Saying Farewell to the U.K. and Hello Once Again to the U.S.A.

. . . For my soul delighteth in the scriptures, and my heart pondereth them, and writeth them for the learning and the profit of my children.  Behold, my soul delighteth in the things of the Lord; and my heart pondereth continually upon the things which I have seen and heard.  2 Nephi 4:15-16

Our Delta plane waiting to load us up and leave

Elder Blain getting a last bite before boarding

An up-the-nose-shot at Sister Blain contemplating . . . simultaneously looking in her mind's eye towards home and back at the mission.

Fare thee well, English soil--a green and pleasant land

One last look at the west coast of beautiful Ireland

 Happy, loving faces and signs welcomed us back home.  I wish we'd gotten a picture of the family waiting at the bottom of the escalator as we came into the baggage claim area in the Salt Lake City airport.  Hearing their voices, and seeing them is a priceless memory.  These are the sweet signs that I took pictures of when we got home.

 

Not only did we have cool signs at the airport, but these signs welcomed us home when we arrived at the house. 

It was around 10 p.m. when we got home and the headlights showed these balloons flying in the front of the driveway.

The next day, some of the balloons were still up.  Cailin, Dave and the boys sure took good care of the yard.  We will never be able to thank them enough for all the hard work they did to keep the house and yard in shape, as well as the old white car running (Mike kept the Tundra truck running for us).  The house was spotless when we got in.  We can only imagine the work it was to make the place look like we'd never left.  We can only hope there were lots of blessings for the unselfish service rendered so we could go on this mission.  This included Mack and Rena, our across-the-street neighbors who kept the snow plowed and a watch out on the house.

The tree in the front, along with the hedges and other things had grown out of control until Dave was able to trim them back.  It was one of the wettest years on record, so things grew fast and thick.  The tree planted itself and was a twig when we left, so we thought we'd give it a little longer to live, never guessing that it would grow large enough to cover all of the windows in the living room part of the house!  Since it is a cottonwood tree too close to the house, it will have to go.  Too bad.  We've tried to plant trees and they often die, but this tree and the current bush (also self planted) have done quite well with no help except from Mother Nature.

The willow birch on the left has doubled in size.  We cannot believe how big the trees are now.  See how nicely trimmed Dave made the shrub in front?  It used to be twice that size and totally out of control!

People may wonder why I bothered with writing a blog, since these days hardly anyone is even interested.  Yet, the hits are approaching 13,000 people from 90 different countries.  For whatever reason, some people, besides the few family members and friends who checked in, clicked on the blog and hopefully found something of worth or enjoyment.  To us, the documentation of our second mission has been worth the effort even if we are the only ones to benefit.

We started out with the idea of sharing this mission experience with our children and found that others were searching for information.  The blog evolved into a teaching tool for those who were interested in exploring more information about the gospel and the LDS Church, a pictorial documentation of the beauties and interesting things we came across, and it became a way of sharing other uplifting resources and connections I found in cyberspace.

Now, once the initial mass of things that have to be done is over, I hope to finish documenting the last of our mission reflections, pictures, and thoughts.  From there, I currently have no idea if there will be a useful reason to continue blogging.  It'll be a matter of priorities and what is most important to be doing with my time in this particular season of life.  There is an immediate urgency to do family history and temple work for those who haven't had the opportunity to accept the gospel.  Indexing will certainly be picked up again as I enjoyed that part of member missionary work for the dead before we left on the mission (which, I know, sounds weird to those who aren't members of the Church).

Above all, I hope and pray people were brought somehow closer to our Heavenly Father in their desire to follow Jesus Christ's teachings and keep the commandments, to serve others, and basically make this world a better place with higher values and much love for others.  Or, if none of that happened, then maybe a new appreciation for the beauty in the world and the history it contains.

Because of computer difficulties, it'll take a while to post the rest of the stuff (pictures, etc.), but I intend to see this through to a closure of sorts for my own feeling of accomplishing the goal I set out towards