(written on the 5th and 8th 😕 from notes taken previously)
Oh my great golly goodness was it windy last night.
😶
My van was rocking and shaking all night, and I think somewhere around 3:00 in the morning, nervous that my shifter might not be fully in park (I think maybe I didn’t position the range sensor lever in exactly the right place when doing my replacement testing last week), which could lead me thinking it’s in park when it actually isn’t, and not being one to trust my parking brake (multiple of my vehicles have had a crappy parking brake [is been fully functional on my van, but…]), and given that the nose of the van was pointed on a slight downhill toward the cliff edge, I decided to move.
🙃
So I crawled into the front seat, fired the van up, and moved it to a different spot atop the cliffs where if the van started to roll, it wouldn’t roll… off. 🙃
Perhaps because of the late veging, perhaps because of the wind, perhaps caused by a little bit of both, I was late getting up, which put me behind the eight ball for getting to church on time.
I think it was still something like a 45-minute drive from where I was at the Cliffs at Fortrose to the old church building in Invercargill.
There was, of course, also the eye-widening news of everything going on in Iran.
😶
Gratefully, though I hadn’t gotten my church clothes out in a good long time, they were still clean enough to wear. I’ve been keeping them in a garment bag pinned between the rear-facing rear passenger seat and the front passenger seat.
The drive to Invercargill was uneventful, gratefully; and after changing quickly in the van and trying to make my hair look at least halfway presentable (seawater hair isn’t the easiest to deal with, as it’s sort of thickened and… stiff. 😅), I headed inside for the last half, or so, of testimony meeting.
It was good to be there, good to listen to people sharing. 🤍
After testimony meeting, I chatted a little bit with the missionary I had sat next to (from Vanuatu, I think?) before moving to the middle and up several benches for Sunday school.
The lesson seemed perfect for me today, discussing the experience of Abraham and Sarah and waiting so long for their first child together.
It’s an easy lesson to apply to my own life.
And sobering.
I took some time to share what it’s been like for me to have faith in and patience with God and his personal promises as both are tested to the breaking point.
It was nice to feel the Spirit as I shared. I haven’t felt the Spirit much for months, and certainly not in that way.
🙏
I was one of four Americans in Sunday School that were visiting the ward, which was quite surprising to me, as I don’t meet many Americans at all in New Zealand.
Anyway, after Sunday school was over, a woman who had been in class came over and wanted to chat with me, so we chatted for a good little while.
I got the impression that she was wanting a little more than just a chat, but that wasn’t…
Anyway, I light-heartedly kept it quite… platonic. 🙃
I’m the hallway, I chatted with one of the other Americans for a little while and then one of the local Kiwi ward members for a while before finally heading out to TGK, the second-to-last one to leave the building.
I had a little bit of a strategic struggle in the parking lot staring at my phone. I spent perhaps an hour? just sitting in the van trying to decide how to plan the rest of the day.
There weren’t any Freedom camping spots nearby, and I was wanting to go back to Porpoise Bay to give another crack at snorkeling with the dolphins, but my fuel levels were such that if I made any detours to explore while traveling back that way, then I’d end up having to get gas at a place that was both a bit out of the way and significantly more expensive than the places in Invercargill.
But it was Sunday, and I was wanting to get back in the habit of honoring the Sabbath Day as I’m accustomed, instead of treating it like any other as I have been for months now.
The last member came out and made sure I was okay before leaving, and I finally made the decision to just drive back to where I stayed last night and not worry about the prices of gas or any decrease in travel flexibility.
And so that’s where I headed, driving (uneventfully ) back to Fortrose, and perching myself once again on the grass at the top of the cliffs–with I think of 66th a repeat view of the sun’s rays poking through the clouds and the wind-battered, cold, southern ocean waves rolling in.
I took some pictures, veged out for a bit, and crashed.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 