Small, small world

The world of Mormonism can make the world at large seem pretty small sometimes. To all my Montana friends out there, here's a really good example.

I'm sitting in Sunday school this morning at the little 100 person Asheville Central Branch. They ask any visitors to introduce themselves, and a man stands up with his wife. He says his name is John Barger, and he and his wife are from Farmington, UT, but that he grew up and joined the church in Asheville. He also mentioned that he and his wife were on their return home from serving as mission president in the Kenya Nairobi mission.

Could this be the same John Barger who was stake president of the Great Falls East Stake for a number of years when I first moved back home to Montana after college? I had never really seen or known the Bargers, but I knew of them. And the details were matching up quite uncannily.

So I made the decision to sit next to Sister Barger during Relief Society, so that I could check it out. Sure enough, they were one and the same people. Crazy that on this day, in this place, I would run into them.

We discussed mutual people we knew, and had a good time exploring our common ground.

As my friend Arlene would say, "The church is so true!"—or at least it brings people together in the most serendipitous of ways.