English lunch and then took us to the Bronte village of Haworth for the afternoon. Lovely.

Last weekend we took two of our Senior Sister Missionary pals to the spa town, Ilkley. The day was gorgeous and we enjoyed walking through the market and taking tea and other goodies at Bettys.

Yesterday we drove up to the middle of the Dales - which just has to be seen to be believed. Some of you, I”m sure, have heard me rave about it before. Miles of stunning rolling hills covered in rock walls and sheep. We stopped at the Wensleydale Creamery for lunch and visited the beautiful Aysgarth Falls where we had visited before. We drove by our favorite restaurant The Wensleydale Heifer, but didn’t have time to go in. We were checking out the time it takes to go into and out of the Dales for when our cousins, Mark and Tami come to visit in a few weeks.

Lest you think we never have to suffer, I should mention last week when the Fire Alarm went off at 2:45am. We got up and I trolled through the many rooms of the Institute checking for smoke while Elder E. Climbed up into the attic and finally went down to check on the fire alarm itself. For about two hours we fought with that alarm - turning it off only to have it start again after a couple minutes. We finally called the Institute director who lives about half an hour away. He drove down and he and Elder E. Figured out how to shut it down completely. We retired to bed about 5am. It was repaired a couple days later. Not having an early morning class or meeting the next day, we were able to sleep in a bit the next morning.

I really cannot begin to list the many blessings, miracles and tender mercies that have attended us here on this mission. The lessons we’ve learned and those we’ve taught have helped us understand how we can make a difference in the world by embracing the beauty of it and loving the people in it. The Lord is in the details of our lives and we are so grateful. We often think of you and pray for you at home. God bless you. We know He is.

With Love,

The Edvalsons

River in the Yorkshire Dales

Enjoying kynren with friends

Curtain call. Land of Hope and Glory

Elder E. Lived at Kings Arms ay BYU. Memories.

Visiting Haworth with friends

Enjoying Star Wars

Can you spot the Jedi?

Aysgarth Falls

My favorite place

Blog Post – 1 August 2018

Summer marches on and here we are in August! The past 2+ weeks have seemingly flown by and we have finished our Summer Term courses. We had steady attendance at the last 2 weeks of our courses where we finished up “Family History” (taught by Sister Edvalson), “Friday Devotional and Pancake Breakfast” (shared teaching with each of us alternating weeks), and Elder Edvalson substituting for our Institute Director Brother McMorn and teaching one week of his course on “Principles of Leadership”. We also still prepare and serve a meal to those who sign up on the Thursday evenings before class that night. Everyone loves any Mexican food we serve….it seems to be some of the most popular menu choices.

We had a strong finish to the Family History Course with almost all of our students submitting names for temple ordinances and attaching their submitted names on leaves of a big poster of a family tree in our kitchen. We had about 8 to 10 students in attendance each Wednesday evening following a meal that the students prepared. We are continuing Wednesday evening family history workshops during our 2 month interlude before Fall Term classes start in October.

We held our first Zone Conferences since the England Leeds Mission was reconfigured on July 1^st. With the closing of the London South Mission, all the other missions in the UK were reconfigured. That meant that we went from a 7 Stake area to a 10 Stake area. We inherited the Norwich Stake from the London Mission, and the Nottingham and Leicester Stakes from the Birmingham Mission. At our July transfer, each of the new Southern Zones had a new missionary come to them from our old mission and one of their companions transferred to a Northern area to begin a melding, both physically and spiritually, of the new mission. For the Turveys, our Mission President, it means much more travel to visit the Southern areas. We now have 3 regional Zone Conferences instead of 2. We are now in the Central Zones area, whereas we used to be the Southern Zones. At any rate, we gathered in Huddersfield as the Leeds, Huddersfield and Hull Zones to receive instruction from our Mission leaders, mostly President and Sister Turvey. As Senior Missionaries, we help direct the flow of traffic and get the lunch served in a timely manner which this time was delivered Subway sandwiches. They are all day events, starting at 9:00 am and ending around 5:00 pm. Each of the newly arrived and the soon to depart missionaries are asked to share their testimonies at the conclusion, which is always a highlight. The young missionaries have a great time seeing many of their friends in one setting.

We also concluded our Friday devotionals reviewing “Classic LDS Talks”. These have been fun for us to look back on talks that stood out to us and others as more or less timeless. The last “classic talks” that we reviewed were “Cast Not Away Your Confidence” (Jeffrey R Holland), “Sunday Will Come” (Joseph B Wirthlin), “Patience” (Neal A Maxwell)—shout out to Cousin Mary Ward, “Filling the Measure of Your Creation” (Patricia Holland), and “Them of the Last Wagon” (J Reuben Clark) combined with “Modern Pioneers” (Dallin H Oaks). These have been a joy to review and prepare. We usually review a biography of each speaker and it helps the students get to know current and past Church leaders that they may not be familiar with. “The Principles of Leadership” class Elder E taught was regarding the principles of delegation and righteous decision making. That was also fun to prepare and discuss with lots of references to Christ like attributes and counsel from General Church officers.

We also attended a Barbecue with the Leeds 1^st Ward, our home ward, where the majority of our YSA’s attend. That was a fun night out…..and the British heat wave and dry weather have continued, although we have had a couple days of rain recently which were welcomed. We also got to meet the parents of several of our YSA students since our last blog entry. We met Lydia Smith’s mum who is from Hull. Lydia is from a family of 11 children and she just graduated with a degree in Chemistry. We met Andy Lau’s family from Hong Kong as they were here to attend his graduation from the University of Bradford with a degree in Physiotherapy before his return home to work. Andy served his mission in Melbourne Australia. Andy’s father works for Mattel (toys) and oversees toy manufacturers in China, his brother just got his mission call to Toronto, and his sister is attending BYU (Provo) after serving a mission. We also met Elysia Kirby’s mum and brother who were visiting from Chester (near Liverpool). Elysia just completed her 4^th year of dental school, with one more year to get her degree. We also met the family of Jordan Whitaker, who is from Birmingham and will be attending the University of Leeds this fall. He just returned from his mission in the German speaking Alpine Mission (Austria, Switzerland & southern Germany). As you can tell, we have a very diverse student body and it’s really fun to meet people from all over the world while serving here.

Last Saturday we had our quarterly gathering of Senior Missionaries serving in the mission. With the addition of the 3 new stakes, we now have 27 senior missionaries serving here! It’s so interesting to see the variety of people and assignments we all represent. We have Sisters Hibbert and Hunt (2 widows who are literally sisters) assigned as companions to strengthen the women’s auxiliaries in Middlesbrough. The Metcalfs who are the Branch President and Relief Society President in Peterlee. Sisters Nelson and Wynn (2 widowed best friends from Boise) who are also serving as women’s auxiliary specialists in Hartlepool. Elder & Sister Fox who are YSA (Young Single Adult) and MLS (Member Leadership Support) missionaries in Hull (we were together in the MTC with them). The Abbots who are MLS missionaries in Stamford. The Mauldins who are Military Relations Missionaries in Thetford (He’s a retired 2 Star Admiral). The Jubbers who are YSA Missionaries in Sheffield. The Littles (from the UK) who are MLS missionaries—and she is the Mission Nurse—who are in Newcastle. The Crocketts are YSA Missionaries who are serving along with their special needs daughter in York. Then there are the office missionaries the Flockharts and Sisters Lyle, Lee and Jackson. It’s quite a group! We visited Kirkstall Abby and the adjoining Abbey House Museum which shows off life in Victorian era England. We also had a slide show of each missionary’s family and a 2 meals together at the Turvey’s home in the Adel neighborhood of Leeds.

We had our Interviews with the Turveys and our Zone Instruction time this past Tuesday. The Mission President interviews each missionary in the mission once per transfer period (6 weeks), so with nearly 200 missionaries, that in itself takes 8 days to happen. We never cease to marvel at how busy the Turveys are each week of the mission. They also visit each Stake whenever there is a Stake Conference—that’s 20 Sunday’s per year and they host a monthly musical fireside for the mission each Fast Sunday held at their home and broadcast on Facebook Live each time. President Turvey calls their schedule “relentless”. They do a wonderful job managing this active and diverse group of missionaries. Speaking of diversity, they published a list of the home countries of each of the missionaries. I’ll include it in the photos for this week’s entry. It’s remarkably diverse. The majority are from the USA, with 102 missionaries. Then 12 from the UK, 10 each from the Philippines and Canada, 7 from Germany and then 1 to 3 from 33 other countries!

We continue with our weekly Family Home Evenings (FHE) on Monday evenings where a spiritual message is given and discussed, announcements of activities for the week ahead are reviewed and some socializing, refreshments and games are enjoyed. Friday evenings are our movie nights, and we saw Jane Austen’s “Emma” last week with “The Terminal” (Tom Hanks) scheduled for this coming Friday.

A couple of weeks ago we also accompanied one of the missionary’s friends (investigator) from Yemen who is seeking refugee status here in the UK. He wanted someone to be with him while he had to describe and have documented his injuries received during a kidnapping and beating while he was trying to seek medical care for his mother and her hip fracture in Jordan. He needed to document his injuries with a local physician at the hospital who could send a report to his solicitor. He was beaten and tortured by a group that opposes his refusal to work for one of the opposition forces in the proxy civil war in his home country. His name is Sameer and he was trained as an aeronautical engineer in Europe. He is such a sweet and gentle person. He now is trying to recover from his physical injuries and the accompanying PTSD that he incurred. The documentation was to support his application for asylum here, as he will likely be unable to safely return to his home country. We were so heartbroken to listen to his story but he was grateful to us and the others he has met at Church for the welcome and emotional support he has received and to have someone just listen and help him share his story.

Elder Edvalson was saddened to hear of the recent passing of his mother Angela’s last surviving sibling. Uncle Doug Smurthwaite lived his life in Baker City, Oregon and passed away at the age of 87. While we’ll miss being able to attend his memorial service, it’s been good to hear from several family members and share our memories of life with Uncle Doug. He was a consummate story teller and wonderful musician (saxophonist), playing in several combos in the jazz and big band genres.

We didn’t feel like we’ve been as busy as our fall and winter terms were, but when I look at what we’ve documented here, it seems like there’s always a lot going on! We’re still loving it here and appreciate the cards, letters, packages and emails you send! Thanks for keeping in touch. The half-way point of our mission comes on August 6^th---hard to believe!

Love,

Elder & Sister Edvalson