Hello from Sunny Northern Ireland!

Just kidding. But we have been blessed with temperate weather with regards to temperature and the wee odd bit of sunshine now and again.

We had stake conference this weekend and it was marvelous. Best one we’ve been to yet (anywhere, not just in Northern Ireland). The talks were all encouraging and inviting; there was nothing said that was castigating. Much of what I heard was about how the gospel of Jesus Christ has changed lives and blessed families. It was very uplifting and energizing to me.

I also believe we are safe in saying that this is the first time in the History of the World that the name, “Blickenstaff” was mentioned in a stake conference in the U.K. And more than once!

First, I was sustained as a member of the high council.

Second, Sister Blickenstaff and I were mentioned by the stake president as the newly called missionary couple working with Young Single Adults in the stake.

Finally, Sister Blickenstaff was asked to offer the closing prayer in the Sunday session. When the stake president announced the prayer, he stated that she was the better half of the YSA Centre missionary couple. He said, “Elder Blickenstaff is ok too, but she is the better half.”

So there you have it, history in the making right before our very eyes!

I should mention that the prayer she offered was the best one of the conference. She sounded just like a General Authoritess (i.e. a female authority, of which she is one). She did a good job. I didn’t even have to lean over like Mark Adams did to me before I spoke in our Not A Farewell meeting in Heber City and remind her not to embarrass the family. Seriously, it was a wonderful prayer and I am proud of her.

We also discovered this week that we are serving with two missionaries who know some of our relatives. A sister from downtown Mona is serving in Dublin. She was in Belfast for a couple of days and we took the sisters to meet Finn McCool at the Giant’s Causeway. En route, we found out that she knows Taylor and went to high school with her. Sister Blickenstaff told her that Taylor was my sister’s daughter. I am a bit slow, but I am not that inattentive at family reunions so I piped up and opined that she was not my sister’s daughter. Sister Blickenstaff said that I was incorrect but when I said, “Taylor’s mother is my sister’s daughter," my dear companion made another historical first by admitting that I was right. This admittance is the first such case in the 35 years we have been married and I recorded it in my journal as it is likely to be the last.

Then this afternoon, we found an Elder James, from Lindon Utah, serving in a different area than us in Belfast. He told us that he knew MaCee and MaKell from high school and liked them. Naturally, anyone who likes our relatives is automatically liked back by us and we told him so.

Besides meeting people who know some Blickenstaffs, we both enjoyed a quick trip to Dublin, Ireland with our stake president last Friday, to attend a meeting there and spend some time with two senior missionary couples getting ready to leave for home. One couple has been the Dublin CfYA couple and the other couple are employment missionaries. The employment couple is from Raymond, Alberta, Canada and know the Redds there, as well as my first companion from my first mission.

It’s like Old Home Week here (look it up on Wikipedia). You can’t ever get far enough away in the world that you can’t connect back to Blanding.

My last item of bidness is to report the broken tibia and fibula on one of the only two legs that our son Jason has in this world. He was playing football (European, not American) and came down wrong. He is now sporting a new piece of hardware and, if I can count correctly on the X-ray, 14 screws just above his ankle. He had surgery and is now back in his apartment in charge of nursing himself back to health. We are thankful that it wasn’t worse, grateful that it didn’t happen to us, sorry that it happened to him and sad that we can’t be there to mother (and father) him a wee bit. Get well soon, son.

Which reminds me, the other day I accidentally told our GPS to take us Home. It came up with the message that Home was 4,555 miles away and was computing the quickest driving route to take us there. For about 3 seconds I thought about being home and then I canceled the trip and found a closer destination that was only 5 miles away.

We love you more than all the red licorice in the world.

Elder Blickenstaff

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Hmmmmm . . . . This week?

We are loving our brisk, blustery, almost daily fall walks near Shaw's Bridge. The trails for walking, jogging, biking . . . are so lush and beautiful. We also did more exploring of the Antrim Coast. This time we took the sister missionaries along. They enjoyed getting out and seeing some of the sights on their preparation day. They have heard about the Giants Causeway for many months and finally got to see it themselves.

We went to Dublin to talk with a couple of senior couples that will be going home within the month and no couples scheduled to come in to replace them. We wanted to check out how they were handling their Seminaries & Institutes and Employment areas. We might start doing Employment Workshops. There is a real problem with unemployment over here. (It's everywhere.) So many of our young singles are qualified to get much higher paying jobs but they're only able to get jobs that are minimum wage, and those are the lucky ones! Work is scarce, and the welfare program over here pays more than many of the jobs do.

A news update from home - We found out that when Jason was playing soccer he broke two bones in his leg and needed to have surgery . . . I hate it when things like this happen and we're not around to be any comfort or help whatsoever. Now he's sporting some metal plates and needing to take it really easy for the next six weeks or more. Ouch!!!

We're enjoying every minute we spend with the YSA. We got to teach them about the importance of keeping a journal for home evening. We had a great discussion and one of them who has only been a member for a little over 6 months is very excited about getting a journal and getting started. (Wish we lived by a Deseret Book Store and I would have picked one up for him myself!) Another has decided that his laptop is the way he wants to start keeping his and showed me one of his journal entries a couple of days later when he wrote about a car accident he had just had on the way to the Centre! Kind of wish he had happier things to write about, but he was all excited about recording that experience to look back on later. I really didn't think that a home evening lesson on keeping records to a bunch of young men would have gone over so well. It was great! They're great!

We just finished I believe the most spirit filled stake conference weekend I've ever been to in my entire life! Absolutely amazing. The talks, testimonies and music shared were 'lovely.' We got another invitation to go to the temple with the youth of one of our wards here in the stake. An invitation to speak in one of the wards. (And so it begins . . . The first of MANY talks that we'll give!) We have plans to spend our 'American Thanksgiving' with our stake president and his family. President McCrudden says his wife 'makes a lovely pumpkin pie.' : )

We hope you enjoy a very warm, family-filled, 'count your many blessings' Thanksgiving weekend.

Northern Irish Slang lesson for this week-

gobsmacked - surprised
brilliant- excellent, first class
travelator - escalator
rashers - bacon slices
windscreen - windshield

We're thankful for YOU!

Sister B