Forward .....Pressing Forward

SK  and I are back up to speed.....and we needed to be today and for the coming week.  We went to our little branch.  Our branch president, our fairy tale four-year-old crown prince,  and several others were not there today due to illness.  As far as I can tell, everyone tells the same story.  They are fevered, have sore throats and congestion, and it hangs on for weeks.

One dear sister who is a year older than SK has battled with it throughout March and still has a terrible cough. Kasper came to church today and gave an absolutely wonderful talk about family search and temple work, but left immediately after the meeting....sick....with the usual lineup of symptoms.  It seems to be going around the center and the branch.  I hope it is nearing the end of its course.

After our block of meetings, we came home and ate a light lunch in the half hour before leaving for another ward's sacrament meeting, where Christian - a tall young fair-headed 18-year-old spoke.  He will be leaving on April 9 for Scotland on his mission.  17 generations back, is a Scot his family descends from, and Christian was wearing a tie in the tartan of the family.

His talk was outstanding, but I especially loved the part about there being a population of 12,000,000 there in his mission.....and he is going to give it his best shot to see that they all are introduced to the gospel and are converted.  I know he was being facetious, but don't you just love these young people and their optimism and enthusiasm?

Elder and Sister Middlemas said good-bye to all the dear friends they made on the little island of Bornholm where Elder served as branch president for the last several months.  President Sederholm drove the newest senior couple over (they had to take a fairy) yesterday....got them settled, stayed for church meetings today, and then drove Elder and Sister Middlemas back to Copenhagen.  They will be with us tonight.

They got here at 5:30, and we sat at the dinner table for at least a couple of hours sharing experiences and essentially bearing testimony.  It is 1 degree outside, and warm inside and we enjoyed the spiritual nature of our conversations.  Sister Middlemas and I did up the dishes while the two men continued talking.

We four are different than we were nearly 18 months ago when we met in the MTC.  Older....obviously....a few more gray hairs.....and wiser than we were.....and we probably have softer hearts.  We have seen how much the Lord loves His children - we have seen how prayers of faith are answered.  We have seen the impact of the gospel in the lives of the saints.  Elder Middlemas baptized a man and his wife 50 years ago, and at the latest count, over 1000 people are in the church from just that one couple.

I am unsure what I pictured when I dreamed of a mission long ago....but our experiences of the last year and a half are much different than whatever it was I imagined.  And every senior couple I know has different stories to tell than ours.  Our assignments and our approaches to them are so varied as to not even be in the same mission category.

A mission is an amazing experience.