Edvalsons in England: 9 January 2019

It’s Wednesday night and we are back in full swing here at the Leeds Institute of Religion. It was a lovely break but I admit one of my main goals was unmet. That would be cleaning out the two microwaves, the two ovens, the two refrigerators and the two pantries. Oh well. Guess I’ll do that in April during Easter Break.

We spent New Years Eve watching gigantic fireworks on TV. The festivities were filmed from the streets of London where most of our YSA had gone for the weekend. Then on New Years Day we took a long walk around Roundhay Park - a large city park within Leeds. Our friends, Sisters Lee and Lyle who serve as Senior Missionaries working in the Mission Office went with us. It was a nice winter day and the park was full of families feeding the swans and enjoying being together. We had a lovely lunch at a mansion house in the middle of the park and returned home to watch “White Christmas”. We missed our family, but we hear from them quite regularly and they are all doing well so we’re happy about that. We’re so grateful they all came to visit us while we were here.

That week we also went to dinner at the home of a member of the Leeds Stake Presidency who is assigned to work with the YSA. We had a nice visit looking back over the year’s activities and discussing the next year. As we finished our wonderful dinner and walked into their living room, we noticed a picture on their wall. It was painted by an artist whose works we had seen at a gallery in Harrogate a month or so before. His work is quite unusual and engaging - somewhat like MC Escher, but less science and more fantasy. We discussed him a bit with the President and his wife and were informed that he is a local painter, living in The Yorkshire Dales and painting from his knowledge of the landscape here. We also found out he was having a sale so after going through the online catalogue, we picked out a particular print for our combined birthday present. It’s called Seawood and reminds us of England and Oceanside. Great combination!

Part of our assignment as YSA Missionaries is to visit each of the 10 Wards or congregations within the Leeds Stake in order to invite any YSA that live there to come, join us at the Institute for classes and activities. We enjoy all of the visits and love getting to know lots of the people here. There is one particular Ward, however that really impresses us so we decided to visit that Ward for the first Sunday of 2019. It’s actually a Branch which is a smaller congregation without the same level of staffing found in a regular sized Ward. Skipton Branch located in one of the wonderful little Dales villages is about an hour drive from the Institute right along the sheep fields. We went hiking there last year and every time we visit the Skipton Branch, we love it more. They rent an old courthouse building that’s at least 100 years old - quite small, but with very high ceilings and they happen to have one of the most talented organists we’ve ever heard. The guy really knows how to crank up the organ. There is also an amazing tenor voice in that congregation and with those two in addition to the other 25 or so members even I sound really good during the hymns. It was there that we added our very first two hour-instead of three hour- Sunday church block - a very historic Sabbath day. The church recently announced the two hour block instead of the usual three hours so families could use the time to study the Gospel through scripture study in their homes. So after the two hours were up, we all stood around talking to each other for another hour. Finally, the Branch President ( That would be “Bishop” in a regular sized Ward) had to remind all the congregants that the extra hour was supposed to be for study in our homes. The two young missionaries who serve there asked us if we could run by their flat and inspect it before we left Skipton so we did that. Inspecting the young missionary flats is one of our extra assignments and they had spent the day before really cleaning up and wanted us to see it at its best (before it was too late - as in before they messed it up). That was fun. The missionary flat in Skipton is one of the nicest in the mission so we ran by there, looked it over complimented them, chatted about how they were doing and then took our customary companion picture to send home to their respective parents. Then we went home and did some scripture study and it was a great day.

This week was full of training exercises including Fire Training on Tuesday morning and Teacher Training on Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday night we started classes again. Today (Wednesday) we had Missionary Training this morning/afternoon and another class tonight. Tomorrow is my birthday and I guess I’ll celebrate it helping cook, feed and clean for 40 or so YSA. We’re having Costco birthday cake so that will be exciting for everyone. Friday is pancake Breakfast and Movie Night with Harry Potter. Saturday night we’re going out to birthday dinner with Sisters Lyle and Lee and we will be in the middle of January. Happy New Year 2019!! Love you all, Sister & Elder Edvalson