An Unexpected Early Finish

 We received some devastating news at the end of last week.  Our eight year old grandson, Ethan Nielson, was hit by a pick up truck and had to be air lifted to the Alberta Children's Hospital.  He broke his pelvis in 6 places, broke a bone in his ear and around his eye.  The worst is that he received serious brain injuries and is in a coma.  After a sleepless night, we decided to end our Fiji mission 5 days earlier than was planned, and return to support and help our grandson and his parents, Jordan & Melanie Nielson. 

Ethan Nielson a few months before his accident

We took care of a long "to-do" list, including emptying 

our apartment, returning our vehicle, giving away the 

remainder of our glasses, saying our goodbye's and 

canceling our last couple of days of work.  It was not 

the way we wanted to leave, it was hard, and it was sad!

The ward arranged a farewell at the church for us.
As you can see, we were each asked to say a
few parting words.  It was difficult...

We have grown to love these people, as
we have come to know them so well.

We had to fight back the tears as we spoke.

They gave us a farewell gift of a beautiful
banner with, "Families are Forever".

It was very touching when the congregation sang to us, 
"God Be With You 'Till We Meet Again", 
followed by the Fijian farewell song called, "Isa Lei". 
During these songs, a number of our friends came up
to the front and gave us a variety of different necklaces.
There wasn't a dry eye in the room.

It was followed by a pot-luck luncheon.

This is the leader of the congregation,
Bishop Lavaci, who we grew to love.

We also had a wonderful farewell dinner
with the senior missionary couples who
were also working in our city, Suva.

This is a wonderful couple, the Smiths.

This is our friends, the Willis's.

This is the Laytons who are the mission
president and his wife. They treated us so
nicely and made us feel very welcome.

This is our very good friends, the Greenburgs

This is the Whiteheads, who we grew to love

Our good friend, Susan Stanford gave us a ride to the
bus station to catch the 4.5 hour ride to the airport.

After the bus ride, it took us 3 plane rides
to get back to our home in Calgary.  We
arrived 30 hours after we left our home in Suva.
We were obviously jet lagged and tired, but
excited to see all our friends & family, again;
and of course, our dear grandson in hospital.

Three days after returning home, we woke up to this wonderful snow fall.  It was the first snow we had seen since last year's winter.  People in Fiji have never seen or touched snow.

Here's a photo of all the exam sheets from our
six months in Fiji.  We ended up seeing 6060
patients, and giving out about 4500 glasses.

We certainly felt our mission was a resounding success, and we are so glad we were able to do this.  

It was an experience of a lifetime that we will never forget.   

Our new mission now is to take care of ailing parents and help our grandson and his mother and father and siblings over these coming months as we await to see what kind of recovery takes place following his severe injuries.

Thank-you for remembering Ethan in your thoughts and prayers.