Day Fourteen: For the Beauty of Wifi...

Happy Sabbath, Wales!

I got to sleep in a little bit again today before showering and getting ready for church at 10. I wore one of the new shirts that Abby picked out for me at the thrift store yesterday, and I must say that it goes perfectly with my skirt! Thats always a delightful feeling.

I got ready for the day and made myself quite the scrumptious little breakfast: some warm rice with milk, a diced banana and nectarine, and a little honey with some granola. Sehr super gut! I'll definitely be making that in the future!

We all walked to church together in the warm morning light at about 9:30. Tom instructed us to split up and sit with more of the local members today, rather than just sit in one big clump again. I sat next to a very nice older gentleman who had an awesome singing voice. We chatted for a bit before the meeting started, mostly about the BYU program here. He thought it best to warn us to stay away from northern Wales. "It's like the difference between New York CIty and Oklahoma" he said. I was surprised that he was so familiar with the states, but I didn't have a chance to ask him more about it because the meeting began.

It was a nice meeting. I always think its cool to hear these people offer the same sacrament prayers I've heard all my life, but in that crazy cool accent! The talks were pretty good. The first speaker was really funny and gave a nice talk on the parable of the lost sheep. It was a good reminder that we are all important to God and that He always wants to bring us back home. The next speaker was a young lady who was giving her missionary farewell talk, but they asked her dad to get up and bear his testimony first, and it was a truly powerful testimony. I hope I always remember his last message. He told his daughter three things; Stay calm. Be safe. Do great things.  I realized then that if I can do those three things, especially while I'm out here, then this will be a truly successful experience. More than that though, I hope that those are things that I can start applying more to my life in Utah too.

Stay calm. Be safe.  Do great things.

The girl's talk was pretty good. She didn't have the gift of eloquence that her father did, but after hearing him speak, I don't know many who do.

When the meeting came to a close, something unusual happened. As soon as the prayer ended, the second counselor sprang back up to the podium. He announced that it was time to participate in an old Welsh tradition. The man next to me leaned over and whispered only that this was a special way to say goodbye and that we were to stand at the chorus. Two ladies walked up to the front of the chapel with the girl leaving on a mission. They stood to each side and began to sing what I would later find was called 'The Welsh Farewell.' The song was so powerful it gave me goosebumps, and believe it or not, that happens very rarely with music for me. It spoke of leaving a place that had claimed you, rather than the other way around, and how the people and spirit of Wales would aid you in your tasks abroad. My companions and I, some already recording the moment with audio devices, took the cue to stand when the rest of the Welsh folk rose and sang the chorus together. They sang of how the one departing would be leaving in love, and how Wales would always look forward to welcoming them home. I'm sure I've butchered the message, but that was a really special moment. When I looked back at my companions to see what they thought of it, I saw that many were in tears. I'm telling you, it was cool.

The other two meetings were very good. Another visitor was teaching this week and he gave a great lesson on the importance of sacrifice, courage, and faith in living up to your privileges. He gave me his book to use for the next TWO lessons I'll be teaching in this ward. I'm a little nervous about that, but I'm more excited to try my best at it, and check sometime later at how many people go inactive. Relief Society was good too, very empowering of the role of women.

On the walk home, I got a really strong feeling that I should ask for a priesthood blessing. Normally, this is something i only bug people with if I'm extremely sick or if something horrid w happening, but for some reason i really got a big feeling then that i needed it then. I wont discuss details, but I want to say that my testimony of priesthood blessings was enhanced today, as I was given help specific to my needs and as lines of my patriarchal blessing were directly referenced. This absolutely is the true church.

After I went home and took a moment to myself to write things down, I went downstairs to help Katy make dinner for everyone. Tom had invited one of the missionary companionships over to dinner that night, so Katy was making lentil stew. I had never had lentils before, but it turned really good! Basically, you take a base of rice, put some cooked and spiced lentils on, add a dollop of greek yogurt, some cilantro, and a squeeze of lime on top, and stir it all together. It turns out to be a really nice mix. I even went back for seconds it was so good! Also, I've discovered a new potentially favorite dessert: millionaire bars. You take a digestives cookie crust, add a layer of caramel, and then a layer of fudge. Sups delish!!!

Once dinner was over, I headed over to the other house to use the wifi. (p.s. we learned the other day that our wifi access has never been this good before. Apparently, this is the closest the two flats assigned to this group have ever been to each other, and the wifi at the other house is what is left over of what a Cardiff University student had signed up for, but must have left early. His contract for the awesome wifi must have been up a while ago, but they haven't cut off his service for months now, so we are just using the residual. We don't know who the student is, but Tom says that happens with the wifi providers here sometimes, and it doesn't cost him anything since he moved.)

After quickly checking on my new emails, I was successfully able to chat with Ethan via Skype for a while! It was really good to see him again, especially since we haven't gone many days without seeing each other before this trip. It was also really good to get caught up on  who's been doing what in provo since I've been gone. After he had to leave for church, I waited at the house until I thought my family had gotten home from church before Skyping over there. It turns out that I was early, but my mom was sick at home, so  she was able to take my Skype call anyways. A few minutes in, my dad walked in the door from his BYU ward session. So I got to talk to them both for a while too! I stayed and chatted with them about my trip and they wanted to know about blessing I had gotten today. normally I wouldn't go into details about something like that, but they're my parents, and i felt really food about it, so I decided to tell them about that too. It was a really wonderful talk, one which I afterwards wrote down a few other ideas beside my blessing notes to consider what I believe as time goes by.

I signed off, packed up, and left when the last girl from my house was leaving to go back for the night. It was about 11pm here, so it had been dark for about an hour (the sun comes up at about 4:30 and sets at about 10:30 here! I can't tell you how many times I woke up in a panic because my room was full of sunlight, but my alarm hasn't gone off, only to check my iPad and find that it was almost exactly 5:00am every time).

As we were walking past our pub, a cute little dog came into the doorway. Lydia laughed, this was the same dog that she had seen come to the doorway before, just as a lady on a bike had come by and yelled really snappily at the dog to get back inside the pub, to which the sad little dog obeyed. So when we saw him, we took a quick second to give him a nice rub behind the ears. He seemed pretty happy at that. Suddenly he came out of the doorway and started walking down the sidewalk. Shoot. We didn't want to loose the pubs dog! Lydia tried calling and whistling, but he wouldn't come, so I took an authoritative stand and said "hey! No way! Back to the pub!" To my amazement, the dog turned right around and hustled back into the door. I almost felt bad that it had worked so well...but we had a good laugh anyways.

Once back in my house, I whipped up some sandwiches and lunch stuff for the next day, got ready for bed, scripture study, prayers, and went right to sleep.

Till tomorrow, Cardiff...