When it doesn't come...

This will be a simple blog.  Sometimes answers and ideas and direction flow freely, 

and sometimes…it doesn’t come. 

Sometimes there are other things that just don't come.

After waiting and watching checking our mailbox for important Jewish items we had ordered on line  (chanukkiah, candles, dreidels, etc....) because NZ didn’t have them anywhere... 

to help with our Old Testament Jewish celebration this week; and after many appeals and checking again and again for the past six weeks, we came to the realization 

they just weren’t going to come.

What do you do when it doesn't come?  

I guess you go ahead and build the sukkah, but keep praying for a miracle.  

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SO, what do YOU do when people, answers, and things don't come? 

As this final semester is winding down, so is our attendance at AIB and the stake institute classes as well.  Some classes are getting pretty small.  Our two beauties in Book of Mormon class.

What do you do when they don’t come?

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Age old story: One of our great YSA guys is struggling because his “love interest” doesn’t share the same "love interest" in him…her same feelings just didn’t come.

We know we are competing with semester tests and papers due...but still sad that the numbers are down and even with a new deep fryer and the food they love, sometimes those that can come choose not to come

Food and/or  the speaker must have been better at Thursday Lunchside as our crowd was a bit heartier when Elder Stosich spoke.  The aroma of "butter chicken" and Elder Stosich were magnets.

There are days when you hope for sunshine but it doesn't come.  The day we took this photo driving over the Harbour bridge we had much walking to do in the city to get some things done and hoped for a sunny day …but that didn’t come.  Instead we got the rain.    

(Oh, and smoke from an explosion and machinery fire at the dock on the wharf)   

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Sometimes the things we want and hope for don’t come on our timetable and sometimes they just don’t come.  We thought by serving a mission we’d be suddenly rejuvenated to feel like we were 21 again and be invincible.  Well, that didn’t come (surprise). 

Instead some of the lesson we are learning let us feel a distant and tiny relationship to Job.  You all feel that at times too.   

Sometimes our pleadings for loved ones appear to be unanswered for a time.  

We used to recite this as a family when things didn't go as we had planned or hope: 

It’s easy enough to be pleasant,

When life goes by with a song;

But the man worthwhile,

Is the man who can smile,

When everything goes dead wrong.

And we'd remind each other not to pack up and abandon life and dreams and 

all we believe and hope for.

When things seem to go wrong, "when it doesn't come" have learned 4 things:

1.       It’s not a curse just a different route

2.       Your prayers are heard, answers are coming, just not on your time

3.       There is light ahead, and THOTL in all of it.

4.        There’s a reason, and if you wait you will see it.

Like when you go to the Saturday market looking for daisies and no daisies have "come" that day. 

If you look carefully you may find something different but just as beautiful...like these big "warrior" flowers. 

And when you go in search of help finding Jewish things to help cover for the missing items that "didn't come" you may find yourself in the Auckland Jewish Community Center where you get acquainted with the most charming people who welcome you and who let you take pictures of their authentic Jewish "sukkah" ... 

 and view and take a picture of their beautiful silver Torah crowns, pointers and the sacred ark. 

 Who show you the large Chanukkiah (9 candle menorah for Hanukkah),

And even let look at the Torah scroll in the Ark and let you hold the well-guarded "4 Species" (4 Kinds) straight from Jerusalem used in their Sukkot celebrations.  

Sometimes "when things don't come"

...other things do.

Even found a new park in the middle of the city on the walk back to the AIB.  Not the things I expected or set out to find, but it had THOTL written all over it.

We have a favorite saying that is actually the title to a Michael McLean song...

"Hold on, the Light will come."

It doesn't say the things or the people or changed circumstances will come (though sometimes they may) ...but the light will come.

Light can be simple or profoundly greater 

understanding, vision, or illumination...

But He, Christ, is the Greatest Light

and greatest source of Light!

And YES, HE WILL COME!

We testify He will.

When it doesn't seem to come right away

Hang on and hang in there.

Love you,

Elder and Sister Downs

Vance and Louenda