Busy spring...

We've been quite busy these past few weeks with emergency transfers, zone conferences with a general authority in addition to all our normal office work. Our office motto is "the days are long, but the weeks seem to fly by!"

You may have read in the Deseret News about an English couple who were converted through watching the Shaytard blog videos. Here they are:  They came to the Visitor's Center to talk about their conversions and we got the chance to meet them: Lewis and Lois.

Friday the 13th was Red Nose day in England. It's a silly tradition to raise money for kids. Everyone puts on red noses. Here we are:

 

We did have the chance to visit the home of Rudyard Kipling for a few hours. We arranged for a lecture by the local historian for the home. Quite an interesting character. Here's the estate out in the country.

Well, the Gospel is true! There is a strong spirit of missionary work here among members and missionaries alike. We appreciate your support. Now, I've got a bad cold and I'm going back to bed!

Elder Cannon

Just to show you that it finally did snow in the England London South Mission. This is a real blizzard one morning that actually covered the drive -- well, almost. It took forever to melt -- at least an hour! I had to scrape the windows of our little car that you see here.

Elder Cannon just had to buy a hat for who-knows what reason. This is just after church.



These two lovely sisters are the recent additions to the office family. Sister Gilman from Washington is on the left and Sister Stewart from Midvale is on the right.

These are the current Visitor's Center sisters. Two are American (#2 and #3 from the left). The others are Portugal, Sweden, France, and Denmark.

We told you about the DeLaMare relatives from the island of Jersey that we found working here at the Temple; Brother and Sister Key. Sister Key is a descendant of one of the other (lesser) wives of Philip DeLaMare.

These are the two Digital Elders that work part-time in the office. They arrange travel for moves and a thousand other things for the mission. They still baptized a great convert this week. In the back is Elder Blair from Missouri and in the Front is Elder Foster from Salt Lake.

 

January joys

We have been slow to add things to our blog. Sorry! Here are some pictures that might tell a little of some things we did in January. We went on a "teach" with the missionaries one evening and needed dinner. We stopped at a McDonalds by Redhill and had our first Big Mac in England!

Christmas Day at President Millar's home

On Christmas Day, we had dinner at the Mission President's home. Invited were all the office and visitor's center seniors (12 of us). Again we did Christmas Crackers to honor the English tradition. Dinner was turkey, ham, yams, Snickers salad (my favorite), potatoes, beans, and a variety of relish choices. Sister Millar made a fabulous English trifle (she is English).

  These are the English Crackers on each plate

  The seniors all went together to give Sister

Millar a Lladro nativity.

Trip to London

On Dec 20th, we celebrated Mark's birthday by going to London for the afternoon. We went up in the London Eye (the super Ferris Wheel), walked around a few landmarks, and had lunch in a crowded Italian dive. London is about 45 minutes by train from our office. It was our first Saturday to be able to get away from the office. Life has been busy, busy, busy.

This is the London Eye











The famous Big Ben
        some strange lady on the sidewalk

  At the top of the Eye

       Some strange man in front of Westminster and an impish looking Sister changing clothes in a phone booth

Missionary Christmas in the London South Mission

Over the holidays we hosted four Christmas dinners, each for 1/4th of the mission. There are just too many missionaries to have them all at the Temple at once. Missionaries would arrive and attend the temple. 1/4th of the mission is exactly one full session of 72. After the temple, they gathered at the accommodations dinner room for a Christmas dinner cooked and prepared by Sister Cannon and helpers. After the dinner, a short program was held where we sang carols and had an impromptu bell choir using our pipe chimes -- lead by Elder Cannon.

The crowd gathering at the visitor's centre for the Christmas Kickoff event.  We had some Christmas messages given and we sang Christmas hymns.