Lost Then Found

We as a missionary force re-state our purpose regularly:

to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive

the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ [and so forth].

This is often explained as "the gathering of scattered Israel".

At the heart is the concept of "finding" - I take that as theme this week. 

My post edition features a few stories that demonstrate 

situations where something or someone was "lost".

A verse by long-ago poet Edmund Spenser 

(Faerie Queene, 1590) will set the stage:

For whatsoever from one place doth fall

Is with the tide unto another brought.

For there is nothing lost, that may be found,

If sought.

* * * * *

First, I begin with an eye-catcher showing the beauty

of this world and the area where we live. Stunning blossoms!

The first drops of oil filling our lamps this week came

as we received a surprise gift quilt from (released & home)

Sister Paytin Drollinger (Idaho) who made these wall quilts

with her mother and sister(s) as something "to keep them

busy during isolation".

This is the one that landed on my desk and

snuggled close to warm my heart.

 The surprise that Vince had most fun with this week

was a gift of damaged-framed exotic butterflies.

He loves entomology and collections, and has purchased

a few display specimens while we have been here.

Below you can see him working to repair and re-mount.

And below are some of the newly shadow-boxed butterflies.

Elder Pat Hoke of the Mission Office staff gifted the collection

that he found at an estate sale locally.

 This is a week we knew would arrive, despite our dread.

The other Office couples have come to the end of their

missions. Here below, Elder Ron and Sister Sarah Matkin

posed on the final day as Mission Secretary and

Financial Officer (and then some!).

We had a small celebration with proper distances to mark

their departure, and the birthday of Elder Wells who

will be manning the secretarial helm until the senior

missionary replacements arrive at the end of July

(delayed because of the COVID virus complications).

Elder Matkin has had a running line about wishing to

see a moose while here in New England.

Though he didn't, we celebrated with a ceramic miniature.

(NOTE the "obedient" moose - staying in the crosswalk!)

Elder Pat and Sister Bobbie Hoke

will depart early this week. She has been serving

in energetic and miraculous ways as mission nurse.

Elder Hoke has assisted her, and performed other

support functions, besides being our friend.

  "Something found" STORY ONE comes from Sister Hoke.

Though a long, interesting tale, here's a summarized account:

Sister Hoke completed her Mission Medical training in

Salt Lake City last June where they had traveled from Arizona.

After day sessions, she walked to the neighborhood

near 6th Avenue and L Streets where her grandparents had

lived when she was a child. Flooded with memories of playing

with cousins at family gatherings there, Sister Hoke maneuvered 

for the best place to take a commemorative photograph.

(This may not be the home, but it is near the correct location.)

The current homeowner, 78-year-old Louise, spotted then

guardedly questioned her. After the acceptable explanation,

Louise invited Bobbie to come inside for a guided tour.

She remembered the "same old carpet", the built-ins

in the dining room, the packed earth floor in the cellar.

Turns out there was only one other owner between grands

and Louise. Soon the two ladies moved to the back yard, 

where Bobbie recalled a 50th wedding anniversary celebration

 with extended family. In the middle of those recollections,

Louise exclaimed that she had found a sterling silver fork

in the back garden, and had kept it. 

The retrieved utensil (this is a picture of the actual fork)

prompted Bobbie to tell the story, how one in a set so highly 

prized had gone missing, that all had been enlisted to hunt and

scour the property, but to no avail. The fork was irretrievably lost.

Time rolled on. Grandparents moved and passed away.

Later, Louise had found THAT fork - providentially, because

a connection needed to be made between these two women.

Bobbie returned to her hotel, and immediately received

a low-level "emergency" text: Louise had fallen and asked

her new nurse-friend to come check her over. Louise confided:

though an independent woman, a blacksmith and

a woodworker, she had few friends and no grown children

to check on her. Now with a friend for life, there was

more than one thing "FOUND" that evening.

STORY TWO: Elder Robert Gay (Seventy) hosted a NHMM

remote devotional last Friday afternoon via Zoom from SLC.

Speaking without prepared notes, he explained about his call

to be a Mission President with preliminary information that

they would be speaking Spanish - a language Elder Gay had 

learned as a young missionary. More specifics would follow.

Sister Gay confidently declined to begin language learning,

saying she just had a feeling they would not need it.

Eventually, Elder and Sister Gay were assigned to Ghana, Africa

where they learned about Brother William "Billie" Johnson . . .

. . . who had been converted at age 30 (1964) to 

the Book of Mormon, long before missionaries had been 

allowed to preach in his home country, and at a time before 

black members participated fully in priesthood functions.

For 14 years, Billie walked across his country converting others to

what he had come to know was true, and longing to become

a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

One of his life goals was to lead a school for the African

children, a dream left behind as he followed those spiritual 

promptings to travel, teach and gather. A rich story had

unfolded, involving the rolling forth of missionary work in the area

and eventual baptism of hundreds of people reached by Billie that

can't fully be shared here. In essence, during Elder Gay's service 

in Ghana, meeting and working with Billie started a lifelong

mutually-beneficial relationship, leading to plans to

eventually build the long-sought for school.

STORY THREE: Young Elder Crum (recently released)

and companion Elder Bagley were leaving a restaurant

near Burlington, VT where they were assigned when a random

car pulled into the lot and parked next to them. The lady inside

motioned to them to roll down the window, so she could

talk. She handed them $10 and told them to use it to go 

buy ice cream as her treat. She knew they were 'Mormon' 

missionaries, and had recognized them getting in the car.

She was prompted to pull into the lot, and to stop to chat.

"Turns out" she is a member of the Church who had fallen

out of activity five years earlier. But after this chance

interaction, she opened up again to Gospel teaching,

and to association with the other members in the area.

Her Church activity has been restored and her commitment

to God "found" again, evidenced in her choices and plans.

STORY FOUR: The Vernal Tabernacle had become 

somewhat abandoned as a new, safer meeting house was

built, even to the point of being sold with plans to demolish it.

Friends of the historic building organized and pushed for

preservation. Eventually promptings and plans were rolled out

for an extensive "remodel" into a House of the Lord (temple).

There were a number of "found" miracles. Here are a couple:

Expansion and renovation would require repair using scarce

sandstone bricks. 'Miraculously' a historic home nearby became

available which had bricks verifiable as from the same "batch".

Volunteers dismantled, cleaned, repaired and transported bricks.

 At about the time of the makeover (when the complete

interior was removed, rebuilt to code and for new purpose),

Vince and I learned about another "found" aspect (re-told to us

by revered South Jordan UT 9th Ward member Bob Perschon).

Using a photocopied image as his visual, he explained about

the Vernal temple rebuild plans. In the photo, a foundation wall

was excavated and exposed ahead of plans to break through to

the planned baptistry location, determined to be the best way

to install the large font and oxen elements to the inside. 

There waiting in the wall was a wide arch, filled in with bricks, 

providing for minimally-invasive demolition, and
structural support, apparently planned in the century before.

STORY FIVE is from my own personal experience.

Our daughter Kenzie came to our family through

adoption, being placed at three days old. She has been

a blessing to us from the moment we fell in love at first sight.

One of my precious memories was our heart-to-heart hug

in the bride's room at the Salt Lake Temple before she

married her sweetheart Mikey. Before that,

she had always planned to search and find her birth mother,

but technicalities, and later growing demands as a mother

of four young children (later to become six) interfered

with the hunt. When Ancestry DNA testing started things

in motion, she eventually unlocked the final door, though

unfortunately Debbie had already passed from disease.

But half-sister Ashlee was found. Initial moments of

discovery were fast-paced and bumpy. Ashlee was being

cautioned by loved-ones to avoid a possible scam.

 To fact-check, she asked about a baby dress, and letters

that Debbie had mentioned in her explanation to Ashlee.

Could these be produced? In a very spiritual experience,

the dress and the precious documents were "found" by me

at the bottom of a cedar chest which had previously been

searched. A vital and eternal connection was re-forged!

(Below are Kenzie, Debbie and Ashlee.)

Journeying through life, we have these "lost then found"

moments collect themselves into our spiritual vaults.

Sometimes we know the details. 
Sometimes we are just a cog in the works.

Sometimes we simply see "through a glass darkly".

But when they come close enough, and IF we pay attention,

the sizzle of the confirming Spirit resonates, and we understand

that God our Heavenly Father pays attention to

EACH and EVERY ONE of his children --

One by One.

Hope you can watch for and remember some 

of your own "found" moments in the challenging days ahead.