Just Stewart & Eva: Divine Orchestration

Gdansk is a seaside city, a city people travel to in order to visit the Baltic. We've made great efforts to visit the sea ourselves over the years. So it's a little out of character that we've lived here these two months and never gone to the seashore. There just never was a time to do it. Finding ourselves with a couple hours to spare this week, we located one recommended spot and "hit the beach."

The walk from the road to the beach was itself beautiful, through woods of (per Jean, the arborista) sweet smelling Scots pine and beech and alder just leafing out. The vista when we got there could just as easily be from somewhere in Hawaii. It was a beautiful, warmer than normal day, only 4 other people in sight, and lots and lots of sand.

Jean's first inclination at any beach is to look down to see what new and different seashells are waiting for her to discover. Again, a picture that could've been taken from a dozen different spots at a thousand different times in Hawaii.

Fun fact, did you know that senior missionaries don't have many of the restrictions that young missionaries do? For example, we know of one couple serving at the Polynesian Cultural Center who, on their p-day, were taking surfing lessons.

This day, being in our missionary uniform, I thought I'd at least remove my shoes, roll up my slacks to the knee (blind a few people with the transparent whiteness of my shins) and have a wade out into the sea. You know how in the summer you make homemade ice-cream by putting salt with ice in the churner to make it get colder than the freezing point? Have you ever played with liquid Nitrogen and seen how it will instantly turn something flexible like a rubber band into something that will shatter? Yeah, that was my feet.

Another day this week, after a meeting with a member at their workplace, we were walking back to the chapel and passed through the old town. We were with our local guide, whom we've mentioned before, a young man (late 20's, I mistakenly said he was 20 before) and he saw that the tower of St. Mary's, the largest brick church from the middle ages, was open to visitors and had the best view of the city. We entered and were discussing the wisdom of walking up the very narrow circular steps, 430 of them. We heard from behind "Faith in every footstep, right?"

Behind us was standing Nathan, a man from Munich who is originally from West Valley, Utah. He picked us out (don't know how) and followed us into St. Mary's. He teaches English in Germany and tours a different part of Europe when he has a break. This being the Easter break, he came north and east. Nathan attended our meetings on Sunday and pitched right in by playing the piano and sharing his testimony and a wonderful story from his mission to Hungary.

What was especially happy for us this Sunday was that the man and woman we help with soup for the homeless, came to our sacrament meeting. I've mentioned many times that they are really wonderful people and devout in their faith. On Saturday they got talking about some of the miracles they've seen while doing their service for the homeless. They told of times when at the store they had spent all the money they had for the food, but felt bad they were not able to get enough, and a person will walk up to them and give them $50 and they don't know why. One day they got to the spot to serve the food and locked the keys in the van. They prayed to know how to solve that problem and right then a taxi driver stopped, he didn't know why, but he happened to know how to get into the van. They had a donor contact them just at time they needed to fix their van and basically gave them a blank check to handle it. They are always so appreciative of the help we and the young missionaries give. They find that many people contact them or see what they are doing and are excited to help. They help once with great enthusiasm, then they never see them again.

These two have intended to visit our services, but this week, when Elder Wagley told them he would be speaking and would like them to be there, they finally came. It was perfect timing for them to hear Nathan's story of the Book of Mormon influencing a woman's life and Elder Wagley's heartfelt feelings of how it has influenced his and his parents' lives. Both of them had not intended to talk about what they did. Our two friends were very touched by the services and, I think, surprised at the format of our meetings.

If you look at our meetings from an outsider's perspective, it might seem strange that the members are the meeting, that we sing a lot, young men distribute the sacrament to everyone, members say the prayers, and members share their personal feelings about Jesus Christ and His gospel, and hopefully through it all the Holy Spirit speaks to our spirit. I take the significance of that simple format for granted sometimes.