Hong Kong

One final thought. By now, the temple theme to our mission is clear, so bear with me for a wrap up and one more story.  As members of the church we often hear our apostles and prophets talk about "the gathering of Israel" and  the purpose of temples in that pursuit. I believe all that to be true and important, but I have come to believe that regular attendance at the temple also offers another kind of gathering. I have come to believe that temples are also sacred gathering places for those of us on this side of the veil. Scattered through this last 18 months of letters has been stories of our "random" and unexpected temple meetings with beloved missionaries and meeting Cindy without a plan. Remember our story on January 14th titled "The Dream that I Hadn't Even Thought Of? when against all odds we "bumped" into Sister Thi at the crowded mall food court?  A month or two after that meeting I found this post on her Facebook page: Returning home nearl...

 December 2025 It's now been over a year since we completed our mission. I came to this blog to print it up for Dad's Christmas gift this year and realized that the last week was never written about. After moving out of our apartment and office we piled our suitcases into a corner in the office building and headed off to Thailand for one last Seminar. Just for fun seminar started with these scraped knees when I went down on a gravely dirty sidewalk no our   early morning walk the first day. They literally oozed and dripped all week, giving me greater compassion for my grandkids who sport scraped knees all the time! The seminar its self was another big experience full of all the chaos and pressure and joy of the previous seminars. For starters, after months of complex and challenging issues, visas for Pakistani missionaries were finally obtained and we welcomed our first Pakistani returned missionaries. Like the other groups, many of these missionaries were unendowed. In P...