Mi Compañero

 

"But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another."   Mosiah 4:15

As you know, married senior missionaries never face transfers from their companions.  This can be both a good and a not so good thing, depending on the day.  Being like Siamese twins joined at the hip for 18 months can infringe on one's personal space, which both of us value greatly.  The only times we are not together is when we are in the bathroom, I'm not well and he goes to the store, one of us goes on a walk, or Elder Blain is in a priesthood meeting.  Consequently, we go to the bathroom--a lot.  No, just kidding.  Actually, the Lord must work some sort of magic to make it so we don't kill one another over loud eating noises and annoying habits that can grate on one's nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. 

Speaking of going to the bathroom, the other night, Elder Blain left the lid in the loo up, which he rarely does.  In the middle of the night, I got up in the dark and proceeded to about kill myself falling into the gaping, cavernous sinkhole they call a toilet here in England.  My back hasn't recovered fully yet.  He feels bad about it, but he now knows how to mangle me if for some reason down the road I deserve to be tortured and drowned.

Thank goodness Elder Blain has many redeeming qualities, which I shall focus on now.  The best part of this missionary arrangement is serving with a  man who prays at least twice a day, studies his scriptures constantly, does all that is asked of him in the Church, is there to help others when he is aware someone needs something, and donates everything he has of energy, spiritual and temporal means, and all of his time to furthering the work of the Lord.  He is humble and teachable in the gospel and absolutely loves Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ.

On top of the spiritual stuff, Elder Blain opens doors for me, carries heavy items, won't let me do any heavy work he thinks a man should be doing, puts me first in everything, will buy anything I ask for, will feed me whatever and whenever I want, gives me the best piece of anything yummy, never eats the last of anything we both like because he saves it for me, warms my side of the bed on cold nights, and stands around while I take photographs of everything under the sun.  He has driven me by to see "the little horsey" a billion times, and usually bites his tongue when I'm off on some tangent about something and can't quit ranting on about it.  He didn't call my looking for a hedgehog a waste of time or silly.  I cannot list all he does for me, but it is all tremendously unselfish.

In Sacrament Meeting today, the Stake President said that everything done in the Church is designed to bring us closer to our Savior.  I believe everything Elder Blain does is to first support anything and everything that will help others, and secondly himself,  be closer to the Savior.  He has consecrated himself to God's work.  His example makes me want to be a better person.

Today, I am extremely grateful that I am married to this remarkably faithful man.  He does not believe he is anything special or better than anyone on this earth and would not be happy to be singled out in this post, but he doesn't read the blog so I'm safe.  Ha, ha.

Tomorrow, I may be ready to strangle Elder Blain for some silly thing that he's doing that is bugging me.  Maybe he'll wish he could shake me until my teeth rattle for some goofy thing I do.  Maybe we will temporarily forget why we even like one another.  Luckily, we will just clench our teeth, or bite our tongue, or put ear plugs in, or go for a l-o-n-g walk!

Elder Blain is my senior missionary companion.  He is a good trainer.  I plan on keeping him. Don't tell anyone, but me thinks we are in, you know, love like (as an English person might say).

These nice people have a lovely little Eden of their own in their back yard.  They invited us to lunch last week and below is the bouquet I gathered for y'all to enjoy on this lovely Sabbath Day.

This same kind of flower is in our shrubs outside our bedroom window at the flat.

See the ivy on the roof?  There were bird feeders and a birdbath in this yard.