My Mother Told Me There Would Be Days Like This

Greetings and Salutations from Northern Ireland. We are having more fun than we can possibly use, so we have been setting some of it aside for a sunny day. And you will never guess in a million years what happened this past week. We got SUNBURNED! That’s right. We have had nine (9) consecutive days of bright blue, clear, sunny weather. It has been wonderful. If you look very closely at this picture we took of the harbour from Belfast Castle, you will see BLUE SKY. We have not seen this before and we like it a lot.

The sunshine seemed to brighten everything up, including my face.

Once at Tanox, where I worked as the Chief Financial Officer, one of my Chinese colleagues asked one day, “If you don’t drink beer, why are you so fat?” I smiled and said, “I like to eat.” Luckily, the Northern Irish like to eat too. They like everything fried and I like everything they like. Except chocolate; I don’t do deep fried chocolate bars.

If we haven’t mentioned this before, this is a beautiful country! It is full of verdant rolling hills and more shades of colour than a boy from Blanding, Utah could ever imagine. The landscapes are breathtaking and the people are among the nicest we have ever encountered. It is a wee corner of paradise and we love it.

This past week we were treated to a fabulous visit from our neighbours from Texas, Gary and Nancy Peterson. When we sold our home in Atascocita, they were so heartbroken they sold theirs and followed us. Unfortunately, Gary has never been too good at navigation and he overshot the mark, landing in Idaho Falls. He commutes to Denver to work as a pilot for United Airlines. We managed to introduce the Petersons to half of the island and along the way, we all laughed so hard that we had to change our trousers from time to time.

Did I mention that this is a beautiful country? If not, it is. There are at least 68 castles in Northern Ireland, ranging from run-down ruins to restored reminders of days gone by. We have enjoyed the stirring views of some of these ancient monuments and reading a wee bit of their historical significance. This is what remains of Dunluce Castle, which was originally built in the 13th century and added upon over the following 400 years.

This is my new friend, name unknown, helpfully pointing out the general location of Utah, in case we had forgotten. Or perhaps he was inviting me to take my camera outside. I cannot remember, but we are now besties.

Everyone here is celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. This means that she has been Queening for 60 years, which is way, way longer than I am old. For those of you who are slow on the uptake, we are talking about the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is composed of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have a queen and her name is Elizabeth II. In Ireland, which is a different country, and is not where we are serving, they don’t have a queen. They don’t like queens. But they do like potatoes, so we have that in common.

 In case you are wondering, the two flags in the preceding photograph are the Union Jack and the Red Hand of Ulster. You can Google that as missionaries do not get into politics.

Years ago, my mother told me that if I would make some changes in my life and be nice that good things would happen to me. I wish I had listened to her sooner because she told me there would be days like this.

Elder Blickenstaff

Stones, Hobbit Holes, Celtic Woman & Mustached Horses?

Wow!!! Blog time again!

Some of my favorite times here in the mission field are going on joint teaches with the sister missionaries.  Elder Blick is our chauffeur. We are teaching a 32-year-old college student from Sudan.  He is amazing.  He read the Book of Mormon in a week! His baptism day is coming up in five days.  I've born my testimony to him about the Plan of Salvation and Tithing.  He's so humble and eager to learn.

Can you say, "Stone Fences?"

One of our YSA's got her mission call to the Illinois Chicago Mission.  So excited for her!     

                            She leaves in three months.  It is fun to see them do good things!

Sister Blick found a Hobbit Hole!

Never thought it would be enjoyable to cook this much.  Always baking or cooking something for the YSA activities, or zone meetings with the missionaries, or taking a dessert here or there to members houses after they fix us a lovely dinner.  The YSA are so cute and appreciative of everything we cook for them.  I was only a mother of five, so this cooking for 25-36 is a bit of a challenge for me, but I'm grateful for the experience.  

Beautiful lush land that we love.

These people are so wonderful.  Always wondering how we're "keeping." They take such good care of us.  In a couple of weeks we will be going to a Silver Jubilee Garden Party Celebration in honor of Queen Elizabeth's sixty years of Queendom with our wonderful Institute teachers.

Chris Shearer and Robyn Beattie, two of the most amazing Young Single Adults EVER!

We checked out Stormont, Northern Ireland's Parliament Building, and took a tour.  Got to spend the day with Alex Sharpe.  She's a former singer from the group "Celtic Woman," an amazing singing group from over here that we've known about and loved for years in the states.  She's LDS and Sisters Chichoni and Olsen know her from when they were serving down south in Dublin.  She and another acquaintance came up for the day and spent preparation day with us.  We didn't know that any of the Celtic Women were LDS!

Us with Alex Sharpe, one of the Celtic Women. She retired 3 years ago to spend more time with her son.

We are in the business of helping our sister missionaries find a new flat.  The one they are in is in a pretty questionable part of town, is dark, dingy and run down, not to mention it has mold and their landlord is not very responsive.  It's time they get out of there.  Being exposed to mold can be a rather  serious health problem, : / so we have been looking around for another flat that's in better condition and in a better neighborhood for them.

A horse with a mustache?

We had an additional treat this stake conference.  Elder Jay E. Jensen of the Presidency of the Seventy came to talk to our missionaries here in the Belfast Stake, the youth, and our YSA along with the regular stake conference adult session and general session.  He and sister Jensen are amazing people.  We feel so blessed to be able to glean from their wisdom.

Newcastle, Northern Ireland with the Mourne "Mountains" in the background

Hiking the Mourne Mountains

With a whole lot of love,
Sister Blick

Wind your neck in -  calm down
mucker -                   friend
dazzled -                  blinded with bright headlights

One Picture is Worth 1,000 Words, so this post is saving you having to read slightly less than 16,000 words, written by me.

But first, a word from our sponsor. You probably didn’t notice, but I did not post to the blog last week. There are several reasons for this:

1. I am actually serving a mission and have things to do, you know.
2. They didn’t have the Internet on computers here yet. It was only available last week on rotary dial phones.
3. I had to see a man.
4. I HAZ A BRAIN FREEZE. KBAI. (Thank you Therese Odell for teaching me this brilliant phrase) 

Here is a lovely photograph of my companion and I just popping up for a wee bit of fun. Note the chisleled cheeks and silver fox hair. I don’t look too bad either.

 This is an arial view of Rosslyn Chapel in Edinburgh, Scotland. This is the chapel from the DaVinci Code. We were there a couple of weeks ago. We even went down into the crypt, where we found what we believe to be a piece of Tom Hanks. This chapel is the way coolest thing I have seen in the mission, besides a baptism.

Anna & Enrique were baptised and it was brilliant! They are two wonderfully special people whom we met at the YSA Centre. This is why we are here.

I went to a bike shop, where I found this awesome bike saddle, with what appears to be a mailbox glued to the back side. Very high tech.

We sometimes get invited to speak in church. For some reason, we don't get invited back.

We found this in an old school house. If anyone knows what it is for, please email me. I think it’s from an alternate universe but I’m not sure.

My companion out in front of our place in Belfast, resting up after weeding the front garden. 

There is no photoshopping on this picture. Sister Olsen is actually airborne. Don’t ask me why; I just take the pictures, I don’t understand them.

I have discovered that the light at the end of the tunnel is my wife. This is so deep in symbology that I need to let you draw your own conclusions or we’ll be here all day.

There is a very cool place in County Antrim called The Dark Hedges. After following several charming wee country lanes, you drive around a bend and you are in the Dark Hedges.

This is how Dark Hedges look Over There (if you were serving a mission on Fringe, which I haven’t seen for seven months because we don’t watch TV). We are on a mission, you know.

We are totally converted to manly sports like lawn bowling. I hope to introduce this to Timber Lakes upon my return.

The north Antrim coast is just stunning. This photo is where one of the glens of Antrim runs down to the sea. I can look at this scenery all day long and never get tired of the amazing beauty and majesty of the creation.  

My companion snapped this photo within two seconds of my plea for a picture as we drove along the coast. This is just amazing stuff and pictures do not do it justice.

Twenty eight of the best missionaries in the world, plus one member of the First Presidency.

Our charming selves. You would never know from this photo that we are thrilled about everything in our mission with the possible exception of how much weight we have gained.

TTFNI

Ta Ta from Northern Ireland

Elder Blickenstaff