Edvalsons in England: 31 March 2019

Hiya from Yorkshire!

It seems hard to believe that another 2 weeks have passed by. And what do we have to show for it? For one, the days are getting considerably longer. Today is the beginning of daylight savings time in Europe, so our sunset tonight will be at 7:38 pm. Sunrise was at 6:39 am so we already are having 13 hours of daylight. That is a welcome change. It is also Mother’s Day in the United Kingdom, so the Primary children sang to the mothers today and Sister E along with the rest of the women in the congregation was given a rose and some chocolate. So it’s been a good day all around.

We attended the Leeds 3rd Ward for Church today. One of our YSA is leaving for his mission this week and was speaking in church. Nathaniel Leonard has been called to the Norway Oslo Mission and he will be reporting to the MTC on Wednesday 10 April in Provo, UT but in the meantime, his parents are taking him to General Conference in Salt Lake City this coming weekend and visiting some of the sites in Utah beforehand. That will be a great kick off for his mission by getting to do that. We had a party for him on this past Friday evening at the Institute instead of our regular movie night. It was well attended by his YSA peers as they came by to wish him well.

We also had transfers this past week within the mission. There were some reconfigurations of zones and districts which gave us an additional set of sister missionaries in our district. We also lost 2 of our district members, and consequently gained 2 others. Elder Kolega, who is from Croatia has completed his mission and has returned home. He was the only missionary from his country serving in the church. He already knows that he will be called as a counselor in his branch presidency upon his return. We will miss him. He is from the hometown of Kresimir Cosic, of BYU, Yugoslavia, and Croatia basketball fame. Our new district leader is Elder Sychugov from Moscow, Russia. He is full of enthusiasm and has good leadership skills. His companion is Elder Neck who is from Wales. We lost Sister Herdegen, a Mandarin speaking missionary from Nevada and gained Sister Walker who is beginning her Mandarin speaking mission here as a companion to Sister Teo, who is from Singapore and lately Shanghai, China. We also have in our district Elder Dromey, originally from Toronto, Canada but lately from Provo and his companion Elder Müller, from Hamburg, Germany who together are our Zone leaders. We have added a sister’s companionship serving in Morely consisting of Sister Smith, from the Dallas TX area (she has competed against Mansfield TX teams) and Sister Chambers who is from Utah. You can see that we have a diverse group of missionaries representing several different countries of the world which makes for some fun and interesting training meetings. We love them and love getting to know about so many different cultural backgrounds.

In our lessons the past 2 weeks, we have covered the following topics. The Redemption of the Dead and The Resurrection and Judgment in our Doctrines of the Gospel class. Becoming Instruments In the Hands of God, Repentance and Forgiveness, The Power of the Word and Preparing for the Judgment in our Teachings and Doctrines of the Book of Mormon class. In our Friday Devotional class we presented a review of His Grace is Sufficient (classic Brad Wilcox talk from BYU) and the Blessings of General Conference (lead in and teaser to our live streaming of Conference this coming weekend). We have such a good time preparing for and giving these lessons and there are always great questions and discussions that ensue from them. We’re going to miss doing these, even though the preparation time and research is sometimes intense.

We had a great Saturday on 23 March 2019. It started by attending the baptism of 2 YSA members in the Leeds First Ward. We had Kieran McGrenaghan who is from Leeds and Verchen (Zemin Li) from China. They are both students at the University of Leeds. We are always delighted to welcome these great young people to the Church and to the Institute and to welcome them to the covenant path of discipleship.

That was followed by a trip to Ilkley for lunch at our favorite restaurant Bettys with Sisters Lyle and Barrus from the Mission Office staff and then on to Skipton to tour Skipton Castle. Skipton bills itself as the gateway to the Yorkshire Dales National Park and is our favorite town to visit. We attend church here on a rotating basis and they meet in the old courthouse which has great acoustics and a fabulous organ and organist. Five of our YSA attend this branch and our district leader and his companion are assigned here. It is about a 45 to 60 minute drive away from the Institute, depending on traffic.

The castle dates from 1090 AD but was founded in its current form in 1314. It has survived virtually unaltered from its last modernization more than 300 years ago. It is remarkably intact and easy to visualize people living and occupying it. On our drive to and from we saw 100s of sheep, some of which now include newborn lambs, which is always a heartwarming sign of spring, especially here in England.

Yesterday, it was a beautifully sunny day so we walked downtown to have a late lunch at Mommy Thai restaurant. Our daughter Marel recommended it to us as someone on her Twitter feed said it was one of the best Thai restaurants in the world. It was great and we told the owners that our daughter from Alaska highly recommended it! They were surprised that their fame had reached the frozen North. We then concluded our walk by making a stop at the Lindt Chocolate Store to replenish the sweet tooth cabinet in our flat (adjacent to the dental floss cabinet ().

The university schedules are quite different than those we are used to. The University of Leeds begins a 4 week spring break now with classes resuming on 29 April. We at the Institute will carry on with our regular classes, taking “only” a 2 week spring break around Easter. We will not hold classes the week before and the week after Easter. We’re not sure how many will be attending our classes during these “break” weeks but ours is a 14 week semester and all the classes have to be presented. The students can still get course credit by attending 11 of the 14 weeks. They can also arrange with us to do make up sessions or assignments.

Well, that’s the report for this time around. We rejoice in the joy found in following our Savior Jesus Christ. We love serving with missionaries from around the world and love the people of Yorkshire. Sister E always wanted to live here. She just had to wait until Elder E retired! Happy springtime to you all!

Cheers!
Elder & Sister Edvalson