There are many wonderful experiences in a mission and there are others that are not so great. We had one of the not so great ones this week as we had to say goodbye to four excellent missionaries. Two of our elders and the two sisters were transferred this week, all of them to Dublin. The worst part is that the two sisters are not being replaced. We so enjoyed working with those young women and it is especially difficult for Maurene that they will be gone. We will miss all four of them and hopefully will see them some time again before their missions are over. Elder Taylor, our District Leader, (Texas), Elder Jarosz (Spain), Sister Muller (Germany) and Sister Muller (Switzerland) worked very hard here and accomplished much. They had great senses of humour and were a pleasure to associate with. Along with the transfers and getting missionaries on the road and others arriving, we had lots of work and changes as far as apartments are concerned. We did not know that the sisters were going to be leaving before Monday, so that meant that all of a sudden we had an extra apartment. And the sisters' apartment is very nice! We were also able to finalize on Monday the new apartment near the chapel that we had found for two of the Elders. We are just waiting for all of the money arrangements with the mission home to be finalized and we will get the keys. So we thought we had three apartments, one for us and one for each set of Elders. Perfect. But we got a call from Edinburgh on Monday that President Donaldson wants the four missionaries to stay in one apartment as they are now. At least for the time being. So we are going to give notice on the apartment they are in now and move them either to the sisters' apartment or the new one and we will stay where we are. We have an extra apartment but when we get the go ahead we can move two of the elders to it. We also found out we may be getting sisters back in the future so we may have to find another one. We got a request from a person on Billion Graves to take a photo of a headstone in a rural cemetery not far from Limerick. So we headed out there one morning to see if we could find it. It was not a huge cemetery and had a lot of older headstones but on most of the older ones the writing was illegible. The person died in 1915 so if he was buried there it was probably one that we couldn't read. It was a nice drive in the country just the same. While we were driving out to the cemetery we drove by one traffic circle that had daffodils planted all around it. It sure looked beautiful so Maurene took a few shots as we were driving around it. We have had flowers here outside all winter but it looks like the seasons are starting to change and we are going to see even more of them. It is sometimes said of the weather in Southern Alberta if you don't like it, wait five minutes. The same could be said of the weather here. On some days it consists of showers, it will be clear and sunny and then you will have a downpour for five to ten minutes and then back to the sun just as suddenly. It will continue like that all day. For the first time this year we had a snowfall that stayed on the ground for a couple of hours. It snowed overnight, and it was gone by noon but I snapped a couple of photos first thing in the morning. Also, after one of the showers past we saw a great full rainbow, the photos don't do it justice of course. This weekend it was district conference here in Limerick so we had meetings to attend on Saturday and Sunday. There were missionaries who travelled here from around the district so we picked them up from the bus depot and we put up four sisters in the now vacant sisters apartment. Maurene played the organ for the Sunday session of conference. It was also Mothers Day here in Ireland on Sunday. We decided not to have Family Home Evening with the YSA group since most who could wanted to spend the day with their moms. We did have a surprise visit from three of the YSA girls with a special gift for Maurene. They call her their YSA mom. It was so thoughtful of them and made her day!
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AuthorThis is the blog of Elder Tom and Sister Maurene Wilson of our mission to the Scotland/Ireland Mission. Archives
October 2016
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