Edvalsons in England: May 2019

I had a difficult time remembering what year it was as I began this blog - writing in the skies presently flying over British Columbia on our way home to Oregon. How many times have we mentioned the wonderfulness of Oregon and how many times have we invited people to come, visit us. Of course, most of the people we know in England, when they come to the USA, visit New York or Utah - but some will come to Oregon. Last night as we said goodbye for the last time, myriads of eager YSA - our brilliant and clever children - ran up to take pictures and get hugs and tell us that they are really, truly coming to see Oregon and our “famous” beach house. Only famous to them because we invite them so frequently and although no one has ever seen it - and only a few have any connection to the state at all - they are intrigued and excited to visit. We will be thrilled to see them. We are excited to be going to Oregon because some of our dear family is there waiting for us and the rest are coming to the Family Reunion in July. Plus we do have a couple of dishwashers and garbage disposals there and we have really missed them.

I cannot begin to describe how magical and life changing this mission has been for both of us, how much we have grown to love the YSA, the missionaries and all our various friends and connections, both in the Mission and Leeds Stake as well. We believe in eternal families and that means eternal friends. One of our American friends who is living in Leeds with her husband temporarily as he teaches at Leeds University, shared with me a phrase from a friend of hers back in Nebraska where they live.

This phrase will only make sense if you do this: Get yourself a Book of Mormon and read this wonderful allegory. It’s not long, but quite powerful. Like the Bible, The Book of Mormon is divided into smaller “books”. Go to the first one which is called First Nephi named after the Prophet Nephi and go to Chapter 8. When Nephi was a young man living in Jerusalem about 600 BC, his father, Lehi had a vision of a beautiful tree which we call “The Tree of Life” This vision is speaking about our life on this earth and searching for the love of God. In the vision, Lehi sees a path leading to a beautiful tree covered in white fruit, symbolic of the Love of God. He has made it to the tree and tasted the fruit, but he sees his family at the beginning of the path surrounded by concourses of other people and many impediments to keep them from coming to him. As they press forward, they must make decisions so as not to be distracted or lead away from the path, but continue to press forward. Our friend, Rachel shared with me the following thought which I related to many of our new friends in England:

“If I don’t see you on the path - I’ll meet you at the tree”.

Now as our missionary colleague , Sister Lyle would say after making a joke, “Do you get it?” But it’s not a joke. It’s simply an inspired direction to help us make the most of our life here on earth and return from whence we came - our home in Heaven with God and Jesus Christ and all our dear family and friends.

Fast forward to the end of the flight and our meeting with our Stake President Lake to be officially released. This occurred just a few hours after we disembarked from the plane to be met by our strongest support group Jon and Ellen who have looked after our various belongings while we were gone. President Lake kept smiling at me and remarked that he remembered how I was a bit reticent when we met 18 months ago as we prepared to leave. It’s true that in the beginning of this decision process, I only moved towards the mission because I knew Tim (we’re no longer missionaries so back to first name references) had long wanted to go on a mission so the first thing I did was CONSIDER praying about it. Eventually I got to ACTUALLY praying about it and at that point I began to feel positive energy and encouragement that enabled me to be excited and more than simply supportive of his feelings, but actually “all in”. I think that’s an important distinction because once I determined it was what the Lord wanted me to do, I was able to see the blessings, the tender mercies and even the miracles in my life leading me in that direction. Not that it was physically easy since for months before we left, I had not felt well until finally I was diagnosed with pneumonia. However, we proceeded ahead and eventually, everything was “sorted out” as our good friends in England would say.

We express thanks to many there and here who have been so kind to us. There in England for enthusiastically welcoming us into their lives and sharing with us their knowledge, thoughts, opinions, brilliant culture and love. Here in the USA for house sitting (thanks Ron & Cat) and for supporting us through prayer and word. Particular hugs to our most diligent blog readers and card senders: Miriam, Jurek and Cal. (and their supportive spouses) and our artists/authors/skypers daughters and grandkids. And we must mention those who actually came to visit: Mindy, Shona, Pam and Danielle, Jackie, Mike and Brittany. Also cousins, Tami, Mark and Katie; and those crazy kids, Marel, Tom, Allyson and Billy. And most of all the famous, “WE GO HEROES” themselves: Cristian, Celia, Clara, Sabrina, Elena & Caleb. We are most grateful to everyone involved in this glorious adventure. What have we taken away from this? A strengthened knowledge and belief of the Great Plan of Happiness given to us by our Heavenly Father and overseen by our brother and Saviour (English spelling) Jesus Christ. Also, in amazement, the pleasure of serving with those who do so with humor, diligence and faith - even the full time missionaries in the “Greatest Mission in the Universe” and teaching the beautiful, intelligent, hard working and ever humorous Young Single Adults of the Leeds Stake and serving with them and all of their leaders who we count as eternal friends. Hope to see you on the path. Open invitation to Oregon. It’s not Heaven, but it is very nice.

Love you all,

Dana & Tim

home to Tillamook ice cream

Goodbye to our YSA friends

Last FHE earlier in the week

Elder E dancing over the Prime Meridian in Greenwich

With Sister Wassmer at Harry Potter

Chinatown visit for dinner between shows

Sister E about to enjoy Hamilton

Goodbye to our YSA friends

Wow! We’re well into May now and we are starting to realize this wonderful experience of our mission is winding up. We’ve lots of things to report about since our last post.

The Institute was closed for 2 weeks around Easter….the week before and the week after. In the UK, both Good Friday and Easter Monday are “Bank Holidays”, meaning it is a national holiday. Leeds University was actually closed for a 4 week Easter break; not so the Institute. We spent the first week of our break from teaching by inspecting the 10 missionary apartments that are in the Leeds Stake. That took 2 full days visiting 5 each day. We spend about an hour with each set of missionaries (usually 2, sometimes 4). Sister Edvalson does the inspection itself, clipboard in hand and sees how they are doing with cleanliness, tidiness, state of repair (or disrepair), etc. while Elder Edvalson takes photographs of each room of the flat to submit to the mission office. We then take a photo of the missionaries to send to their parents so they can see how they’re doing. Sister E leaves them a bag of her homemade peanut butter balls as a treat and we make the 30 minute drive to the next flat. At lunchtime we sometimes treat the missionaries we’re with to fish & chips and it’s always uplifting and fun to be with these young and enthusiastic missionaries. (In our Zone we have missionaries from China, Germany, Serbia, Russia, Wales, The Philippines, Canada and the United States).

We also attended a Zone Conference on the day between our flat inspections. It was a long one lasting from 9 am to 6 pm. We love the Turveys (Our Mission President and wife), but there are limits to how long we can enjoy sitting and being instructed! We were going to go out to dinner with the other senior missionaries after that Conference, but we were all too tired, so we just went back to our respective flats!

On Good Friday, we held our Devotional and Pancake Breakfast as a Brunch, and had 25 turn up! We showed a collection of Church videos regarding Easter and the Savior’s atonement, it was very moving. Many of the YSA then went on an all day hike to Malham Cove in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Upon their return, we hosted a double movie night, with part 6 of the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice followed by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (finales of both series).

On Saturday April 20^th we took 3 of the office sister missionaries (Sisters Jackson, Lyle and Wassmer) on a trip to the Yorkshire Dales National Park. We visited Bolton Castle, West Burton, tried to go to Aysgarth Falls, but all the parking lots were full, the Wensleydale Cheese Factory (where we had a delicious cheesy lunch), then drove home another way through Kettlewell, Skipton and Ilkley. It was a gorgeous day through some of our favorite country with temperatures in the low 70’s—a heat wave for here.

On Easter Sunday, we attended the Dudley Hill Ward in South Bradford where we spoke. It was a full house with a nice choir. Sister Edvalson was asked to speak about serving a senior mission while Elder Edvalson talked about the Savior and His Atonement. Then that evening we had an Easter Dinner for those that weren’t invited somewhere, with about 6 of us in attendance. One of the YSA that works at Lidl, a local grocery store, contributed a surplus turkey he’d been given so we enjoyed a feast. That evening we streamed the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square’s Easter concert, to which we had about 15 in attendance. We felt it was a lovely day.

On Easter Monday Elder Edvalson took our car in for its MOT (Ministry of Transport) test, think annual safety inspection and emissions testing. While there I met a young man about Marel’s age who was a roofer. He had a flat tire which needed replaced so while we both waited the hour for our work to be completed, we had a nice visit. He is from Rugby (the home of the sport of Rugby), and lives with his partner, a chef, and their 2 year old son. He showed me pictures of his son Elijah and I remarked how he was named after one of the most famous prophets of the Old Testament. That led into me explaining why we were here, about the Institute, and the Church. I learned a lot about roofing in the UK, and he thought it would be fine to have 2 of our young missionary friends come by to tell he and his family our message about the purpose of life. It was a fun conversation, and nice to do some “finding” while there, since most of our time we are spending with those who are already members of the Church.

For three days late in week 2 of our “break”, we were able to travel to North Yorkshire, County Durham, and Northumberland and visit places where our ancestors were from. For Elder E it is the Smurthwaite family, and for Sister E it is the Naisbitt family line. We visited multiple sites where Christening, Marriage, burial and census sites have been recorded and took pictures of each place and uploaded them to FamilySearch for all to see. It was a great time seeing these places where these parts of our families came from.

Mixed in with the family history visits, we also went to Beemish, the Living Museum of the North, which has an 1820’s coal pit town, a turn of the 20^th Century Edwardian town, and other historical venues. They were all connected by transportation types of the day, so we rode an old double decker bus one way and a tram the other way. It was interesting to walk down into the coal pit mine and see the working conditions of the miners. I’m so glad I didn’t have to do that…..but thank you to the ancestors who did and kept the family going.

We also drove to the northernmost town where we have missionaries in the mission, Alnwick. We had been here last summer with Marel to visit its castle, Harry Potter experience and gardens. This time, after having a great Italian meal of Roman style pizza (we met the chef from Rome), we visited the Cragside Country Estate near Rothbury which was the home of William Armstrong, a shipping and war materiel magnate who was also a prescient home designer. He constructed a hydroelectric power plant to be the first home to have electrical lighting, and many other firsts. It was beautiful and felt like a Northwest National Park setting. He had imported and planted hundreds of evergreen trees, rhododendrons, and azaleas so the grounds were outstanding. He also hosted Queen Victoria and her family in the day, for which he added lavish accoutrements to the home. It is well worth the visit should you ever venture to northern England.

Then on April 28 we spoke in the Leeds First Ward (our home ward). We spoke regarding the plan of happiness and the desire of Heavenly Father to give us the gift of Eternal Life. That night, we hosted a YSA Fireside at the Institute where the Stake Patriarch and his wife spoke and answered questions regarding Patriarchal blessings.

This past week, we were back at it teaching each of our classes, doing the meals and the visiting and mentoring that comes with being open from 10 am to 10 pm each weekday. It is nearly exam time now, so our library and other study rooms have been much more used this week as everyone is “revising” (studying for exams). On Friday, we hosted our last movie night before we depart and showed The Other Side of Heaven (about Elder John Groberg’s mission to Tonga in the 1950s) in preparation for The Other Side of Heaven, part 2 (about his time as Mission President in Tonga later on) which is debuting in June. It was well attended and is such a heartwarming and spiritual movie.

This weekend was the Leeds Stake Conference, so we were asked to speak about our mission experience here. We decided to read selected quotes from this blog that would give an overall flavor to what it has been like. Our first draft was about an 18 minute presentation. We were given 10 minutes to speak, so it took several edits to cull out enough material and still have a message that flowed. It turned out very good, and the visiting Area Authority Seventy, Elder Joaquim Moreira from Portugal loved it and got up to thank us while we were still at the podium. He was a most interesting and entertaining speaker, which we were happy to listen to with his interesting message. It turns out he was a professional clown! He is now employed by the Church as a Seminary and Institute Director in Portugal, much like Brother McMorn does here…..and they know each other from Europe CES training meetings.

That’s about it for this installment. We’ve just got 2 weeks of teaching left before we go down to London for a few days.

We send our love to each of you!

Elder & Sister Edvalson