ear Grandchildren,
One of the emerging plans around here has to do with a youth conference and YSA gathering next year. We have made friends with an agent whose late father used to assist BYU tours in this region of the world. I had asked this friend for help in getting a handle on what facilities and costs might be like for such activities. He came back with unusually low estimates. We went with him last Tuesday to a coastal town to see the hotel that he had contacted and its facilities. It turns out that the manager is a college friend who, incidentally, attended Harvard University when he was younger. The hotel is very nice and sits across the road from a public beach. One of my thoughts has been, "I hope that our young people don’t pull this place apart." I mentioned the trip in our branch presidency meeting and the father of an unbaptized youth asked whether his son could attend. You know the answer to that question. Naturally, I said yes.
Thanksgiving here is largely a private affair. That’s because no one celebrates it. Except people like us. By chance Grandma learned that a hotel in town was serving a Thanksgiving buffet. So she made a reservation for us and the YVs. It was a spectacular meal. One of the YVs said that it might have been his best Thanksgiving meal ever. We started with a cornucopia of salads and dressings. Next came the main dishes, including turkey and roast beef (but, alas, no cranberry sauce). The dessert table was piled high with various delights, though no pumpkin pie as you and I know it. The pumpkin pie at this dinner was covered with a sweet blackberry topping. Another pie was covered with walnuts. And so it went. One delectable item after another until I could not eat another thing.
Yesterday, we drove with my first counselor to a city a couple of hours north of us. We were to meet a sister who lives near the city. It took us several phone calls to find her standing by the side of the main road running through town. The impressive thing about her was that she was in Istanbul the day before and climbed on a bus at 8:30 in the evening. She rode all night and arrived in the city about 8 o’clock yesterday morning. There she waited for us until we arrived about 12:30. Only about 11:00 did she call to learn whether we were on the way. We had no idea about her long bus ride until she told us after we asked her how she came to meet us (I thought naively that she might own a car; she doesn’t). She is retired but still works as a psychologist. She takes care of her parents and has a daughter attending a distant university. After a very nice seafood lunch on an island to which we drove by a pair of bridges, we stopped at a quiet place overlooking the sea and had a short sacrament service in the car. It was a special moment. She said that she had not partaken of the sacrament in five years.
I was hoping for a crowd of a dozen of more people at sacrament meeting today. The YVs had talked about two or three people who might come. So did one of my counselors. In fact, none came and we were nine. Except a tenth person sat outside waiting for my counselor because the people at the hotel desk could not tell him, or would not tell him, where we were meeting. This is the second time that something like this has happened to one of his associates who has come to meet with us. But the YVs hopped right on the opportunity and spent time after services talking with the fellow and making arrangements to meet him at a later date. After such a poor start, I am hoping for something good to come out of all this. On the positive side, this man seemed to be in good humor even after the hour’s wait.
A lot of media attention has been lavished on events on our side of the world during recent days. But we feel a huge distance between ourselves and the toll-taking occurrences that happen a few hundred miles away. We can only hope that good things come out of difficulties, and that leaders, elected and otherwise, find solutions that bring stability to the lives of their people. At the moment, I don't sense that we are teetering on any brink. I judge that we are far back from any precipitous edges. And that is reassuring to me.
I love you and pray for all of you.
Grandpa Brown
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