Ireland Trip Continued (Day 4)

Well, the jetlag finally caught up with us. It was funny how it did. I woke up this morning at 5:00 AM Ireland time, which is 8 hours ahead of Arizona time. So if my math is correct, that would be about 9:00 PM in Arizona so I was wide awake. We had planned to get going early, but not this early, so I thought I would read for a bit. I read my scriptures and a couple of conference report talks. By this time it was 6:00 AM. I rolled over and thought I would close my eyes for a minute then get up. When I closed my eyes I must have fell instantly back to sleep. I opened my eyes to what I thought was just a few minutes later and looked at my watch to see what time it was. I couldn’t believe it, it was now 10:30 AM. I had gone back to sleep for almost 5 more hours, so much for our early jump on the day.

We had slept to long to take advantage of the free breakfast they were offering at the B&B so we just left to go sight seeing. We had purchased a three day bus pass last night so we didn’t have to pay every time we boarded a bus. Having to pay every time is a pain. You have to have the exact change. If you don’t, you have to pay with what you have and go down to the bus station to get any change coming back. That would really be a pain.

The bus system has been a real challenge. Trying to figure out what buses go where has been difficult. I have even got on their web site and tried to map out our destinations. When we get downtown we can never find the right bus. Once you figure out where the bus you want to go on is located, it does get easier. Bus routes only go to a destination and then back to Dublin city centre. You can not get from on location outside of city centre to another location outside of city centre directly. You have to go from city centre out to the first location and then back to city centre and catch another bus to go to the second destination and then back to city centre again. The other complication is that several buses go to the same route for a certain amount of time then branch out. So we had to be careful to make sure the bus we took would get us to our final destination before branching off to some other place. In the beginning we were having real heartburn over this, but finally figured out that if we ended up somewhere we did not want to go we would see what there was to see where ever we ended up and ride the bus back to city centre and try again to get to where we really wanted to go. Other than it is a little time consuming that plan works out pretty well.

Since we got out going so late, we did not have time to do too much sight seeing. We were supposed to meet at the Finglas chapel at 2:00 PM to meet the other missionaries that had come over. I didn’t really know how to get to the church, but knew there was this huge cemetery across the street from the church. I had never seen the actual church. When I was here 30 years ago, they had just started the footings and floors.

As missionaries on our day off we would go down and haul cement for the footings, stem walls and floor. I can say that I helped build the church that is now the Finglas ward chapel. Thirty years later it is now a beautiful church right on one of the main roads where many people drive by every day. I guess compared to the massive rock churches that are in Ireland, it is somewhat humble looking, but it is a nice church and has a special spirit when you are on its grounds.

As I said the church is right across the street from a huge cemetery. I have pictures of that also. The cemetery is very old, maybe back in the early 17 hundreds. They give tours of the cemetery. The name is the Glasneven Cemetery. Tina and I went over and walked around a bit. The grave stones are massive.

The get together with the missionaries was fun; everyone had their stories and remembrances of Ireland. There were missionaries that came who served clear back in the 1960’s. There were 5 or six from my era. Elder Mills, Anderson, Haden, Deharte, Colman, Christensen, Goodman, and one or two others that I can think of their names. Colman was the only one that was one of my companions.

We had a funny experience together. There was a new missionary coming out, and I think his dad was a dentist. I don’t remember the missionary, but he was worried that his teeth would turn yellow while in Ireland. This is way before all the teeth whiteners they have today. Anyway, we found this yellow paint of some sort and painted out teeth yellow. We ran around yelling that out teeth had turned yellow and we would never get them white again. Jon Colman had a picture of all of us posing with big grins showing off our yellow teeth. We had a good laugh about that.

I know we are commanded to not be excessive in anything we do, but I’ll tell you what, we used the words “do you remember the time” so much that it could be carved into some plaque. Maybe I’ll write a song about it or something.

After the early meeting we all dispersed until this evening. Tina and I went over to the cemetery as I said earlier and looked around. After looking around the cemetery, longer than we needed to, according to Tina, we then went down town to find somewhere to eat. Tina reminded me that we had neglected this ritual the entire day and indicated to some of my missionary friends that I was trying to starve her to death.

I got talking to a lady named Jane on the bus and asked her where a good place to eat was. She was telling us of all these places and finally told us she would just take us to where they were. Must have been the confused look on my face. She said she was going to dinner anyway. So we got to city centre and walked probably a mile and she showed us the different restaurants on this back street which we would have never found. We picked a place that served hot wings and ribs. It was a good choice, but a bad day to pick to become a vegetarian (sort of a line from the movie “Airplane”). They did give us each a piece of celery so that was our vegetible. All meat after that, but it was sure good. There was this funny Irishman sitting next to us, who must be a regular at the restaurant as he seemed to expect the waiter to know what he wanted. He did finish up with a this bowl of ice cream with raspberries on the top that looked pretty good, so we followed suit and had the same.

After dinner we went back out to the Finglus Chapel for a missionary and member get together. I didn’t know any of the members that came, but they were all very friendly.

You know, there is one thing that really bothers me at get togethers like this and you are with a group of people that you haven’t seen for several years. It is when they come up to you and with a straight face, say to you, “you haven’t changed a bit.” I know they don’t believe I was born yesterday to believe that line. Actually, to be honest, I thought I looked ok when I was younger, not a stud or anything like that, but Ok. Today…I have to confess that I would say my better “looking” days are behind me, so when they tell me I haven’t changed, that concerns me a little. I’m fatter, balder, grayer, more wrinkles, wear glasses, and have shrinking. I guess that tells me that they have certainly changed in at least one way; they are losing their memory. I know that because they can’t remember how good looking I used to be, or they wouldn’t say I haven’t changed. Oh well, I’m sure they are just being polite. I can’t say the same to them, because I can’t even remember who they were.

Anyway, I don’t lose sleep over these kind of things, and have to say I really enjoyed being with all these old Irish Missionaries. Even those I did not serve with; it was fun to share stories. In fact I felt a little like Cinderella leaving the ball, we looked at the clock and it was about 10:30 PM and the last bus ran at 11:30. We ran out to the bus station and road back to city centre with the Christensen’s. They were right down town so they could walk to where they were staying; we on the other hand were still a little fuzzy about which bus would take us home. We spent quite some time running from stop to stop to find the one that went to our place. Finally this 80 year old (my best guess at her age) lady told us to follow her because she was going the in the same basic direction as us. She was so concerned that we might get lost. She kept telling us that we needed to get off one stop after her. Probably told us that four or five times. Finally, after she got off the bus, she waved to get my attention as she walked by the window of the bus where I was sitting and mouthed to me, “T-H-E N-E-X-T S-T-O-P” and pointed down the road in the direction the bus was going. I nodded my head that I understood. Everyone on the bus got a chuckle out of the whole thing. She was right though; the next stop did get us home.

Another midnight night.