Edvalsons in England: 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).