Blessed are the Children

Just had to post this one of Jet--unbelievable eyes!

This little guy is a great grandson born while we've been on our mission. (I call him our little big man because he is a chunk-in-a-half destined to be a massive sports hero after he serves as a really tall and broad-shouldered missionary)  There are three more great grandchildren we have yet to meet personally (girls).  It seems we know all of them as we've enjoyed the pictures of them posted from the day they were born and through every stage of development where several of them are already walking!  We're looking forward to seeing them all in the near future, if they'll have anything at all whatsoever to do with us!!

Last Days in Lovely Darwen and Seeing the Tower

Wherefore, I give unto them a commandment, saying thus:  Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy might, mind, and strength; and in the name of Jesus Christ thous shalt serve him.  Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself. . . . Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things.  Thou shalt offer a sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in righteousness, even that of a broken heart and a contrite spirit.  Doctrine and Covenants 59:5-8

We have tried to show our love by the service we have been able to do on this mission.  We know we fall short of all we'd like to do and missed things we should have done.  What matters is we did the best we could.  We DO love the Lord and thank him for this marvelous experience to "love our neighbors."  They have blessed us far more than we have helped them.

The Internet goes down tomorrow.  I shall try to post the last on this blog until we return home to report the last leg of our Ireland, Yorkshire, and Scotland explore.  Plans are to attend our last Sacrament Meetings in Newcastle-Under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent wards to see the lovely folks in those wards one last time.

We finally made it to Darwen Tower that had beckened to us from the first day we arrived in this area.  A sunny day came and we ventured up for a stress relief as I was getting to the stage of standing in the middle of the room being totally unproductive by feeling overwhelmed and not knowing where to begin organizing for the move.  The little time it took to hike up to the tower probably saved a lot of time in the moving process in the long run.

The tower with the new dome

It isn't the first, nor the only such landmark; all sorts of monuments flourish on our Pennine hills. There's the tower on Rivington Pike, the Peel monument near Bury, the Snowden memorial above Colne, the tower on the fells above Abbeystead and, of ancient and unknown origin, the tall structures on Gragareth, Lancashire's highest mountain. This urge to build something on the nearest hill surfaced again in Darwen just over one hundred years ago. On one level it was a gesture of loyalty to a monarch celebrating her sixtieth year on the throne, but on another it was a gesture that struck at the very thing that monarchy is all about: the ownership of land and the power and privileges that go with it

About three months before we arrived in Darwen, a strong wind storm once again took the top of the tower off.  It was closed for a while to clean things up and secure the safety of the area so people could climb the tower once again.  The other missionaries told us they heard it was open again, so we were lucky enough to climb the tower before we left England.

New clip:  GALES have blown the dome off the top of Darwen Tower.  The 85-foot landmark was stripped of its crowning glory by gusts of up to 80mph overnight.

The octagonal Jubilee Tower (generally called Darwen Tower) on Beacon Hill overlooking the town of Darwen in Lancashire, England, was completed in 1898 to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and also to celebrate the victory of the local people for the right to access the moor. It was opened to the public on 24 September 1898.  85 feet (25.9 m) in height, walkers can climb to the top via the internal staircase to admire the views of North Yorkshire, Morecambe Bay, Blackpool Tower, Cumbria, the Isle of Man, North Wales, Derbyshire elsewhere in Lancashire, and surrounding moorland.
Moor (more) ( : History: Packmen, peddlers, farmers and labourers used tracks and moorland paths to go about their business. In the 1870s the Lord of the manor of Over Darwen, the Reverend William Arthur Duckworth, blocked ancient rights of way preventing access to the moor even though he was an absentee landlord. Game rights were a valuable commodity and Duckworth did not wish to have his land devalued by trespassers on the moors. William Thomas Ashton, manager of Eccles Shorrock's mines at Dogshaw Clough and Entwistle Moss used the moorland footpaths well to deliver coal to farmers and other customers. Whenever Duckworth's gamekeepers blocked his way Ashton cleared the paths. The struggle led to the courts where Duckworth lost and in September 1896 people resumed walking the moorland footpaths and, as Ashton died in 1884, his sons lead a procession onto the moors in celebration.

There is a stone spiral staircase to the first level and slightly above, followed by a smaller metal spiral staircase which leads to the very top. Wind speeds can be very high at the top of the tower, and often mist below will obscure the surrounding views. In 1947 the original wooden turret built by a crew including apprentice Ernest Brooks of Darwen (who later built the Lytch Gate at Sunnyhurst Wood) on top of the tower was blown off in a gale and was not replaced until 1971 when the tower was crowned once again with a glass dome paid for mainly by fund raising by local people. The tower was closed to the public for 19 months due to being deemed unsafe for use.

How the tower looks now.  Maybe it just wasn't meant to have a dome.  We enjoyed climbing to the top and looking out over the countryside in all directions.

I just spend several hours working on the post to show you the rest of this trip, but the server crashed and lost everything!!  So, you may just have to wait to see the rest of this fantastic day.  Sorry.  I'm hoping the Internet company hasn't done what they did last time and cut us off several days early!  We shall see . . .  I'll see how many photos I can attempt to add back on.

It was a gorgeous hike up

War memorial in the park at the base of the hike

Carved wooden creatures in the park

On the trail through the park

Interesting flowers along the way

One of the trails up overlooking Darwen--we could see our place

These falls are advertised as being 60 feet

On the trail

This looks a long way up as we are trudging along

Elder Blain is standing with a lady overlooking the landscape as I walk up this trail

Pretty color of rock on the way up

Overlooking the land from the tower

More stairs like in the castles

Bouquet for you

Heading down

Those Special Lost Sheep and How He Meets Their Needs

Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.  Romans 12:12-13

Look deeply into the soul.  There is more beauty and value to behold than shows on the outside.  -R. Blain

A ward missionary has been trying to get us to visit a lonely woman in a care centre  (English spelling until we're off our mission) for over a month.  We kept having other "priorities" get in the way, I'm embarrassed to say.  We finally got around to visiting her and one other lady in the same centre today.

Yes, roses are out in the yards and I couldn't resist as we walked by!

One woman told us the care center was like a prison where people never were taken out to see the world around them.  How very hard to keep hope alive under those conditions!  These people are being lost and forgotten in such places.  Often we hear they have never had visiting or home teachers.  Fortunately, for some people, ward members remember them and do visit.  More often than not, the care center residents get few visits from anyone here and in similar facilities in the U.S.  The one difference in the states is there are buses that take people out for rides and activities, and in Utah there are LDS services for the residents. 

I noticed there is no private bath in the room we visited.  There's a chair with a pot in it.  The humiliation and tribulation the residents of these places must face is something none of us want to even become aware of, since it is so disheartening to see how they must live compared to our standard of living.

This yellow rose is different than anything I've seen with pink highlights and darker pink spots.

What can we do when we visit people in these circumstances?  What possible hope or comfort can we give?  It seems when a missionary (or member) is sent in circumstances like this, the Lord does use them to fill a need.  The first thing we do is pray in our hearts we will know what to say and do.  Next, we listen and hope to hear something that will indicate a thread of faith we can strengthen with a scripture and prayer.

It was one of those coincidences that are small miracles orchestrated by God that when I happened to bring an old Ensign magazine, a copy of a song, and a picture of Christ to give to whomever we might encounter.  While listening, it came to light the one lady was laden down with guilt over something that happened years ago.  Flipping open the Ensign, there was a main article on the Atonement!  She also mentioned she didn't understand why the people crucified Christ when he was only doing good.  The cover of that Ensign had a depiction of Christ giving his apostles the Sacrament at the last supper.  We were able to explain he gave his life voluntarily for us so we can live again and be forgiven for our sins.  She seems relieved and grateful by the time we left.

The picture was the one of the huge statue of Christ in the Visitor's Center in Salt Lake City (Christus)

The song was, "He Sent His Son, Children's Songbook #34 (see lyrics below).  Just what she needed!

Here you see our two guides (the one on the left is walking with the ward missionary.  The man in the front is the husband of the woman in the care centre.  The two men hang around town and know many people there.

We were supposed to meet the ward missionary member at Morrison's and she was going to take us to the care centre.  Instead, the lady's cute little husband (he always said "aye" for "yes because he is from Yorkshire) was found in the large foyer at Morrison's grocery store, where he sits on a bench every day.  Another friend, who visits his wife regularly, along with the husband, ended up being our guides to the care centre.  We had fun walking together because they had knowledge of the history of the area.  I wasn't aware that the Muslims trained missionaries and sent them out all over.  They are very aggressive according to the one man.  He showed us the missionary training centre for the Muslim missionaries. 

The typical shop area in Blackburn

These two men, because they hang out downtown all day (nothing better to do), they know people all over town.  They were greeting the Muslims in front of their shops and asking about their welfare.  One Muslim hugged Elder Blain and called him "brother."  These two lonely men go about spreading sunshine in people's lives.  Though neither one is active in church attendance, they both are living Christlike lives.  Once again, our hearts were deeply touched by the great love we felt Jesus Christ has for these humble individuals.  They are the little sparrows he will not forget.

The song "He Sent His Son" -

How could the Father tell the world of love and tenderness?

He sent his Son, a new born babe, with peace and holiness.

How could the Father show the world the pathway we should go?

He sent his son to walk with men on earth, that we may know.

How could the Father tell the world of sacrifice, of death?

He sent his Son to die for us and rise with living breath.

What does the Father ask of us?  What do the scriptures say?

Have faith, have hope, live like his Son, help others on their way.

What does he ask?

Live like his Son.

Click below on the link to hear the song on You Tube.

http://youtu.be/HrRg-5f58VA

Since enduring faithfully to the end seems the theme for people dealing with many trials and tribulations, below are some scriptures we used during our meeting today:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  Romans 8:35

If you continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel . . . Colossians 1:23

For verily I say unto you, blessed is he that keepeth my commandments, whether in life or in death; and he that is faithful in tribulation, the reward of the same is greater in the kingdom of heaven.  Doctrine and Covenants 58:2

But that ye have patience, and bear with those afflictions, with a firm hope that ye shall one day rest from all your afflictions.  Alma34:41