Edvalsons in England: 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