On Sophie’s joining the American stampede out of Ukraine, how we survived a tsunami (advisory) in Hawaii, Hannah’s and J.T.’s new jobs, and my admittedly minority view of virtual church. (Vol. xxvi, No. 1)

Dear Family,

Like a lot of Americans who were living in Ukraine when I last wrote, Sophie is no longer in Ukraine. 

The Church’s decision to move all non-Ukrainians out (leaving just nine missionaries in the entire country) came a day or two before the U.S. State Department’s announcement that it was ordering family members of embassy personnel to leave. As my friend Richard Krikava says, “When they pull the missionaries out, watch out!”

All this is being done, as the cliché goes, “out of an abundance of caution,” (a phrase used by both the Church and the State Department) and we join decent people everywhere in hoping nothing comes of it. But to contemplate the angst many people over there must be feeling right now nevertheless makes my heart hurt.

It saddens Sophie, too. I doubt any missionary likes being pulled away from their assigned field of labor. But one of Sophie’s many virtues is an ability to find at least some modicum of joy in almost any circumstance.

One of Sophie’s first questions after learning that she had been reassigned to the Salt Lake City, Temple Square Mission (where I guess she’ll lead tours in Russian?), was “Do you think they’ll let me play that organ?” I told her I thought somebody probably would if she asked, and, speaking as someone who can more readily rattle off the names of the five Tabernacle organists than the names of the twelve apostles, the thought that she might actually get to meet Richard Elliott, Andrew Unsworth, Brian Mathias, Joseph Peeples, and/or Linda Margetts¹ makes me positively giddy. I have never met any of them. I have shaken hands with five current members of the Quorum of the Twelve, and those were all treasured experiences. But if I ever got to shake Richard Elliott’s hand, I might not wash it for a while.

Sophie flew out of Kyiv early Tuesday morning, stopped somewhere in Germany, missed her connection, spent Tuesday night in Germany, and finally made it to Salt Lake on Wednesday. Someone from the mission sent us a proof-of-life photo from the airport, so I already love that person, whoever she is. Temple Square, to my knowledge, is the only mission in the Church staffed exclusively by women. I am curious to learn what that is like. Other refugees from Sophie’s mission were reassigned to missions scattered across Europe and North America. I am not sure how Sophie feels about having drawn Utah, but the members of the Church in Ukraine are excited for her. For them, according to Sophie, getting sent to Temple Square would be like going to Hollywood, and way more exciting than getting shipped to, say, Croatia (where her companion was sent).

Sophie’s Temple Square assignment is billed as “temporary.” I don’t know whether temporary in this context means a few months or temporary in the sense that mortal life is temporary. Ultimately it will depend on what the Russians do and when they do it. I am inclined to feel disgust at Vladimir Putin’s lack of respect for another nation’s sovereign territory. But the irony of an American feeling that way while visiting the U.S. State of Hawaii is not lost on me.² 

I cannot bring myself to believe that anyone is honestly interested in reading a blow-by-blow account of somebody else’s trip to Hawaii. But that has never stopped me before, and it might be important that our posterity know that Crystal and I were there last week.

We were greeted in Kauai³ on Friday night by the esteemed Dr. Roderick S. Kent, (retired ophthalmologist, U.S. Navy Captain, and Crystal’s dad) and his equally noble wife of 29.75 years, Karel. Rod and Karel are serial timeshare acquirers who are always inviting their kids to join them in Hawaii, where it seems like they spend half the year nowadays. (In reality, it’s probably only about a quarter of the year.) It is a testament to my everlasting idiocy that this is only the second time we have taken them up on it. 

Hawaii is five hours behind us (in the winter — six hours behind us in the summer because it does not stupidly observe stupid Daylight stupid Saving stupid Time, yet another way in which Hawaii is paradise) and so naturally I was wide awake at 3 a.m. on Saturday morning. I opened my weather app to find out what time the sun comes up so I could time the end of my run to coincide with the sunrise. I managed to do this every morning except three: 1) Sunday, when I rest, 2) the morning we left (we watched the sunrise from the plane, which is actually not as cool as watching it from the beach), and 3) the morning after I slashed my heel open on a sharp piece of coral while snorkeling.⁴

But I digress. I opened my weather app at 3 a.m. to get the sunrise time (which wasn’t for another four hours) but I did not notice that right away because I was distracted by the tsunami advisory stripped across the top of the screen. Creating the concern was an undersea volcano that erupted off the coast of Tonga at roughly the same time we landed on Kauai. Fortunately, an advisory is not as bad as a warning (I’m told), the island’s tsunami sirens never went off, no one seemed particularly concerned about it, and, unless you live in Tonga, nothing much came of it. But the alert gave me a jolt. It was unlikely I was going to get back to sleep anyway. But now, I may as well have been 12 years old at 3 a.m. on Christmas morning. At least this time I had a phone to look at and play with. This, sadly, was not the case for me in 1984.   

My philosophy when it comes to Hawaii is never miss a sunrise or sunset (from the bottom of a small island, it’s not hard to watch both), swim and snorkel as much as humanly possible, and everything else is a bonus. The 15 minutes Crystal and I spent swimming alongside three beautiful giant sea turtles we happened to encounter in what couldn’t have been more than 12 feet of water⁵ off Poipu Beach made the 20+ hours of roundtrip travel worthwhile all by itself.

We also enjoyed just hanging with Rod and Karel. We sometimes worried that we were pushing them too hard and they often worried that they were slowing us down, but it was all good (for us, anyway). Visiting Kauai with Karel is cool because she actually seems to already know everyone on the island. One of the most endearing things about Karel (and one way in which she is the polar opposite of me) is that she will strike up a conversation with any person at any time or place. The refrain, “A stranger’s just a friend you haven’t met”⁶ coursed through my mind anytime I saw Karel start chatting up yet another shopkeeper, restaurant server, or just some rando taking pictures of the same thing we were. We sometimes speak of being greeted by our deceased family members when we pass on. It’s a comforting thought and I hope it is true. But even if it isn’t — even if the first person Karel meets in the next life is selected at random — there’s a pretty good chance she will know them. I already have a pretty good idea of how the conversation will go: “Don’t I know you? Didn’t you sell me a rattan bag on Bali? How’s your daughter?…”

It was a lovely week that sadly had to end. Crystal and I boarded our flight home. And Rod and Karel hopped a plane to Maui. I’m pretty sure they’re still there. Crystal took a covid test upon returning home, as required by her job (or maybe just strongly recommended) of people who return from travel. It was negative.

We nevertheless continue to feel the impacts of Omicron. Our ward’s bishopric, which for now includes me, stopped live-streaming sacrament meeting several months ago (remember those two glorious weeks when — even in perpetually panic-stricken Montgomery County — the mask mandates were suspended and we all thought we were in the clear?) but was persuaded to start broadcasting again this month when half the ward, or so it seemed, was out sick.⁷

The appeal of online church puzzles me. I know I’m not right, but I tend to view sitting through sacrament meeting as something I endure in order to be able to take the sacrament, which, as a habitual sinner, is something I need. I have a hard time grasping why anyone would subject themselves to a sacrament meeting livestream without the benefit of actually taking the sacrament. For me, it would be like standing in a 60-minute line for Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts in Diagon Alley at Universal Orlando and then not going on the ride. But there are actually people who do that, too. I have no particular objection to offering virtual services to people who are sick, vulnerable, or otherwise do not feel comfortable attending gatherings. I am just amazed that anybody actually chooses to watch them. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t tune in if I were home sick, but some people apparently do. So what can I tell you? To borrow the wisdom of Ted Lasso, “All people are different people.”

I learned this month that the virus’s resurgence caused the National Symphony Orchestra to swap out a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which famously includes choral singing, and replace it with Beethoven’s Third, which famously does not. I learned this because one of the people I run hills with in Kemp Mill on Thursday mornings (and frequently bump into running on other mornings) plays bass for the NSO.⁸ How cool is that? Once, I had a melody stuck in my head and couldn’t remember which of Beethoven’s symphonies it was from. I was pretty sure it was either Beethoven’s Seventh or his Eighth, which I always mix up. And so I sang it to him (which isn’t easy when you’re running hills) and asked him which one it was.

“That’s Brahms,” he told me.

At least I was in the right country.

He probably gets tired of all my questions about his professional life, which fascinates me. But he’s faster than I am and can run away from me anytime he wants.

I have been running with the Thursday morning Kemp Mill group since summer. This week, for the first time, I also hooked up with an informal group that works out on the Northwood High School track at 5:30 on Tuesday mornings. The workouts are led by our friendly neighborhood 2:38 marathoner who is something of a local legend and very generous with his time. I would like to keep running with them in the hope of becoming not only a faster runner but also a more social creature, which is not really in my nature. I ended up doing a lot of Tuesday’s prescribed workout by myself because everyone is so much faster than me. (Some of them were doing 5:25 mile repeats!) But they were all really friendly and encouraging as they lapped me, and so I’ll try to keep going (even though 5:30 is a little on the early side, even for me, especially in the dead of winter).

In this month’s other sports news, Grace was named senior captain of the Northwood High School girls swim team for next year. She is happy about that.

Ari is in Fort Worth, Texas, this weekend visiting their friend, Bebhinn. Bebhinn, some of you may recall, is the nice English girl with the funny Irish name who is studying abroad (Fort Worth is “abroad” for her) and who caught covid from our family while visiting us over Thanksgiving. Fortunately, she appears to have forgiven us for that and we hope she and Ari are having a nice time.

Finally, Hannah and J.T. have both started new jobs. Hannah left her position as a nurse tending to elderly psychiatric patients at the Utah State Hospital — a hard job she enjoyed but one that does not strike me as the kind of thing one can reasonably be expected to do indefinitely — and has begun work as a home hospice nurse for a startup firm established by her old boss at Provo Rehabilitation & Nursing. It sounds like a lot less work for a lot more money (though considerably more driving). So that’s good for her.

Meanwhile, J.T. has started work at the hospital Hannah just left. I don’t have a firm grasp of everything he does there. It sounds like a lot of administrative stuff, but he’s got his own office with an actual door, which is something I have never had (outside of my own house–and, as anyone who has ever been on a video call with me knows, my “office” at home is really just my bike room).

Other things Hannah and J.T. have that I have never owned include a garage (which is part of the reason I share my office with three bicycles), fancy VR headsets, and a bookshelf full of nerdy Dungeons & Dragons stuff. We recently got a Sodastream, so at least we’re keeping up with them on that front.

But we are genuinely grateful for the things we have and even more grateful for you.

Love,
Tim

1. And yes, I do solemnly affirm that I typed those five names without looking them up, though I admit to having originally misspelled Sister Margetts’s name—she pronounces it with a hard ‘g’ and the French part of my brain instinctively added a ’u’ before the ’e,’ which, in French, is necessary to harden up the ’g’ (The ‘g’ in baguette would be pronounced more like a ‘j’ (sort of) if it were spelled bagette.)
2. And that, boys and girls, is how to write a segue!
3. My internal pedant demands I point out that I know these places are more correctly spelled (and pronounced) with a glottal stop between the last two vowels —  Hawai’i and Kaua’i, rather than Hawaii and Kauai. But as pretentious as I am when it comes to language, few things sound lamer to me than a white guy trying to mimic how the locals say things, and I just can’t bring myself to say anything other than Ha-whyee and Ka-why like normal mainland scum.
4. It may actually have been some sharp volcanic rock, but the sign on the beach said to be careful of sharp coral, and it sounds cooler to say I was cut by some tropical coral than that I stepped on a rock, and so I’m going with coral.
5. Depth is hard to judge when the water is so clear — especially compared to the Mid-Atlantic murk I am accustomed to swimming in — but it certainly did not appear any deeper than that.
6. I was given to believe that “A stranger’s just a friend you haven’t met,” was a line from A Streetcar Named Desire, which I have never actually seen. But a Google search would seem to indicate that it is actually from an episode of The Simpsons parodying Streetcar — an episode I have seen approximately a hundred thousand times, which might explain why it is buried so deeply in my subconscious.
7. We don’t ask, but I suspect our ward is very highly vaccinated. No one recently, to my knowledge, has been seriously ill with covid.
8. His name is Ira, which, spelled backwards, is the name my second child now goes by. Consequently, I call him Ari about half the time, which is embarrassing, but he’s a pretty easy-going dude.