Our Tuesday class on Doctrines of the Gospel will carry on just the same, advancing from one Gospel principle to the next (viz. Agency, Faith in Jesus Christ, Repentance, Baptism, Fasting, Prayer, etc.) in consecutive order. Our Friday Devotional is always at our discretion and usually highlights recent news of the Church or recent addresses by General Authorities of the Church at BYU Devotionals or travels of the Apostles and Church President Russell M Nelson. Sadly, our Wednesday evening class entitled LDS Hymns has concluded. We have both enjoyed that class so much. We were able to review the story behind about 6 to 10 different hymns each week, such as who wrote them, how they were inspired to write them, and biographies of the text author and composer. We then would show a performance of the hymn by a group or individual that we thought would be the best or the most interesting for the way we approached the message of the hymn. For some, it was music videos by the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square (new name, same choir), other individual or a cappella performances by small groups, and some by non LDS groups (viz. Battle Hymn of the Republic by the US Army Band, Faith of Our Fathers by a Canadian 7th Day Adventist High School choir performing in a cave in Italy). We’ve become professional YouTube searchers for just the perfect performance. While preparation for the curriculum was very time consuming, it was a delightful adventure to prepare each of the 14 lessons (one per week). Before Christmas we did one class on the most memorable Christmas Carols and the next week we went caroling to a care home in the area. For our penultimate class, Sister Edvalson did a review of Messiah and studied all the scriptural passages that are used in the oratorio in the prophecies of the coming forth of the Savior. She did a terrific job assembling that lesson. Finally, on our last class, we had the students vote on their favorite performances that they enjoyed throughout the whole class and formulated our “Top Ten” favorites with a countdown to #1. They thoroughly enjoyed that night……and the winner was BYU Men’s Chorus version of Nearer My God, to Thee. The boys especially loved that one. It was followed by a fun quiz regarding the Hymns which capped off that class.
Our Wednesday evening class will now be Teachings and Doctrines of the Book of Mormon, which in Institute parlance, is a “Cornerstone Course” (which is required to graduate from Institute). We are looking forward to teaching that one. Each semester runs 14 weeks, and this will be our last semester. There will be a 2 week break at Easter time where classes won’t be held…..so our course work will carry us through to May 17. The days sometime go slow (as there’s so much to do), but the weeks seem to sail by!
Interspersed with all the classwork, we still manage to host Monday night Home Evenings, Thursday evening meals, and Friday pancake breakfasts and Movie Nights. This month we have screened Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Father of the Bride, Part 2. We also encourage the YSA students to cook for the group on Wednesday evenings before we teach, and we’ve had a couple of great meals prepared by them. Our friend Jordan prepared authentic Schnitzel (he recently returned from the Bavaria Alpine Speaking Mission) which was delicious. He happily pounded out 18 pork chops to a very thin thickness, then floured, dipped in egg and bread crumbs and then deep fried them to a golden brown consistency. They were delicious and he was exhausted! Our friend Ellie adventurously looks up new recipes which turn out great. She recently gave us a sausage, tomato and vegetable casserole which was hearty and tasty. We call it “Come Dine with Me” and it is named after a popular TV show here in the UK.
We celebrated Sister Edvalson’s birthday in early January by going out to dinner at a fancy steak house with 2 other senior missionaries from the Mission Office.
A few days ago, we were pleasantly surprised with the gift of 2 t-shirts designed by our daughter Marel and her husband Tom (they design shirts and other things on Amazon Merch) which says “England Leeds Mission—The Best Mission in the Universe”. It has a map of the British Isles outlined in stars with a big star where Leeds is located. That saying is what our Mission President Martin Turvey calls our mission, so we’re all familiar with the saying (see the picture). Everyone who has seen it (that is other missionaries), is very envious! Thanks Marel & Tom---a fun surprise!
Sister Edvalson taught 2 of our YSA how to make the Trusty family Peanut Butter Balls (pioneered by Joanie Pangborn Dodge) as a celebration of “Joanie Day” earlier in January.
Tonight we just finished hosting a Leeds Stake YSA Fireside and watched the recent Young Adult Devotional given by Elder & Sister Renlund from BYU Hawaii regarding how to handle doubts as a tool to greater faith. We had about 50 in attendance. We were pleasantly surprised to see our fellow Willamette Ward member Abbie Stout singing in the choir fresh off her mission at Temple Square!
That’s about the sum of our report for this time period. We are starting to see longer days now…….at Christmas time the sun was rising at about 8:45 am and setting at 3:30 pm. We’re now at 8:00 am for the sunrise and 4:30 pm for the sunset…..so the darkest 2 months of the winter are behind us. No snow yet either…..last winter it snowed 5 different times so this year has so far proved to be much more mild.
We miss you all, but are still happily engaged in this wonderful work. We can’t begin to count the blessings of being here and serving the Savior by serving his children, especially this group of young adults. They keep us feeling young (once we drag ourselves out of bed in the morning!). We’ve been able to keep “YSA hours”…..we keep the building open from 10 am to 10 pm on weekdays……so when we escort them out at 10 pm, it’s time to clean the building, come upstairs and talk to our children and grandchildren until 11:30 or 12:00 midnight (Alaska is 9 hours earlier and Texas is 6 hours earlier!). So, we do get to sleep in a bit as long as there is no zone conference or early district meeting with the young missionaries! Hurray for the flexibility of senior missions!
Cheers from across the Atlantic!
Love,
Elder Tim & Sister Dana
New mission tees from Marel and Tom
Making peanut butter balls with Elsa and Hannah
