JULY 29-AUGUST 29 PART 1

We interrupt this mission for…..family visits!

(Spoiler alert - picture overload)

We counted down the weeks and then the days for the Turleys to come - and then airline flights worldwide were cancelled and they were one of the casualties.

Then we counted down the weeks...and then the days…and then the minutes for Matt, Heather, Warren, Samantha, Parker and Spencer to arrive from Virginia, via Edinburgh, Scotland to our flat on Anglesey in Wales!  The next few days were just magical in every way.  Sunday morning we all went to church at our Gaerwen Ward. We love our ward family and we were so excited to have them meet part of our family!   Everyone was so inviting and genuine as we introduced them.  We were especially excited to introduce them to Kev and Alicia Cooney. After meetings, the Cooneys came back to have dinner with all of us at our flat.  They shared their journey of finding the gospel and bore their testimonies in their strong Liverpoolean accents!  

We then changed clothes for a Sunday ‘stroll’ at Llanddwyn Beach. It is one of our favorite places!  We arrived at low tide which gave us plenty of time to walk a mile of beachfront to Newborough natural reserve (which literally becomes an island at high tide!) The black cliffs, beautiful Irish Sea, wild horses, grassy knolls, wild flowers and old lighthouses are breathtaking.  Samantha, Parker and Spencer loved playing on the EDGE of the cliffs and I probably got a few more gray hairs watching. It was a beautiful clear afternoon/evening with sunny skies.  Our perfect first day!

Next day - Conwy Castle and Caernarfon Castle. We hiked up and down all the towers with winding staircases and only ropes to hold on to, walked around the battlements of the castle walls and lost count of the hundreds of steps we took.  Afterwards, we enjoyed eating fish and chips - guilt free!

 Conwy Castle is over 700 years old and one of the most magnificent medieval fortresses in Europe. 

On to Caernarfon…a medieval fortress built in the late 11th Century.  The castle was used for the investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969 for Prince Charles.

A perfect ending to the day was a zoom call with Hermana Dudley in California Anaheim Mission.  She is such a hardworking, devoted, loving missionary

Next morning…you guessed it!  Another castle, Penrhyn Castle - the ‘newest castle’, built in the 1700’s!

And on to Snowdonia national park.  We met the Quilters for lunch in Betws-y-Coed and then took a two hour energetic,rainy hike up the mountainside to a lake.

Last day - already?  We began in our village.

Go ahead - try and pronounce it.  Longest name of any town/village in the entire United Kingdom, and second in the world.

Suggestion for speaking Welsh?  ‘Keep a wet throat and speak like a caveman’.  It still seems daunting to try and pronounce where we live!

Next to our local train station is Pringles Store - a fun ‘tourist trap’ - and we joined in by getting some hoodie sweatshirts for all!

Last stop was in Holyhead on the other side of Anglesey to South Stack Lighthouse. We hiked down to the island, crossed a bridge to the lighthouse, up and inside to the top of the lighthouse, down the lighthouse, crossed the bridge, and then back up hundreds of steep stairs to our car!  Breathtaking views.  Proud of ourselves!

Tired and hungry, we drove over to REUBENS cafe.  Reuben Wall is a lapsing member in our ward and we love to support his cafe and share missionary spirit and eat his delicious food!  

All too soon it was time for them to leave our 5 star hotel and head for London.  We LOVED every.single.second together.  We made memories to last a lifetime.

Part 2. Sister Bella

One hour after Matt and Heather family left us, we were on our way to pick up Sister Bayalagmaa Bayarlkqhagva. (We call her Sister Bella) She is from Mongolia and she stayed with us for a week between transfers.  We helped her practice English and she taught us some Mongolian.  We took her to teaching appointments and she shared her powerful testimony of Jesus Christ.  We shared stories about life in America and she taught us about life in Mongolia. We quickly grew to love her.  We will stay connected and watch a bright future unfold for her.  

We took Sister Bella with us on a senior missionary outing in the Preston England area.  Peter Fagg, a church historian/guide took us all around the historic sites, sharing wonderful stories of the early missionaries and saints.  It was fascinating, but more so a feeling of gratitude for these early Members of the church.

Above:The top left flat is where President Gordon B. Hinckley lived as a young missionary.

Below: The River Ribble where the first Saints were baptized. 

The local lawn care service

The tree stump where President Jeffrey R. Holland received revelation of the site for the Preston Temple, and where he has received other revelation on ‘weighty’ matters.

We spent a day with the Quilters offering service to them for the morning, went to a local bakery and then had a beautiful picnic nearby.  Sister Bella loved it all - as did we!  

Part 3. family visits:  

It’s McIntyre time.  We were so excited for Joel, Laura, Julia, Brock, Luke, Ellie Rose, and Gabriel to visit us!  They had spent a few days in London and were taking a train to Wales…but the railways decided to ‘strike’ so we rented a 9 passenger people carrier and drove (very early) into London, picked them up and drove back to our home.  It was a 10 hour round trip but felt like only minutes as we enjoyed talking and showing them the beautiful land we live in. We stopped off at Beaumaris Castle (the only one with a moat) to let everyone run around, up and down turrets, and ‘go back in time’!  

Gabe will be more prepared for the next castles we visit!

The highlight of their trip with us was the baptism of Ellie Rose in our Gaerwen Ward.  She was beaming before and after, wearing the same baptismal dress I made for Angela, Sandra and Laura…many years ago!  All the other granddaughters have worn it also.  Who knew how special this dress would become, worn over 3 decades, and maybe many more in the future.

The ward was overwhelmingly loving and over 30 stayed after church for her baptism, celebrating with cookies and milk.  Ellie Rose has been a ‘penpal’ with Elsa Gill for several months,  it was fun for them to actually meet and become friends.

And then we began to ‘repeat’ many of the same things we did with Matt’s family - beginning with a Sunday afternoon stroll at Newborough Beach.  This time it was a rather brisk walk on the beach to and from the island portion because the tide was already coming in…and we didn’t  want to spend the night stranded there!

Next up was the Holyhead Southstack Lighthouse - with lots of high gusty winds and intermittent rain.  But…we did it, holding on tight to each other and whatever handrails we could find.  It is a different look of ‘spectacular’ in stormy weather…and a very different climb up and down

But soon enough all was right with the world because we were back at Reubens seeking some good food, resting and drying out!

We entered Conwy Castle in a drizzle and ended with beautiful blue skies because that is how Wales is…nothing stops people from venturing outside and it didn’t stop us! The views atop the castle towers are simply breathtaking. 

Next day began at our little village train station and store to buy momentos and try to pronounce: 

Next stop…Penhryn Castle with the Gill family

And each castle needs one of these

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the quaint village of Llanrwst with Gills and Quilter families playing football, skipping rocks, chasing sheep, talking, eating, and it was perfect.

Thirsty? A dairy farm with fresh bottled milk in many flavors!  Milking in progress - no ‘skim’ here…

All too soon it is time to leave our flat…but this time Chichi and I are joining in for a few days in Edinburgh, Scotland.  We drove through beautiful pastoral settings for much of the way (about 5 hours from Anglesey).  We stayed right on the Royal Mile, along with several thousand others visiting for the tattoo festival and the fringe arts festival. We loved Edinburgh Castle, found some McIntyre tartan momentos, and especially loved climbing Arthur’s seat…also called ‘Parley P. Pratt’s hill’ because he dedicated the land of Scotland atop the summit.  The walk up and down was not for the faint of heart.  Julia was my buddy and kept me going.  Gabe, age 3, climbed up and back down with energy and unassisted (except to keep him safe).  Chichi kept up with Brock, Luke and Ellie Rose arriving at the summit long before the rest of us. The sight of the North Sea,  the Scottish highland grasses, the city of Edinburgh.  WOW!

All too quickly - McIntyres return to New York City, via Paris, France!

Elder and Sister Dudley - back to our missionary work. 

These past few weeks have filled my heart with such love and gratitude. Being with family and sharing our mission with them has been a dream.  

What do all these pictures have to do with missionary work?  Michael and I LOVE serving as missionaries in the England Manchester mission.  We LOVE our assignment laboring on Anglesey island in Wales.  We LOVE sharing the gospel to all.  We are joyful when people like the Cooneys accept baptism and walk the covenant path with us.  We LOVE finding and inviting lapsing members back to the covenant path.

 But most importantly, we LOVE being missionaries within our family, sharing the gospel with each other, encouraging each other, teaching each other, walking the covenant path together.  

In 2000, President Harold B. Lee said, “The most important of the Lord’s work that you will ever do will be the work you do within the walls of your own home”.  This means as much to me in 2022 as it did in 2000.  Our ‘walls’ have enlarged a bit…from Meridian, Idaho to New York City, to Jefferson, Maryland, to Gaithersburg, Maryland, to Spotsylvania, Virginia to Chesapeake, Virginia.  I’m grateful within these walls that the gospel of Jesus Christ is being taught and being lived. It is our greatest blessing.

LAKE ANNA 2023…all together again