Zone-ariffic Adieux

“Shlawkee, shleckee, shlawkee.” Loosely translated that means “The gospel has been restored.” Or that is what we think it means.

You see, from time to time we are delighted when we have time to assist the younger missionaries with a discussion or two. This past week we sat in on a lesson by two sister missionaries who were teaching in Mongolian. In most languages, when people are having a gospel discussion, even if you don’t know the language, every once in a while you will pick up on something like “Christus” or “Josef Smit” or something that gives you a hint of what they are talking about. Well, apparently not in Mongolian. We sat through a 45 minute lesson and did not pick up on one single word. Zero, nada, zippo. They might as well have been talking about a Mariners’ baseball game.

However, even though we didn’t catch a word, the spirit was still there. You could still feel the spirit working through these two young missionaries to bear testimony of the truth to our new little friend from Mongolia.

This past week marked a milestone for us. We attended our “first” zone conference! What you say? Our first? Yup. Even though zone conferences are held every six weeks, we have our own classes and other obligations we have to attend to. But finally a zone conference was held on a day when we didn’t have any conflicts. It was great! Don’t get us wrong, we love our mission, but being Institute missionaries does leave you a little isolated from the other missionaries. So to have a chance to rub shoulders with a whole bunch of missionaries at one time was a real treat for us.

And can we tell you how strong the spirit feels when you are surrounded by 60 young, articulate, well-groomed, and excited missionaries who are singing their mission song, as fast, and as loud, as they can in a chapel? Okay, maybe it was because we were having visions of perhaps what it is like for an Anziano Thornton in Milan, Italy to be attending a zone conference and an Elder Thornton in Nairobi, Kenya to be attending one there. Yes, one “Senior” missionary couple got a little choked up just thinking about them while being surrounded by all those young elders. They are just so great!

And Elder & Sister Arnold, the visiting general authority & spouse, weren’t too bad either. Of course, how could Elder Arnold not be? He was raised as a fellow spud from Rockland, Idaho. Salute! And boy is he organized. We think he gets more accomplished each morning by 8:00am than what we do in an entire day. We still have so much to learn from others don’t we? What a good example he is to set such a productive pattern, especially for these young missionaries to follow and incorporate into the rest of their lives.

On yet another missionary front, we were invited to go see the Church’s property out on Vashon Island. The Church was donated a 100+ acre farm on Vashon Island which they are trying to turn into a camp. Anyway, there is a legal battle of sorts, so until everything gets settled, (its been years) they have a missionary couple whose job it is to be the caretakers of the farm:

It is hard to see, but this beautiful farm used to be a Morgan horse farm. Its right along a south edge shore of the Island. In addition to its beautiful wooded landscape, it also has beautiful views of the Puget sound. Anyway, the missionary couple spend most of their time just trying to keep the place looking like this. They do a great job. But they sure were glad to see us since they don’t get too many visitors. So if you are looking for a nice & quiet service mission, this might be just what you are looking for.

And speaking of visitors, we had a plethora (I just love saying that word) of visitors over the past two weeks.

First, we had the Dave & Lori Wise & family come for a day or two. They like to take their family on vacations that re-create history. This year’s trip was based upon Lewis & Clark’s epic adventure into the great Northwest.

And wouldn’t you know it? The Wises ran into the same problem Lewis & Clark ran into on their epic journey. That’s right, their alternator went out on their car. They ended up spending their first night sleeping in their car waiting for the mechanic shop to open up the next morning in Ontario, Oregon.

But, as Dave explained to their kids, that was the exact spot where Meriwether Lewis’ car broke down when he crossed the border into Oregon. Except, back in 1803, alternators were made much better so Mr. Lewis had made over 3,000 miles before his alternator actually gave out. Fortunately, his mechanic, by the name of Sacagawea, installed another and they were quickly on their merry way. And today, if you look real close at a Sacagawea dollar, you can see that alternator she carried in her right hand clear back to the Napa auto parts dealer in St. Louis so she could get a refund and pay for their entire trip.

A day later, the Wises did arrive. We met them at this historic Lightpost. Dave says the post marks the exact spot where Lewis told Clark “this is the spot President George Washington wants his library.” (or maybe Dave is getting this confused with “Lois & Clark?”) Anyway, that is how Washington University Library came to be around 1948. Oh, and if you look closely at the rusty, pointy, thing on the right, Dave also says that is where the next “national treasure” movie is going to have a major clue. There is a HUGE hidden vault of treasures right under that triangle.

And it is just by sheer coincidence that the handicap arrow is pointing directly at the point of Dave’s brain that stores all that accurate historical data. And as Mike is fond of pointing out, of course, the most important reason why anyone should study history in the first place is so that when you visit a historical site, you can go around correcting the tour guides.

Well we did have a little pity on the Wises. Since they spent all their money on an alternator, as missionaries, we thought the least we could do was take them down to Seattle’s soup kitchen so they could at least get something to eat before we sent them over to the homeless shelter for the night.

Don’t they just look happy? Or maybe Dave just likes to make people nervous by smiling like that.
Anyway, isn’t it just amazing how a little hot soup can melt away all your alternator troubles?

We then left the Wises in the good hands of the local authorities and wished them well until we meet again. Adieu, Adieu, parting is such sweet sorrow.

(Okay, if you don’t know by now, Dave & Mike were college roommates and they tend to get a “LITTLE” carried away when they get together.)

After the Wises left, we then had another pleasant surprise. My niece, Rebecca decided on a whim to pick up my mom and drive up the Oregon coast for my niece’s birthday. As they traveled north, they dropped in to see us and we were able to take a day to visit Orca Island and such.

We just LOVE visitors. Especially of the Mom & niece variety.

We did run into a slight problem. You see, when we went down to the water, there was this little tiny island at low tide you could just walk out to.

However, the tide started to come in faster than we anticipated and, , ,

You probably guessed that the water covered the trail back and it got a little deeper than expected trying to get back to our car – whoops!

We then toured another island and ran across this beautiful garden many of you probably recognize:
We have annual passes, so come on by!

We then said our “good-byes” and please, “please come again.”

We then had our final surprise visit of the week. Mike’s niece, Joy & her husband Alex (and darling daughter Jacklyn) McClean swung on by for a quick visit. We were so really happy they did! They live in Rochester, New York and we have not seen them in years. So we were more than happy to give them a good old Institute and U-dub campus tour:
And so ended our week. We attended our normal 3 sacrament meetings today and now it is time to go for a walk.

It is summer here in Seattle. All but one of our summer classes end next week. We LOVE getting visitors!

So don’t think you are of any bother if you decide to drop on by!

Mike will be happy to give you the “real” Meriwether Lewis tour!

Until next time - Adieu, Adieu, parting is such sweet sorrow.

Love,

Elder “Mike” & Sister “Jenny” Thornton