Elder Baldwin, The Wallys and Merry Christmas from Bryce

This morning I received a very special letter from my friend in Mozambique.  She is serving a Welfare mission with her husband.  They went to Johannesburg South Africa for some testing because John has been sick off and on.  Our friends have met several returned missionaries from South Africa while serving and one that knew Bryce.  He has helped the Wallys a lot and we have been able to correspond with him.   He and his wife are expecting their first baby.  It has been wonderful to see these African RM's faithful and serving post mission.  Bryce's second companion was from South Africa.  We have not heard from  him since Bryce's death so this letter was a special and amazing thing for us.
We went to church with the Curtis's and the ward we went to was the Pretoria East ward. It was very enjoyable and we loved sacrament meeting and all the Sunday school and Relief Society was nice. IT was all in English. A Spiritual Feast for me.
When I found John after Priesthood he grabbed me and said Sister Wollenzien you need to come with me. There is someone who you want to meet. I said 'I DO?' . and he just grabbed my arm and drug me through the church to this very tall, very nice looking young man. He Grabbed the young man and turned him around and said this is sister Wollenzien. I was wondering what was going on.
The young man shook my hand with a big smile, said its nice to meet you and then he said 'I served with Bryce.' It was Elder Baldwin (Wade Baldwin) I just started to cry. John met him in priesthood when he asked John where he was from . When he found out he was from Spanish Fork he asked about President Christensen being the stake President there. When he knew we knew you he said   Bryce was his FAVORITE companion.John told him that Bryce was our sons very best friend. The rest of the men still in the priesthood room asked what happened. John told the story. Elder Baldwin told how Bryce was his very favorite companion. He told them Bryce was one of the most dedicated missionaries out in the field. (And we know he is still out there don't we).
Well we went out side and stood with him because we wanted to take his picture. (We were in a little hurry because we were with the Curtis's) We talked a little. He is in the Bishopric and when I asked him if he was married he said,'Oh Yea! Let me go get my wife.' He came back with his darling wife and the cutest little baby boy. He said this is my wife Karen and this is Bryce. I named my son after Bryce.' His wife cried and I cried.
His wife told us she has heard so much about Bryce.
Wade told us that Bryce told him the story of shaking hands with ELder Uchdorft when Kim was set apart. He said Bryce told him it was when Elder Uchdorft shook his hand and said to him 'This is a good looking Elder.' that's when he really decided he was going on a mission for sure.  I never knew that story.
He just said  many good things about Bryce and about his  mission experience serving around Bryce. He kept saying Bryce was the greatest missionary.
I said well that boy is still working hard at missionary work . He is still around here. His wife said, 'Yep he is.'

I let him know I was going to be telling you about this experience and how much it means to you and Kim to see how the missionaries are doing now.

 When I hugged him to say good bye I couldn't help but cry.
He said, ' Will you please tell his parents that for me he is here always.' He was patting his heart with tears in his eyes.
It was one of those hard to have to say good bye moments.
well. We all had tears in our eyes. It really made this Sunday a special day.
Little by little puzzle pieces come together that tell us a story about Bryce.  Over and over again I am reminded of God's love for me.  Merry Christmas from Bryce.
Oh...and last week one of Bryce's friends told me that his son to soon be here will be Grayson Bryce.  It doesn't get better than this.