Making Connections Around the World

YUMA, Az: -- Beverly Vowell Black Yesterday, Feb. 4, Dale and I attended an 11 a.m. church in Yuma, Arizona. It turned out to be the singles ward. As we were entering the building I said, "I wonder who we will meet today that knows someone from Blanding!" We introduced ourselves telling others where we were from. During Sunday School the Bishop came in and sat behind us. He leaned up and whispered, "By chance do you know a Kedric Redd?" I smiled and replied, "Absolutely!" He said Kedric was a companion to him in the MTC years ago....his name is Bishop Colvin. Hope it's OK. Kedric if I gave him your current information. It's a small, wonderful world! 

Chateauroux, France: -- Virginia Jensen Blake  I went to a church meeting in Paris when I was teaching in Chateauroux, France, and met Elder Clifford Mikesell, who had been on his mission for three weeks. I was getting ready to come home.

Africa, Chicago: Maureen Arthur Olsen

We had a neighbor, Bruce Crankshaw, who is also a stake president and former bishop of ours.  He now lives in Lehi head of some big pharmiceutical company. He is from South Africa. Another neighbor, Linda Sahagun,  (a Knudsen from California) both knew Phil Lyman and Shane Shumway in Africa. My neighbors were in the  Afrikaans speaking mission! Linda teaches school here. The daughter of Linda served in Bangkok Thailand and served with a sister from Australia who was a daughter of one if my converts on my mission. So fun these connections! Okay one more! Another convert friend of mine from Brisbane from my mission, served this past couple of years in inner city Chicago. Of all the people who helped her and her companions the most was Francell and Gene Bkickenstaffs daughter, Mary! They sent me pictures with investigators in Mary's home with a table decorated for a king to feed them lunch! She was a great and probably still is, a great asset to the missionaries!Another Blickenstaff story:

Mexico: Karen Nieves Griffin

My husband (from American Fork) was a missionary in Mexico. We were riding around town one day and I told him this is where Blickenstaffs live. He told me he was the missionary that gave Gene a blessing when he was in the hospital in Mexico so sick. I then told him Blanding is a phenomenon. You will always meet someone who knows someone from here.
Scottsdale, AZ:  Steve Lacy 

Back in Easter 1964 we were visiting my mom Thelma’s sister’s family in Scottsdale Arizona their neighbor across the street was a half brother of Ed and Doug Galbraith from Grayson. While we were there we went Legend City Arizona’s biggest amusement park. Right after we went through the gate Burdette and Erva Shumway family from Grayson showed up.   

Salt Lake, Orem:  Jan PodrisIn about 2000, my husband took me to my first Jazz game at the Delta center. He was cheering rather loudly for the Sacramento Kings as he’s from Sacramento. About half way through the first quarter I hear a voice say “Did someone from Blanding move to Sacramento?” I turned around and Mike Halliday and all of his sons were sitting behind us.      

When I was living in Orem Utah working for the Department if Workforce Services, I ran in to Blanding people all the time looking for work. One particularly fun memory I was at a training and we were doing some activity where we had to exchange papers with other people in the room. The guy I gave my paper too turned out to be Tommy Lyman. We exchanged stories about when my Dad was his Bishop and his Dad was my bishop. We had both been working in the same building in Provo.

 Lisa Smith Rarick -- Guatemala

We lived outside of Blanding for 18 years and always found a Blanding connection. However it was after we moved back that we had the farthest away connection. In 2008 we went to Guatemala to pick up our youngest son from his mission. While we were at the airport getting ready to fly home, an older American couple noticed our missionary son and began asking him about his mission and where he was from. Of course he said a small town in Utah and they probably wouldn't know where it was located. As soon as he said Blanding the woman asked if we knew the Gutke family. Lurlene Gutke had been the woman's missionary companion way back in the day! The other connection we made with them is that when we lived in Kansas we discovered they had been in the same Stake as us. Blanding makes the world a much smaller place and we learn how connected we all are.

Wyoming: Ivy Kropf We had only been living in Wyoming for about 2 years and were attending a stake meeting. I was standing up in the back holding my fussy baby when a lady walks over to me and says “Are you Jan?” 😳 Oh my word! No one in Green River, Wyoming knows I have a sister named Jan, much less to mistake me for her! It was Debbie Acton, who was visiting her son Eric, who had just moved there. My kids were excited to meet my kindergarten teacher.
 

                                              More Stories from Maureen Arthur Olsen:  

My son Jonathan was serving his mission in Perth Australia 93-95. Being from Australia I was ecstatic. I had served also in Australia when there were only two missions, and I served in what was the Australian Mission which ran the southern most part of NSW to the tip of the northeast coast. My son knew one of the Mission President counselors as he' visited us in Utah and I knew him well. I met him and his family on my mission in Brisbane in one of my areas and he'd moved to west coast. So that was expected. The other counselor also from the east coast said,  "Blanding, did you know a Maureen Arthur but I don' recall her married name." He went on to say, "This gal contributed to our conversion." Jonathan said, "Yes, I know her. It's my mum! As we all say, you can travel to the ends of the earth and you always meet someone who knew someone from Blanding! 

One day Jonathan was out knocking doors with his comp and lo and behold who opened the door but Glen Skinner from Blanding. He and his lovely wife, Betty who was a Palmer, Clessa Black's sister.  They are Jed and Mark Lyman's uncle and aunt. They happened to be serving in the same mission doing family history research. Small world!   It always amazes Stephen and myself how many times we've experienced Blanding connections coast to coast. I tell people now I live in Enoch.Where is Enoch they ask? It's on 1-15 I tell them, right next door to Cedar City! Oh, they say. I then add, "but we consider Blanding".......and that's as far as we get because 97% of the time people say, "Oh, my goodness do you know so and so. We had this cute lady missionary in the mission we live in and one Sunday I hear a member of our ward greet Steve at our door. I was quarantined with a massive abscess lodged in my throat and contagious so I could not go in living room. But I heard several voices and lots of laughter and I kept thinking,"I know that guy's laugh but could not put a name to it." Turned out to be Chris Flavell and he'd married our lady missionary!😊  r.    Like Dr. Seuss, "Oh the stories I could tell." ha ha. Wonderful.And....then......Maureen tells another story!:   This is for Winna Kalauli and gang.  In 1999 my daughter, Natalie and I were in Hawaii. We kind of got lost as we walked around,  apparently it showed.  A city bus pulls up, and the bus driver, a nice Hawaiian man with a big smile says, "Are you girls lost"? Ha ha!  He had the most cheeky awesome grin. We said, "Sort of." He found out what we were looking for and said, "Get in!" He told the passengers: "You are all taking a detour so I can take these lost girls to the Palace!" He then asked where we were from and we say, "Blanding Utah."  He says, " Blanding. Utah! Do you know Mitch Kalauli? He's my best friend! We grew up together and I've been to Blanding and Mussi ........etc."  He then offered to pick us up Sunday with his family to attend church. Only in Hawaii!  If you know the Kalauli family. it put a big smile on their faces to hear this story too. Mitch senior was still in Blanding at that time and he cried when we told our connection,  as he loved this man and our chance encounter. Blanding the town everyone knows about because of the incredible people!         
Bountiful, Utah:  Rosalie Payne:  

A Blanding connection just happened today Feb. 5. I am  having knee surgery in Bountiful. Before my surgery, the nurse was taking my vitals and doing the other things. She asked where I lived. I said I had moved from Price to Centerville about 7 months ago. She said she grew up in Ferron. Then I told her I had lived in Blanding before that. She said her daughter's friend married a boy from Blanding. She knew the boy was named Tim and he did social work. I am thinking it is probably Tim Chamberlain.   [Comment by Maureen Olsen: His wife is Natalie if you see her again. I was Natalie's VT in Blanding before I moved.] 

And at Physical Therapy Feb. 6 Rosalie writes:  

1. Physical Therapist was a mission companion to Brian Hatcher.

2. There were 6 patients doing PT. Three had connections. First one was a man who said he used to work with a Shumway but he couldn't remember first name.

3. Said one of her best friends is Meredith Harris Kartchner.

4. One lived in Blanding when she was 3 and 4 years old. Then their family moved to a dry farm about 12 miles south of Monticello. 5. My bishop came to visit this afternoon. (2/11) His great aunt was Myrtle Harris (I think Myrtle is correct) He had been to Blanding one time, for a family reunion in 1977