He lost his job as a university professor, and his house to a fire, and has spent all summer exploring the country before looking to set any roots back down. His Westy is named "Walden", and the dashboard sports a copy of Henry David Thoreau's book of the same name. Thoreau said, "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone", and Jay is quite rich at the moment.
He is blogging his adventure, and my favorite post to date details his attempt to infiltrate Canada. His blog even shows where he is at minute-to-minute, on a page appropriately titled "Stalk Me", which made it easy to figure out when he was going to show up.
The Ward had a baptism that Robin wanted to attend, and "when in Rome" was Jay's response to the invitation to come along. The missionaries showed a short video after the baptism on thankfulness, in which Dallin H. Oaks talked about adversity:
When we understand this principle, that God offers us opportunities for blessings and blesses us through our own adversities and the adversities of others, we can understand why He has commanded us again and again to “thank the Lord thy God in all things”.Jay is a great example of handling adversity, and I am thankfull we had the chance to meet him and offer him some hospitality. He was a superb guest, and kept Ann Marie quite entertained. In the morning, we fed him pancakes, let him shower, and sent him on his way. I can tell from his website that he made it to the coast already.
A Westy owner will always have friends.
3 comments:
That is way cool. What did he think of the baptism?
Jay was a good sport. He even played Bananagrams with us after the baptism. Of course, that is pretty tame compared to milking goats the day before.
You can read about my travels at http://iliveinmyvan.com/
Regarding my views of the baptism, you might have to wait a couple weeks until I post. I was raised an Episcopalian, where we have infant baptism and full immersion is not required. I like the idea that infants can be absolved of the sins of the father at birth. I like a rite that allows people to make their own decision about joining the church, but the Morman age of 8, and arguably, the Episcopal norm of 13ish, both seem a bit young to make a fully-informed decision.
That said, I was quite happy to be able to witness the ceremony. It wouldn't have occured to me to ask to tag along, so I was glad to be invited.
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