It Really Is A Small World After All ... And Not Just At Disneyland

It really is a small world.  I'm in southern California, where I will meet with people in five counties in as many days about their tax returns, while Willyne is in Tampa helping with two of our granddaughters.  Today ... no taxes.  I found a ward on Mariposa Street in El Segundo and attended the meeting block there.  No one seemed to know where La Verkin is, a few even confused it with Levan.  But several knew people in Hurricane and got excited when I explained that Hurricane and La Verkin are almost the same town, simply separated by a river and a bridge.

We had an interesting discussion in Priesthood Meeting about lesson 27 about various aspects of the value of work.  A retired engineer who used to be the bishop and is now the senior statesman of the ward from his wheelchair, and a retired dentist who is quick to help him both had enlightening comments about what they did to help their children learn the blessings of work when they were growing up ... a common concern of most of the brothers in the room.

On the way to Sunday School after Priesthood (this ward has the Sacrament Meeting last schedule), I got talking to the dentist, or more accurately, the dentist started talking to me.  When they asked me to stand, I introduced myself by saying I was there on business for a few days from Utah, but if anyone there had been there long enough to remember Brentwood Ward (now 32 years dissolved) that I had grown up there.  The dentist mentioned his name was Bentz (I think that is how you spell it) and that he had lived in Mar Vista and remembered Brentwood Ward.  I asked him if his name was Phillip.  It was.  I didn't know him well, but he was in the same stake and I remembered him.  I told him he probably knew my parents better than me, and when I said their names he did remember them.

My point here is to say again it is a small world.  Yes, this was only 12 miles and one stake away (in what has become a far more congested city than the one I remember - I could give several specific examples but that's a subject for another day) from a place I lived until I left on my mission.  But I have found I can go almost anywhere in this wonderful church of ours and at least meet someone who knows someone that I know.  There is a tremendous fellowship and it is a blessing.

A picture of the Christus taken
 from outside the window.

I had lunch at Souplantation and then went to see the newly reopened Visitors Center at the temple.  It had been closed for so many years that I was beginning to wonder if there were permanent problems in reopening it.  My how it has changed.  The only thing that is the same is that the Christus is still there, and even that has a different backdrop now.  Where they would have shown "Man's Search for Happiness", now we have an intimate living room setting complete with a fireplace and three video picture frames that become DVD screens for a new presentation that still shows three generations of a family, the value of family and the things that are really important in life, and that we can be together as a family after this life.  Very touching, and interesting that the underlying message is still the same.

Three different missionaries wanted me to meet Sister Stout from Hurricane who works at the visitors center.  She was with investigators the whole hour I was there, so it didn't work out, but again it struck me what a small world this is, especially in our church.  I told them that she probably was related to Jed somehow, that he and Nicole are my neighbors, and that I am sure they would want to wish her hello.  I left smiling.