A Face from the Past

Oh, the world is a small place, especially in the church. One of the senior couples who serve as auditors in JoBurg went, at Brent's request, to visit one of our mission branches. There was some financial question there. Friday they were in Kinshasa for auditing, and went to see Brent in his office. As missionaries always do, they started talking about where home was and each other's histories. When Brent said my name, that I lived in SLC as a child and gave the crossroads to this missionary he said, "NO she didn't live there. She lived on Blaine Avenue. She's "Rainy" (my nickname only used by my brother.)

It turned out that Elder Howell was, Jimmy, who was my brother's age and grew up in my ward in SLC. Jimmy was also in the Stanford Ward in California the summer that Brent and I met. He met his wife there too. He went home for visit just a few weeks after Brent and I met and told my parents that I 'd met a California Beach Bum and would probably end up staying in California. Brent had bought a new car in California that still had California plates on it. Surprisingly, my parents ended up with "a few days off" and came to visit me the very next week. They spent the weekend with me, met Brent and went home happy. So, it ended up being a good thing that Jimmy "ratted" on Brent.

We went out to dinner on Friday to a Greek Restaurant in a little Greek compound (complete with a Greek Orthodox Church.) We spent a fun evening with the Howells and our great office couple, the Hatches, who had been in the MTC with the Howells. Isn't it a small, small world?