Yoo-hoo unto Jesus

(Part I):

Our family was so awed and delighted by the solar eclipse in 2017, we immediately vowed to travel to the next one in 2024, an impossibly and laughably far-distant future date. "Abe could be on his mission!" we marveled. "He could be home from his mission! Sebby could be on his mission!" It was too absurd to think about. But I put a reminder in my calendar for April 2023: "Find rental house in Texas for eclipse." 

Then, in November 2021, Abe got his mission call to Dallas, Texas. I immediately thought, "Texas, that's where we're going for the eclipse!" We were so happy when we realized that not only would the eclipse be total in the Dallas area, but Abe would actually be home from his mission by April 2024 and could go with us back to Dallas (much better than us being in his mission…yet not being able to see him because he was busy being a missionary!).

So, when the reminder came up in my calendar, with a whole year to go before the eclipse, I searched for and found a rental house in plenty of time to beat the crowds, and dusted off my hands, pleased with a job well done.

But the job was NOT done. You would not believe the trouble I had with this particular trip! I have now planned our family trips and reserved rental houses dozens of times. I am very familiar with the process and I rather enjoy figuring out all the moving parts. But for this eclipse trip, not to bore you with every detail, but I encountered:

• A cancelation because the house got sold

• Two cancelations because "we decided not to rent anymore" 🤨

• A cancelation because the house had "accidentally already been booked" on some other site

• A cancelation that the host wouldn't ever reveal a reason for

• A cancelation because the host opened booking to someone else without telling me even though she had promised I would be first on the waiting list

• A cancelation because a water pipe burst at the house (this was six days before the trip, but luckily the host had another rental house he could switch us into!)

Seven! Seven cancellations! And each time more and more houses were already full, and each time the prices were climbing higher and higher. (Houses were listing for $2000/night and more! Can you imagine?) It's already a little hard to find a place for 12 people. But this was almost as if someone were trying to prevent us from getting to Dallas! But, to give an anticlimactic finish to this already-tedious tale: doors were opened, it worked out, we made it, and I am SO grateful that we did. It was every bit as wonderful as I'd hoped it would be—and not just the eclipse, but all of it. What a blessing.

Besides rental house drama, the other complicating factor was getting to the places Abe wanted to visit! His mission is over four hours wide and we couldn't easily pop back and forth from place to place. And after Abe had served his last ten months in Magnolia, Arkansas, he really wanted to take us there. We finally decided we'd drive the extra four hours to Arkansas at the beginning of the trip, and work our way back to Dallas in time for the eclipse.

This extra stop made it so we had to start driving on Easter Sunday, which I was sad about. I love Easter—going to church, singing Easter hymns, having a special dinner on bunny plates, hiding eggs in the yard—and it felt like spending the day in the car would be the least-spiritual way possible to celebrate such an important day. But, as it turned out, it was quite nice. Different, but nice. First, of all, there was some sort of problem with the Easter bunny's usual early-morning deliveries:

The kids usually have to hunt for their Easter baskets around the house, but instead we found these notes in our baskets at 5 am when we got up to leave for the trip. Each was accompanied by a list of tasks the person had to perform in order to claim his or her delayed Easter gifts. Things like making up a game to play with a sibling, drawing a specified picture, writing some kind of poem, telling a story to a sibling, finding certain letters or words on signs, listening to a Tabernacle Choir song they'd never heard before, telling the people in the car about a childhood memory, sharing a favorite scripture, and so on. We spent all morning accomplishing these tasks while we drove, and it was really fun.

Then, when we stopped for our picnic lunch, we found the gifts that would normally have been in our Easter baskets in the trunk of Abe's car instead! That clever Easter Bunny (we are all convinced it is really Nutmeg) had gotten us notebooks and markers and sticker books and other things that might be just right for keeping us occupied on a long car ride. How nice of him!

The drive to Texas is really long (which is probably why we've never been there before!). We broke it into two days and stayed the first night in a tiny apartment in Albuquerque. We had packed a hash-brown casserole to cook for a somewhat Easter-y dinner, and I brought the ingredients to make the "empty tomb rolls" we like to make too. We crammed ourselves onto the couch-beds after dinner and read the Easter story from the scriptures, and it felt special and happy, just like Easter should.

We took two cars on this trip (Abe drove his car, and I can say without hesitation it was the most popular car to ride in!) and both cars made it the whole way without any car trouble!! (That deserves two exclamation marks.) The weather wasn't bad. There was lots of rain the first day, which is kind of nice for driving, and a short-lived snowstorm on the way out of Albuquerque Monday morning.

That second driving day was…so long. 16 hours or so. And I spent a lot of it feeling sick and worried because Seb, who was still at home and planning to fly to meet us in Dallas in a couple days, couldn't find the folder into which he had put his birth certificate, driver's license, and social security card. !! Of all the documents to gather into one place and then lose right before a plane flight… but never mind. I will not allow myself to become re-anxious about it! He did find them in the end. At any rate, we drove and drove and drove and finally arrived in Chidester, Arkansas at 9:30 pm, and then we were SO glad that we had prudently packed the first two night's dinners in our coolers before leaving home, because we were tired and starving! We had the most wonderful feast of homemade hummus and sweet peppers and cucumbers and feta and pita chips before falling into bed.

The house was described on Airbnb as a "Christian home" and when we arrived it was manifestly true. There were little scripture quotes in frames on the wall, and pillows embroidered with hymn lyrics, and Bibles and Improving Tracts lying around everywhere. I really quite loved it! I thought, "Does our home make it anything close to this obvious what we believe and whom we worship?"

I must have seen the old lyrics to "How Firm a Foundation" there somewhere because I had "You who unto Jesus for refuge hath fled" ringing through my head all week long. We didn't ever get to meet the owners of the house, but it would have been interesting to talk to them. 

The house was also, as well as a Christian house, a very elephantine house. Goldie is our resident elephant lover and she was quite charmed by the extensive collection of little figurines and statuettes. 

The kids were all crammed into a bunk bed room

There were peacock feathers everywhere, too. Not just a few—tons. Various sizes of vases crammed full of them in every room. The house was on a farm and they must have had peacocks at some time or other from which they collected their millions of feathers. They were really pretty!

In the morning, the little kids were up and out playing in the yard before anyone else was stirring. (Besides me. Why don't they ever wake up anyone but me?) It was so green–we'd left Utah a cold winter wasteland, though there'd been a few daffodils up, so we'd known Spring wasn't too far away—and the air was so soft and wet. The flowers were different and the birdsongs were different. We loved it.

There was a pretty sunroom full of plants and other interesting knick-knacks (county fair entries displayed alongside their ribbons, turtle shells, glass bottles, pinecones made into little animals, that sort of thing)

(Sam's arm makes an appearance)

I liked this empty tomb decoration

And the hosts had left these fresh eggs for us in the fridge. They were delicious for breakfast!

Ziggy was the first one to spot the cardinals. Gus loves cardinals (along with Caws) because he has a blanket with cardinals on it that he's had since he was a baby, but we have never seen the birds in real life before! After Ziggy told us about them, we all went outside hoping to see some. There were several of them flying around the trees and eating at the little bird feeder. So cute!

Sam and I walked down the road a little way and were vigorously greeted by these enthusiastic dogs. They didn't actually come right up to us, but stayed just inside their yard and barked from there, which we were glad of. 

After a bit of a walk, we heard a loud clap of thunder and then as if on cue, the skies opened immediately and started raining. Sam said he thought that only happened in movies. Clementine, who of course was outside back at the house, came running delightedly down the road to meet us.

"Mommy and Daddy! Yain! Yain! It's yaining!"

We were only in the house a couple days, but we did have quite a few nice walks in the area. It was so beautiful! Sam and I were saying to each other that we've never even given Arkansas so much as a second thought, before Abe was assigned there. We didn't even know quite where it was on a map. But now suddenly we have not only thought of it, but now we have been there and we like it—like another little corner of the world that has now somehow become "ours." What an amazing thing.

This was a little family cemetery we discovered, with just a few graves scattered about—several little babies, and other family members from several generations. It was a sweet, quiet place.

We loved the area. But we were really only there because we wanted to see Magnolia, where Abe lived and served! Chidester was about an hour away. (Later, when we met one of Abe's branch members from Magnolia, he asked where we were staying and said, "Huh. I've heard of Chidester. But I never been up that way, not even after livin' here my whole life." That was strange to think about!) 

As we drove back and forth from Magnolia, there were beautiful meadows covered with yellow wildflowers…

…and also these pretty swamp-like areas with trees growing right in the water. I loved looking out the car window and seeing so many beautiful views!

Abe definitely enjoys a good restaurant meal, and though he didn't have quite as many opportunities for them in Magnolia (not as many church members to spoil the missionaries😏), he wanted to take us to one place he really liked. It was just across the border in Louisiana, so it's fun that we can now say we've been to Louisiana too!

They had really good fish and shrimp there. Sam's Southern Eatery was the name of the place. Abe said they served probably his favorite hamburger he'd ever had!

The best part of visiting Magnolia by far, though, was Abe taking us around to meet people. When I was young, I went on trips to pick up two of my brothers from their missions, one in Belgium and one in Montreal. I loved seeing those new places, but I remember that both times, the mission part felt weird and a little awkward—visiting people I didn't know and didn't understand, and my brothers obviously feeling a little strange and out of place too, suddenly being non-missionaries while visiting friends they'd made in only a mission context. It was still fun to do, but just…strange.

Elder and Sister Miller, Senior Missionaries assigned specifically to Abe's branch in Magnolia

I don't know what was different on this trip. Maybe it's just that I'm an adult now and talking to new people isn't as scary for me, or maybe it was that Abe had had time to go home and adjust to being a regular person, and was able to visit mission friends at a degree of removal once they'd actually had time to miss him, but not so much later that they'd totally forgotten him. And likely removing the language barrier made a big difference (though some of the Arkansas accents were so strong, they could have been a different language!). Whatever the reason, I absolutely loved this part of our trip. It was possibly my favorite part. I think the best part for me was just seeing the genuine love the people felt for my Abe, and he for them, and realizing that none of this would have been possible without his voluntary mission service. 

It was also fun to see, from my perspective, different views of various people Abe had described in his letters. Someone whom the missionaries had seen as perhaps a little nosy or busybody-ish, I could see was also persistent and proactive and good at making things happen. Someone they might have thought was slow or annoyingly talkative, I could see was genuine and patient and people-centered in a way young missionaries might not appreciate. And there were lots of things, like the amazing and delightful accents people had, or their funny conversational quirks, that Abe just never even thought to describe in his letters! So it was really cool to get a broader view of those things in person.

Elder and Sister Miller were so great. I already loved them from afar through Abe's letters. They had been serving in the mission office and feeling, Sister Miller said, "just useless!" The wards they were serving in had 70-80% activity rates and so many members they could barely get to know them all. So they begged the mission president to send them somewhere they were really needed. He sent them to Magnolia, just after Abe had been called as Branch President. Abe really did need them, and was so happy to have them! And they served out the rest of their mission there—they were headed home about three weeks after we made this visit.

Here's Abe's apartment in Magnolia. Even though I'd seen it in pictures, I'd imagined it quite different in my head! It's interesting. Before he left, I felt quite sad about the prospect of Abe going off and having all these experiences I wouldn't share, making memories I wouldn't even know about. But when I actually got to his mission and had a glimpse of this part of his life—these people and places that will help define him and shape him far into the future—it turned out I didn't feel sad to be on the outside—just awed that Heavenly Father could take this little boy I spent the first 19 years with and open up his future like that, giving him things I never could have given him on my own. It was actually beautiful.

I also felt so amazed to think of the perfectly-tailored mission experience Abe ended up having, where he served so long in one place as Branch President. He learned so many things he wouldn't have learned in "normal missionary work"—and just at the point in his mission when I think he might have become a little bitter and disillusioned with the foibles of leaders and the quirks of mission rules, instead, he was suddenly getting real-world leadership experience: working with the stake president more than the mission president, gaining sincerity and humility, solving real-world problems that challenged and stretched him. It was the perfect path for him.

Royce was another man I was excited to meet. He wasn't extremely active when Abe got to Magnolia, and he didn't have a temple recommend. But he was so kind and so good to the missionaries—just the best—letting them do their laundry at his house, feeding them, helping them with visits. While Abe was there, Royce was able to go to the temple and be sealed to his deceased wife, and when Abe went home, Royce was called to be the new Branch President! ("No one coulda been half as surprised as I was about it!" he told us, in his wonderful Southern accent.) 

I felt an immediate love and admiration for Royce when we met him. He was so humble and unassuming. He told all kinds of self-deprecating stories about how the people he mows lawns for (he owns a lawn-mowing business) were so astounded to hear he had suddenly became a "preacher," and kept asking him if was going to be too important to mow lawns anymore. ("I hafta keep mowin' lawns, I ain't gettin' paid nothin' for being Branch President!" he told them.) But we could just hear in everything he said how much he wanted to serve the Branch, how much he loved the people, how much he had loved Abe. They had had a few more baptisms since Abe had been home, and Royce was so pleased to relate how one of the little boys had asked him, Royce, to baptize him. I can't believe there are people like this all over the world, quietly serving in callings or maybe waiting to be brought back to church by the right person—people who are willing to sustain and support even inexperienced twenty-year-old missionaries that cross their paths. It was a privilege to meet a man like that.

Royce and Abe showed us proudly around their church building, much nicer than you'd expect for such a small branch in a small town. Apparently there used to be a ward in Magnolia, but then the oil jobs dried up and people moved away in droves, leaving only thirty or so members scattered around the area. But the church building remained. The Primary room looked pretty much like every Primary room.

And the nursery looked like every nursery!

This picture tells a tale of woe: bored children waiting for us to stop talking so much! (We ended up meeting the missionaries at church too, so it took even longer.) And of a little Ziggy being not-so-gently disciplined, without parental sanction I might add, by the Unyielding Arm of Justice. Note Ziggy's reddened eyes and poor encircled wrist pulling vainly to escape Malachi's iron grip. I'm sure he had done something to deserve it! On the other hand, maybe older siblings could work on not being quite so unsympathetic to the plight of a restless six-year-old who has, truly, been waiting quite patiently while the adults have been visiting for hours now?

The outside of the church building

Magnolia is the home of Southern Arkansas University. It's a small school, smaller than the high school where we live, but it has quite a nice campus. One of Abe's counselors in the Branch Presidency teaches at SAU, as does his wife, so we walked around the campus a bit and then met them in their office and talked. It was interesting hearing their perspective of what it was like living in Arkansas, having come from California and Utah.

We also visited Abe's good friends Logan and Sarah, who got sealed in the temple while he was Branch President and are students at SAU. He taught a temple preparation class to them before their sealing, but I'm convinced it was mostly an excuse for him to spend as much time as he could with this couple he liked so much! He really was sad to leave them when his mission ended, and after we met them we could see why—they were so friendly and welcoming and fun to talk to! Our kids liked this visit better than all the others because they got to play with the new cute little puppy! Not to mention that Logan and Sarah were trying to get rid of all their Easter candy and found very willing recipients in Abe's siblings. 

Abe drove us all around Magnolia (we were still in two cars, so we put him on speaker phone and he narrated what we were seeing so everyone could hear it) and we got to see what an interesting mix of areas it has. It's not a big town. But there are a few nice neighborhoods and quite a pretty little downtown area close to the university.

There are a couple larger churches and about ten banks on the main street (Abe said it was a constant subject of speculation for the missionaries, how on earth all those banks stayed in business and why they were there). And there are stores like Walmart, and a few little restaurants.

But then the rest of the town, where the missionaries spent most of their time, is so different! Abandoned and burned-out homes. People sitting drunk out on their porches. Overgrown yards. Loud parties. Mean dogs.

It was fascinating to see the contrasts, and to get a look at a place so different from anywhere else I've been. There are a lot of problems in Magnolia, and Abe encountered pretty much all of them in his time there. Drugs. Illiteracy. Kids without fathers, youth without any family at all. Crime. Homelessness. Mental illness. Extreme poverty. And yet for all of these problems, the gospel of Jesus Christ has answers and comfort! If only there were more people willing to hear it and live it! I'm so grateful for the people that did accept the message God sent through His missionaries while Abe was there, and for the light of the gospel we could see in their eyes when we met them. I know that the covenants they made at baptism really do matter and will matter—even if their hard life circumstances pull them back to old habits sometimes. I love the thought that though they may forget Heavenly Father, He will never forget His covenant children—and that, in this life or the next, He will remain "relentlessly in pursuit" of them to bring them home.