As my regular readers are aware, I have pretty ambivalent feelings about my mission. I know I was supposed to go, so I did. In that respect I am glad I went. But it was also hard. I didn't enjoy it, and I felt unsuccessful, so it was an experience never to be repeated. Missions were fine for other folks, but count me out from here on. As far as I knew, I was a failure as a missionary, and have lived with that feeling ever since. So until recent events, I never had the desire to see Mississippi again.
While my cousin Angela was here with me, I discovered she was related to a family I had known when I served on the Coast. She was also friendly with another family from that ward, a family that took very good care of me while I was there, and for a time was very close to them. Not only was she friendly with them, but they were in the sealing room at the Baton Rouge temple with her when she did some of Aunt Helen's work. It was very exciting for me to hear about them. But frankly, I thought it would end there.
This past Sunday, my parents drove down from their area to Gulfport, to attend church with Angela and go to a cousin's wedding. Miraculously, that family happened to be visiting the Gulfport ward that day. Not only that, but one of my former companions was also visiting - she now lives in the area. My parents got to meet both of them, and sent me some photos and contact information. They both spoke to them of their memories of our association, and the good memories they had of me.
I can't even begin to say how much that meant to me. All these years of living with feelings of failure and guilt over it, and now it seems I made a difference after all, at least to these ladies. Boy, did I have a good cry over that. I'm also trying to wrap my head around everything that had to fall in to place for this experience to happen. I needed to be born into this family, and serve a mission there. My cousin needed to join the church, my parents needed to be prompted to serve a mission and get called to the same place I had gone. My sister needed to do genealogy. We needed to make connections with Angela, and she needed to invite the folks down to Gulfport. And two sisters I was once close to needed to decide to attend church in Gulfport on the same day. All this, so that I could finally let go of some of the guilt I felt, and could re-connect with them. The Lord sure works in mysterious ways.
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