Thoughts and stories, by Pal

I just love this article!  It is a feel good article!  This is one of the places our Humanitarian donations go!  I'd love to serve a mission like this if I were younger!     · May 24, 2020 Cover image: Children at Rashen School in Erbil, Iraq. LDSCHARITIES built new bathrooms, donated a computer, printer, and playground equipment. If you were asked to name one of the most notoriously unstable regions in the world, Syria would likely be the first country to come to mind. Images of bombed-out cities that resemble disaster films, as well as chilling pictures of refugee children washed up on the shores of Greece have circulated the globe ever since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011. The raging violence has resulted in an estimated 450,000 deaths. As problematic as the death count is the refugee crisis. Syria has become the face of the modern crisis, with 5 million refugees who have fled the country and 13.5 million people who ...

More about our mission to Sweden.  The first picture is Wayne and me, with Toma Valid Daud, from Iran, who was a political refugee there.  He was only 27, and had defected from Saddam Hussein's army, and got political asylum there.  He was a Christian, and so lonely, in a city in Northern Sweden.  He didn't understand much Swedish, so we got him a "Gospel Principles" book in Arabic.  We were advised not to baptize anyone until they knew Swedish well enough to attend Church, etc.  Otherwise they would go inactive.  I often wonder where he is now.  He contacted us after we got back to the United States, and we tried to be able to sponsor him to come here.  But we couldn't get permission, as he wasn't a close relative.  I hope we will see him again in the Spirit World, as he really loved learning what he could about the Gospel!  Someday he will accept it. There is a lovely park called Bloomstergarden in Sweden, where there w...

I just realized that I haven't posted pictures of our Senior Missions together for a long time!  We have been on 2 missions, the first of which was to Sweden, where Wayne had served his first mission in 1950 to 1953.  We later went to the Hartford, Connecticut, mission.  I'm going to tell more about them in these posts about Wayne -- up to February 21st, which is one year since he has been gone.   (Undoubtedly doing missionary work up there!) The picture above was taken in 1994, when we entered the Senior MTC on our way to Sweden. First posted on December 27, 2013 # 51 When I was about 18 years old, I received a lovely comforting blessing from the 88 year old Patriarch, for whom I typed blessings.  He said the day would come when I would serve a mission.  At that time (1953) a girl had to be 23 years old to serve a mission.  I didn't expect to be able to go then, and I did get married about 2 weeks before I turned 21.   We began ...

This has been a most inspiring Sabbath Day.  Early this morning, I went to a Sacrament Meeting in a town about 20 minutes away, with a young returned missionary with a wonderful bass voice, and his fiance'.  I played the piano while he sang "Savior, Redeemer of My Soul".  The senior couple who also talked have had amazing experiences, being on missions in Mongolia and also the Phillipines, and worked for the Church in Hong Kong, helping get land to build LDS Church buildings in many Far Eastern countries.  They related many exciting and inspirational experiences.   After the wife spoke, this young man, Caleb, sang his song, and really put a lot of feeling into it.  Then when we sat down, he was wiping tears from his eyes, and his chin was quivering.  I could see that just singing that beautiful song about the Savior had really touched his soul.  And it touched the congregation as well.  Then the husband of the couple spoke, and had some ...

This is really an amazing, and inspirational story about a pianist, Paul Cardall, who has had a heart transplant, and how his music, and his story was such a blessing in Slovenia, and Croatia for families with children who have congenital heart disease.  A truly inspiring story! The Hearts of the Children in the Adriatic North Mission By Linda Turley-Hansen  · October 19, 2015 Sometimes things happen that can’t be explained. Big things. Amazing things. That’s how it was this September, in Southeast Europe, when an American Pianist came to Slovenia to research his wife’s family history. What it was, really, was a convergence of sorts, of four points of purpose. The convergence began in April when internationally acclaimed pianist Paul Cardall informed President David J. Grant of the Adriatic North Mission (ANM) that he and his Slovenian/American wife Tina, planned to come to her ancestral homeland in a family history quest. He would share his music, ...