North Island Knows

Superman's high council speaking assignment was in the tiniest branch in our stake yesterday....you city folk would classify this as the middle-of-nowhere....

  North Island branch in Port McNeill, BC is 225 km from our home in Courtenay and 350km (one way) from our Stake Centre in Nanaimo, and the smallest church building I've ever seen or been in.  A large multipurpose room, with accordion dividers functions as Chapel, RS room, Primary room, YW room and Cultural Hall. There is  small kitchen, two bathrooms and offices.

The road up there was 255km of this.... tall green trees... except for the big black bear that lumbered across the road an hour north of Campbell River,  we never caught up to another car going north...

 

"I spy with my little eye...something that is GREEN....by the 50th time I said this, the darlings and the Super, no longer found me funny :)

After 3 hours on the road....

 

I don't think we have ever been so warmly welcomed as visitors in or lives...We instantly felt part of their branch family. As I got up to speak I felt "home", even though I had never been there before....

 

 

 

I spoke on redemption and focused on how we can help each other return to our Heavenly Father.... 

 

 

 

{ “The church is not a place where perfect people gather to say perfect things, or have perfect thoughts, or have perfect feelings. The Church is a place where imperfect people gather to provide encouragement, support, and service to each other as we press on in our journey to return to our Heavenly Father.”

 

 

After a particularly trying and unpredictable couple of days I was at a complete loss as to what to do next... at that very moment

our dear and inspired friend came to the rescue, no judgement just compassion and friendship and understanding and. Something that was in place long before the crisis. He didn’t say anything remarkable and he didn’t do anything magical, he just had the time for a dear friend who needed him. Our family will be forever grateful for that.}

This branch knows what Church is all about. There is a unique spirit of strength and sacrifice in North Island. I was humbled that so few members could do so much. There is no such thing as A calling in this branch, everyone wears multiple hats in multiple auxiliaries.

Our visit was an awesome experience for our family. Everybody needs to visit a tiny branch, they really are amazing places.