Sunday – Happy Birthday to Jacob on the 18th! Our baby is 26. I’m glad he was born. He is a great caboose for our family.
We are down in the South Island, staying in Queenstown. Our work is light and now is a good time to travel. We’re here for a few reasons: to celebrate our anniversary, and to visit one of Ashton’s fellow missionaries who served with him in Fiji. It’s a working vacation too. Carter still gets calls and I still work on missionary recommendations in the evenings.
Ashton served with Jershon Wihongi who is from Auckland, New Zealand. He now lives on the South Island in Dunedin and is at the university there in pre-dental studies. He is one person I wanted to visit when we came to New Zealand. I messaged him to tell him we were coming down and it turns out he and his family were going to be in Queenstown the same time as us! We were prepared to make the drive to Dunedin, but glad we didn’t have to. We spent a lot of our Sunday with his little family. I was happy to know that he was as excited to see us as we were to see him. When he first found out about Ashton’s death, he sent me all the pictures from his mission that had Ashton in them. It was such a blessing at the time and was so kind of him to do that. We first met and sat by his family at church this morning and then they later came to our AirBnB. We ate an early dinner together and chatted until it got dark. We talked about how it WAS NOT a coincidence that we were both in Queenstown at the same time. He was happy to talk about the 2 months he spent serving with Ashton on the island of Taveuni, and we were happy to listen. It’s a great day whenever we get to see a missionary from Fiji who served with Ashton. His wife, who’s name is Oshan, (pronounced “ocean”) and children are the sweetest. When we first met at church, I was fighting back my emotions sitting next to them. But I prayed to feel at peace. The Lord blessed me and I did have a joyful day with his family.
I was touched by a story told at church today. The high council speaker said that when he got to the chapel early this morning, he was told they might have to cancel meetings for today because the pipes were frozen. The toilets would not flush. He said, with some emotion, that he talked to God and told him, “I have six days in the week do to all my work but I only have one day to take the sacrament and renew my covenants. Please let us renew our covenants today.” He then went into the kitchen, turned on the sink and the water was running when it wasn’t earlier. He called it a miracle. I believe in miracles and am so happy this little branch received one today. He also said, “You make history every time you walk in the door of this chapel. Your children are watching you.”
I recognized one of the missionaries there who has only been on his mission for 6 weeks. I remembered his picture from his recommendation I had reviewed a few months ago. The other missionary had returned from his mission in Mexico because of Covid. He had been there for a year and his Spanish was good. He was reassigned to the Wellington mission. He and Carter talked together in Spanish. He was happy to speak that language again.
The little chapel is a house they have renovated into a chapel. It’s small and gets lots of visitors like us on Sundays. The Dunedin stake is huge and covers lots of territory. When stake visitors come to visit the Queenstown branch they come with their family and stay Saturday night at a hotel. It’s a 3 1/2 hour drive from Dunedin.
Monday – This morning Elder Wihongi messaged me, “Wish we had more time with you both, thank you for being able to meet with us and make us some yummy food. Such a blessing that we were able to meet. Love you both very much.”
MADE. MY. DAY.
Candace had just sent me a beautiful song from a virtual choir that she sang in. Rubi had just sent a picture of their family visiting with Jacob & Gracia. All three combined really got to me and I lost it for while. Lot’s of tears came. I love and miss our children & grandchildren and I didn’t realize how much I love and need to hear from the Fiji missionaries who served with Ashton. I melts my heart to know that Elder Wihongi really wanted to meet us too and that he was so warm and loving to us. The Lord really blessed me yesterday to be able to feel peaceful, but today…. I’m letting loose and I really need to. I had a good cry this morning and then tonight again as I finish writing. This is part of the healing we came for. I can’t help but think that it must have been a hard thing for those missionaries too when they were told that Ashton died.
Sam Abplanalp, one of the missionaries Ashton trained, is coming to do a rotation with Ralph and Phil in Sierra Vista in Oct-Nov. Wish I could be there to help him with whatever he needs. But Candace and Ralph will be able to help him out. He needs a place to stay while he’s there. He was in the hospital with Dengue Fever in Fiji when Pres. Klingler came and told him that Ashton had died. Sam told us he was low anyway from his illness and that was the lowest point in his mission finding out that Ashton died by suicide. He’s another one who has been very kind to us. When it gets closer to us traveling to Fiji, he’s going to give us some pointers on how to best travel to Taveuni and where to stay on the island.
It’s good to see those guys moving forward in their life and careers. Ashton would most likely be in medical school. He wanted to be a radiologist. I know he will get the opportunity to finish his earthly life and have a family someday.
Sending Oceans of Love………..Faye