A Very Different Ending

Our mission to Brasil ended with no goodbyes due to everything being shut down for covid, but this one had enough goodbyes for several missions!

TIPS goodbye dinner at Cafe Rio City Creek for four or five departing couples/sisters: starting back left - Nichols, Sister Bennion, Elder Susong, Sister Eastman, Johnsons, Ipsens, Sister Matson, Sister Robison, someone I should know, Winders, Steeles, Ures; front row Stevens, Murdochs, Merrells, Sister Newman, Larsens.

I planned to start really using up everything in the kitchen a couple of months out but with all the Christmas festivities and then all the goodbye gatherings, we gave a lot of leftover food and spices to Bethany and Glen, did very little cooking the last weeks. 

Devotional notes: Larsens - "If we chase perfection we can catch excellence" When we try to save effort by not following direction or commandments, in ends up being harder/more work or effort. Maxwell - need to more fully use the people opportunities around us - something like that -

Sister Newman's was from Wilcox's book What Seek Ye? 

Consider how these could apply to you/me: Where are the nine? Wilt thou be made whole? Believe ye that I am able to to this? Will ye also go away? Believest though this? Why weepest thou? Sleepest thou? Lovest thou me?

The Mission has a monthly "Exit Luncheon" for all going home that month, this was the largest they'd had, over 30 leaving. They weren't sure it could be held here in the JSMB as it is closing for renovations, (with the mission office having to move elsewhere for a few months and the branch temporarily meeting on the tenth floor eventually). So far only the food service has closed down and nothing is open to the public, but it didn't affect any branch activities or meetings yet.

Speaking of the mission office, my piece that didn't make it through the last round of judging into the church art competition found a home at last, in the entryway of the mission office. 

Here's the Artist's Statement explaining it: 

The Immensity of God’s Love

Calligraphic art enhances the meaning of scriptural texts through symbolism and imagery. Calligraphy, or hand-lettering, slows our reading, helping us to pause, notice, and ponder a word or phrase, to deepen our understanding. Through calligraphy, we can approach what Benedictine monks called lectio divina (divine reading), a way of reading scripture that is intentional, thoughtful, prayerful, and meditative. In this piece, I used many different watercolor skin tones in the lettering to symbolize the many and varied peoples on this earth. Changes in lettering style for each scripture evoke the beautiful diversity in cultures, nations, and languages. The silver diamonds separating words remind us how God will gather His jewels, while the immensity of space in the background symbolizes the infinite love of God for all people. The four parts of the piece bring to mind the four quarters of the earth. Every letter sits in its own precise and equal one-inch square because we are loved and valued alike by God and are all invited to repent and to hear Him. Yet, because no two hand-drawn letters can be identical, every square is like a miniature piece of art, reminding us that God loves us infinitely and individually. 

Detail of piece

We were very glad not to have to fit it back into the car for the trip home.

Jeannette, our favorite secretary-down-the-hall (administrative assistant, sorry) until she got transferred to another floor. Not only one of the very few live in-person people in the office our first months, but also had dark chocolate at her desk.....

Sister Greene (next to Joan) was tops among the front desk ladies, they were so glad to have someone there to answer phone calls they needed to send on, and they were always fun to talk to. They bought us this lovely sculpture of the First Vision as a thank-you and good-bye gift.

The Wilcox's from Interpretation department

I was sure I took a photo of the calendar page with all the events but it seems to have disappeared. We had a wonderful gathering by our lunch group one day where everyone gathered at four and they had a sweet pork burrito bar and cakes, the mission lunch, a TIPS evening at Cafe Rio, a zone hello-goodbye gathering for incoming and outgoing missionaries held in the basement lunchroom of the JSMB where the TIPS group often met, we had a dinner out with my childhood friend Annette and her husband, a dinner out with Durk's cousin Craig and wife, a gathering of Durk's cousins from his mom's side, a working lunch with my sisters about book projects, a gathering in Springville with some of my siblings,  and I'm sure I'm forgetting some. 

At our last staff meeting the subject of the monthly IFR luncheon came up, which was scheduled for Jan 26th, the day Durk figured we would head out early toward home. They insisted we ought to come to the lunch before leaving so we had that one too! Sharon Walton, the super sweet secretary whose desk was near mine, made it quite the occasion with individual lunch choices ordered, decor and specially selected background music, etc. And everyone wanted photos of us with them!

 

IFR luncheon (Elder Jackson was there but not in picture) starting from far left: Elder Hansen, Carl Grossen, Sister Hansen (JoElla) Blake Archibald, Michael Bertasso, John Bennion, Roger Manning, Ed Platt, Steve McConkie, Joan, Lindsay Thomas, Durk, Richard Houseman (manager) Megan (Mew Admin) Jason Mitchell (director) Sharon Walton.

Sharon!

I left out lunch with Sister Cisneros! Durk got to try cabrito (goat), deep-fried yucca (the same thing as macaxeira or cassava), we had purple corn juice to drink (better than I expected).

I'm sure I'm leaving out a lot, the plan was to post this the last Sunday of January but we were still on the road! After the IFR lunch we had to do a little last-minute loading and got Chris to come by and pick up a few things (Thanks for doing so much for us while there, Chris!) then finally we were on the road mid-afternoon. We were worn out so instead of heading to Rawlins like we planned we stopped at Little America. We found out that despite the weather forecast (15% chance of snow) I-80 was closed past Rock Springs. We ate in the overpriced grill (no restaurant at Little America anymore!) and slept in a very drafty little room, so the next day we went a few miles more to Rock Springs where we found a very comfortable hotel and had more options for places to eat and things to do during the wait.

We visited the Rock Springs Historical Museum where I was surprised by how many miles of tunnels there were in the coal mines - how did they every figure out exactly where they were underground anyway? 

The public library had an attached art center with some really good paintings and some that were, well, done by locals of varying skill. They didn't allow photographing which was sad because there were a couple I really wanted to take a picture of to study, one in particular that was two paintings of people outside the old white church, most of the church in one painting and many people and a car in the other, with lots of sky and cloud. 

The next morning we visited the (dying) mall so we could walk without being out in the very high winds and 17 degrees below zero weather. We had to decide by noon whether to check out of the hotel - the highway was declared open about then but everyplace had warnings of slick spots and blowing snow and since it was very sunny we thought waiting until morning would be wise. Well, only an hour or two later the highway was closed again due to two large pile-ups.

So on Sunday we went to church in a building that was having heating problems, ate some food we picked up the night before at a grocery store, had a peaceful day. They had an interesting sacrament meeting actually - for the fifth Sunday they decided to do something different. Apparently they had recently had talks about music and followed up by opening it up like a testimony meeting where anyone could come up and tell about a favorite hymn, why they like it and then we'd sing it - Primary songs included. It was really a good meeting.

Monday we visited the community college with their dinosaur and wildlife collections, then the road opened and this time we grabbed out stuff and headed out. Made it to Laramie. The first section was a bit worrisome with blowing snow making it so you couldn't see far ahead, but then it cleared up and was sunny and fine. As we started to check out the next morning someone by the desk told us I-80 shut down yet again due to a semi accident so we went south to Fort Collins, spent a night in Hays Kansas and finally made it home just a week after we left for our two-day trip. In some ways it was a nice interlude as we changed focus from the mission to home.

On Sunday (Feb 5) we reported to the stake high council by Zoom, where telling about our experiences in the missionary department resulted in being asked to talk for a few minutes at the concluding activity for a large mission prep class at the stake center that night, so we are jumping right back in here in Missouri. We are organizing, sorting, cleaning and sprucing up the house, etc. and who knows what the future holds next. Thanks to any and all who followed us in this journey and put up with these rather random, casual un-edited posts :) 

We are especially grateful for the wonderful people we met, socialized with, worked with, and learned from, for the chance to be in a group full of dedicated disciples and to serve with them. There were many "ministering angels" as the IFRs called the area medical and mental health advisors - the IFRs are ministering angels to mission leaders and all the way up the chain we saw ministering to "the one." We may not have worked directly with missionaries but during our 18 months we were involved in coordinating the return of over 1,300 young missionaries who had gone home early and worked to prepare themselves to go back into the field to serve.

To close this account with something appropriately inspirational: 

"What a terrific time to be alive! The gospel of Jesus Christ is the most certain, the most secure, the most reliable, and the most rewarding truth on earth and in heaven, in time and in eternity. Nothing—not anything, not anyone, not any influence—will keep this Church from fulfilling its mission and realizing its destiny declared from before the foundation of the world. Ours is that fail-safe, inexorable, indestructible dispensation of the fulness of the gospel. There is no need to be afraid or tentative about the future.

 

"Unlike every other era before us, this dispensation will not experience an institutional apostasy; it will not see a loss of priesthood keys; it will not suffer a cessation of revelation from the voice of Almighty God. Individuals will apostatize or turn a deaf ear to heaven, but never again will the dispensation collectively do so. What a secure thought! What a day in which to live!

 

"If there are some bumps along the way while waiting to see every promise kept and every prophecy fulfilled, so be it. If you haven’t noticed, I am bullish about the latter days. In nothing could I have more faith than I have in God the Eternal Father, in Jesus Christ His Son, in Their redeeming gospel, and in their divinely-guided Church. Believe. Rise up. Be faithful. And make the most of the remarkable day in which we live! (Elder Holland Face Book post May 27, 2015)