Climbafamilytree123: By Turning, Turning We Come Round Right.

"By Turning, Turning We Come Round Right."

2 June 2013

The week has been “lleno”—full! Saturday the temple was full. Packed from wall to wall! Our neighbors, from Gillete, Wyoming, who are on their fifth mission had one of their adopted children visit today and bring their family with them on a bus from four hours away. I was able to help with three sessions in my “turno,” which sometimes just keeps turning so I don’t know if I am coming or going! (Trampled by speeding Spanish bullets, or conquered like Val in April underfoot our squeeling nietos.)

This week I learned the word “moreado,” which means dizzy. And I tell new friends about my blonde “Maria,”

who I love and who is not dizzy (well, maybe she feels dizzy, too, after working for hours on end to feed and scrub for endless missionary friends, who are coming and going to and from everywhere from Benin to Argentina to Russia.)

A bus came on Tuesday from Nicaragua. The trip by bus takes 34 hours. A day and a night and a day, we were told. Walking from my assignment Wednesday, I was just behind mi esposa, my sweetheart.

Our side door opens out with no key in, and Val noticing me, having completed his assignment moments earlier had come out the back to open my door. Al mismo tiempo (at the same time) a small group staying in the casa de huespes (or guest house that temple missionaries share with the people coming from distances needing lodging) approached asking if I would take their picture. Val exited, not being needed. Only the missionaries wanted him. The picture was not to be just of them…they wanted us!

Would we stay and talk to them? We stayed. The two girls had come in preparation to serving a mission in Panama (where Val also served 40 years ago) and in San Pedro Sula, a major Honduran City to the north east, where our temple president raised his family. The girls were mirror images (to me) of daughters of our Bellevue, WA home teacher, Semisi (& Marilyn) Toemoefalou, Kimmy and Toa, not twins, but adopted cousins, who brought sunshine to their mom and dad and to us from Saipan, and from heaven, when Marilyn and Sam learned that their family would grow.

Now, in place of Kimmy and Toa, we celebrated Fanny and Monica. Neither was able to bring their mother, as neither mom had had sufficient involvement with the Church to enter the temple at this time. Fanny (straight hair and tall) is the second of two sister missionaries in her family. Fanny is 21, and her younger sister is filling out papers (there will be three missionaries in her family at the same time!) What I gathered was that Fanny’s mom had not been baptized for longer than a year. And Monica was the first of her siblings to serve. I made dinner and brought it to the lobby to share, but they had gone. There was a session that a third pre-missionary would be attending. As they expected to be there until 8 p.m. and as ours was the morning shift, I missed them until morning, when their long journey back began at 6 a.m. I zipped across the parking lot to make our morning meeting and met welcoming arms. “We love you!” They beamed, as they belted out their English surprise to me.

Our prayer meeting consisted of President Amado (one of 15 siblings Elder Luis Amado of the Seventy) who shared his testimony of President Brigham Young in October Conference of 1856, when he told the saints:

“Many of our brethren and sisters are on the plains with handcarts, and probably many are now seven hundred miles from this place, and they must be brought here, we must send assistance to them. …“I shall call upon the Bishops this day. I shall not wait until tomorrow, nor until the next day…“I will tell you all that your faith, religion, and profession of religion, will never save one soul of you in the Celestial Kingdom of our God, unless you carry out just such principles as I am now teaching you. Go and bring in those people now on the plains. And attend strictly to those things which we call temporal, or temporal duties. Otherwise, your faith will be in vain.”

In a similar manner, one of the nearby bishops, having learned of this bus load of brothers and sisters from Nicaragua, who had no funds for food while they were staying here three days, rallied his ward, and they brought food to this group, as they were meeting together on Wednesday evening (making up for my uneaten papaya and casserole when I could not reach my sweet friends.)

It should have been (and was) a sweet story for me. But I wanted so, to understand the rest of what President Amado, and later, his wife shared in story form to the oberos (ordinance workers) that morning, and my personal “translate” mechanism was on remedial speed rather than high function.

Helping in the “preliminaries” and later to assist in a session, (75% chance of precipitation expected) I was really missing Dad! I wonder if he is learning a new language. (Hugh Nibley wrote that in his first brush with the afterlife that math was amazingly easy to learn. Maybe languages are too!) As I stood beside the east window that looks down over Tegucigalpa, flecks of sunlight danced on the floor.

One of the sisters, Hermana Iria, whom I had met working in my first assignment stood beside me. I asked, como se dice (how do you say) “to miss”. She worked at finding the right word, but we finally landed on “anhelar,” which is “to long for.” Looking later, I find “echo de menos,” “aňoro,” “estoy perdiendo.” Any way of saying it does not bring our loved one back!

But saying it does help. In answer to prayers, I found a few kind friends eager to listen in broken Spanish…and later—funny—do you remember that first Stake Conference, where I understood little but “Amen?” Well, as prelude or postlude, the choir sang something that came back to me, glittering through the east window in dancing light. Words from the child’s song, “If the Savior Stood Beside Me” echoed through my heart, lifting chin and shoulders:

"He is always near me, though I do not see Him there,

And because He loves me dearly,

I am in His watchful care,

So I’ll be the kind of person that I know I’d like to be

if I could see the Savior [and/or my dad] standing nigh watching over me."
Click to hear 2007 YW sing this song

Working in a place where families have sacrificed many important things to offer their best, to worship, to be bound together, and then go forth and serve is a reminder of a melding between earth and heaven, a nudge that now and forever can sometimes be friends.

Speaking of happy places, a happy shorn grandson, with “pelo blanco” (white hair—what is left of it) is conquering our Kaysville house that gets cleaner every day. Kristen, with help, is making headway. The Gee Pioneer Paris house got scoured from top to bottom—windows, floors, and tables beckoning guests.

Brother James beat Dad again to the birthday wishes, at the end of May, while Katie & Daniel wowed their cousins in acting. Cousin Emily graduated, working to keep up with Becca and Amber.

Amber announced word this week of a new job venture. And as we turn into June (Dad’s birthday) we hope to find that by turning, turning, we come round right!