Coming 'round to a Full Circle

If you live long enough,
you truly come to the amazing, even bewildering-at-times
conclusion
that many things and people
come around again.
Karma, they call it.

I have always felt that way about people in my life--
there are few chance meetings
and more people are actual "cog wheels" in our life's story
than we realize.
We truly are, I believe, the product sum of those around us,
whether invited into our lives,
or met by happenstance.

In the summer of 1998,
the yahoos and I went to England
to hang out with Mr. Wonderful,
who had lived and worked over there several years,
specifically in Nottingham.
Mr. W had only recently come back to the LDS Church
after being away nineteen years,
and had taken a liking to several young missionaries over there.
When the yahoos and I planned our trip over there,
Mr W would ask the missionaries to give him a list
of American food items they longed for,
and then he'd email the list to me
to purchase and bring with us to England.
We had one full suitcase of nothing but food stuffs
for the missionaries:
Jolly Rancher candies
Root beer extract
HoHos and DingDongs
beef jerky
Grape Kool-aid
cheese cake mixes
jello
All kinds of goodies, mostly.
The missionaries so appreciated our efforts
and we so enjoyed doing it for them!

One young man, Elder Eric Sharp from Evanston, Wyoming
was especially excited about the treats,
so much so,
that once he received the treat-filled luggage,
he helped himself to what some thought was more than his share
of American goodies
and it was noted that he was not to be the "go-between" anymore.
So when the yahoos and I came that summer,
we loaded up yet another suitcase full of treats.
When the elders came over to pick up the treats,
we made plans to have them over for some "home cookin'"--
finding our ingredients from
 their local Sainsbury market.
We made spaghetti and meatballs and had ice cream and berries for dessert.

The time was well-spent and we made fast-friends with the missionaries there,
including the sweet-toothed, Elder Sharp.
Something just clicked between us all
so that even when our family was touring around England and Scotland
we thought of him and brought back gifts for him--
including this tie we got on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

We also brought back shortbread cookies
for Elder's Taylor, Gleason and Hadley..
other missionaries we so enjoyed meeting.

As for Elder Sharp.
I am happy to report that he is a grown man with a family of his own
and lives in good 'ol Utah.
We had stayed in touch with him all these years.
And when our family was sealed in the Salt Lake Temple,
it was "Elder Sharp" who met us that day and took us to his home and family
and fed us Spaghetti and Meatballs and homemade ice cream.

Later today,
Diana is flying out to his house
where she will be the Nanny for his children
while he and his wife go on a cruise.
That's a wild burst of karma right there,
isn't it?
She was just seven years old when we met Eric
and now she is tending his babies.

These kinds of things reinforces my belief that people
come into our lives for a reason
so I should pay close attention and be careful not to overlook someone
'cuz you just never know.