Missionary Journal
England (January Wk2 2009)

Thursday, 08 January 2009
This morning the Walt, I, and the Elders (Ellsworth and Bång) drove about an hour to the Poole Stake Building for a Zone Missionary Conference (actually three zones were in attendance) with President and Sister Swinton.

This is a picture of the Poole Guildhouse (built in 1761). Poole is a pretty good size port city (population ~140K) with lots and lots of places to shop. During the Second World War the town was one of the main departing points for the D-Day landings. That’s primarily all I’ve heard about Poole.

As I was looking on the internet about Weymouth, I found this picture of the English and American soldiers going through Weymouth to board landing craft for the D-Day Invasion of Normandy.

We arrived about 10:00 am and the elders and sisters spent at least a half hour hugging each other (there is a great deal of love through the whole London South Mission). Then we met in our zones for another half hour.

After the zone meeting, we had a full assembly of the Plymouth, Poole, and Bristol Zones in the chapel. President Swinton went over the 2008 statistics: London South Mission had 450 baptisms out of a goal of 600. That doesn’t sound too good until you hear about everybody else. We were the top baptizing mission in Western Europe. Of the remaining 36 missions, only 2 in had baptisms greater than 400 (barely); only 2 others were between 300 and 400. We were told to lengthen our stride and increase our Standards of Excellence: New Investigators; Lessons Taught with Members Present; and Investigators with Baptism Dates (we only baptize 1 in 5 with committed dates).

Sister Swinton admonished the missionaries that their ties must reach down to and a little over their belt buckles. You’d be surprised how many didn’t. Walt is really glad that I made him get extra length ties.

Visitor’s Center: The London Temple has the only visitor’s center in Europe, and we are finding that taking investigators to the visitor’s center and having them see the Joseph Smith film and see and hear the general authorities (via film, video, etc.) in 2008 has increased the incidence of baptism up to 80% for those who were taken by a member (the missionary doesn’t need to go) to Surrey to the visitor’s center (3-hour drive). Remember from the second paragraph, 80% of investigators with committed baptismal dates do not get baptized.

Sunday, 11 January 2009
When we arrived at church this morning, the 1st Counselor in the Branch Presidency told us that President Chasteauneuf wanted to speak with us before Sacrament Meeting. We dutifully went into his office and were given callings. Walt was called as the Sunday School President which includes the responsibility for the Priesthood Advancement and Temple Preparation classes. I was asked to teach a young adult Gospel Doctrine class. It seems that two things are happening: (1) the 18s and over are not attending Gospel Doctrine and sitting in the vestibule; and (2) we are losing this generation all over England (and the US). I certainly hope I can connect with these young people and make the gospel come alive to them.

Walt and I both spoke in Sacrament this morning. I spoke first taking 7 minutes to do a 5-minute talk on the 3rd Article of Faith. I mean, I could talk for hours on the Atonement and obeying the commandments. Then Walt talked on the Good Samaritan for much more than the 12 minutes he was supposed take. He had good things to say, but President was tugging at the back of his coat to get him to stop. I wonder what he would have done if I’d gone much longer.

Wendy - Our closing hymn was #266 The Time is Far Spent. It has a lovely tune and I found it quite easy to catch on to.

Our coming week is shaping up. Monday is “P” day.

Tuesday: Appointment with a less-active sister in the morning, then I’m making stew for dinner and we are having the Elders over. Meat is very expensive here. A roast is £3.48 a kilo, but stew meat is £7.48 a kilo. I bought a rolled roast that we will unroll and Walt will chop up. After dinner we will all go to Branch PEC. Most meetings (PEC, Welfare, RS Enrichment) are held on Tuesday evening with the exception of YM/YW on Wednesday evening.

Wednesday: RS Enrichment Luncheon at noon; appointment with a less active brother; and then an appointment with the Branch Missionaries (Brother and Sister Ayles) to discuss cottage meetings (to be scheduled for once a month) with investigators and less actives and a DA (dinner appointment) with them.

Thursday and Friday: Appointments with less active sisters.

Sunday: Appointment (including luncheon) with a less active sister right after “stand-up council” which is exactly what it says. We (the Branch Council) go into a room and stand around coordinating anything that needs to be done for the Branch and/or missionary work for 20 to 30 minutes. Stand-up Councils are held on Sundays on weeks that we don’t have PEC on Tuesday (1st and 3rd Sundays with PEC on 2nd and 4th Tuesdays). As far as I can tell, this is a new schedule since we’ve been here; it used to be PEC once a month. We also have a Missionary Correlation Meeting every Sunday after church.

Things are really starting to shape up, and I’m beginning to feel like we’re right in the middle of it all. YES!!!

Monday, 12 January 2009
Since this is “P” day Walt is over at the Elders getting his hair cut (should be interesting). I’ll get a picture when he gets back.

Oh, it certainly is short. I wonder if he will try the Elders again??

I’m doing laundry. We have a washing machine, so we wash at the flat and then go the launderette to dry everything. Not perfect, but it gets us out of the flat.

Today is blustery and rainy. I’m not looking forward to going out at all. I wish you could see the trees blowing. Our garden (back yard) side fence is doing a dance also. I hope it doesn’t come down.

Walt is still trying to get some money from the States. We’ve been in the UK for 4 weeks and haven’t a single pence or pound in our bank account. It amazes me that you can open a bank account, have checks and a debit card, and not have any money in the account. As I’ve said before, we gave HSBC a $10,000 cashier’s check and that hasn’t yet been negotiated. Now that Delight is back from her holiday in Minnesota with Leigh and Allie, we’ve been looking into getting a wire transfer through BofA. Walt talked to HSBC today to get some information Delight needs to get monies transferred. We have to pay phone, utilities, and rent next week. It would be nice to have money in the bank to do it with.

Tonight as I was working on my lesson for Sunday I came across a conference talk by Elder Bruce R. McConkie (April 1978 General Conference). What a marvelous turn of phrase he had as he spoke of the great apostasy and the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don’t want to print all of it, but I will give you a taste:

“When the gospel sun went down almost two millennia ago, when the priesthood was taken away and a dreary dusk descended in the congregations that once had known light, when light and truth no longer shone forth from heaven, and when those on earth no longer were taught and directed by apostles and prophets, then spiritual darkness reigned. Darkness covered the earth and gross darkness the minds of the people. (See

Isa. 60:2.) The dark ages had their beginning, and the light of heaven no longer dwelt in the hearts of those who professed to worship Him whose we are.

“The vision of all became as the words of a book that is sealed. (See Isa. 29:11.) The prophets and seers were silenced; the holy scriptures were no longer made available to the masses of men; none could see the way to perfection; none knew the way back to the Eternal Presence. Earth’s pilgrims, walking in and by forbidden paths, were lost in the blackness of the night” (Bruce R. McConkie, “‘The Morning Breaks; the Shadows Flee’,” Ensign, May 1978).

We just got an e-mail from Delight. Hurrah, looks like we will have some money in 24 to 72 hours and the conversion rate between the pound and the dollar is as favorable as it has been in a long time. However, thank goodness for ATMs. Without them, we would be in a world of hurt: without purse or script.

Tuesday, 13 January 2009
This morning we had an appointment with a less active sister whose husband is so antagonistic toward the church that she can’t attend or even talk about it with her children. There also seems to be great enmity between her husband and her oldest son that is getting ready to go to University this fall. My heart just goes out to her. I can’t imagine having someone tell me what I can or can’t do about my religion or having to decide between my husband and my son. We will try to get back there tomorrow with another Priesthood holder and give her a blessing.

After our appointment we went down to the High Street (just remember every town has a High Street where lots of the shops are) and I took the following pictures of Weymouth Harbor. Today is just a glorious day. The temperature is 10˚C (50˚F) with very little wind.

This picture is of the Weymouth Harbor Bridge. This bridge is a draw or raising bridge. They try not to raise it too often during tourist season as tourism is the major employer of the area. We park over on the left side of the picture and the High Street is over the bridge and down a little way.

While we were down on High Street I ran into the McDonalds to get a picture of it. It doesn’t look like any McDonalds in the States. It is two stories with “retro” seating upstairs also. I’m sure they were wondering what the crazy Yank was doing taking pictures.

Just so you would know it was McDonalds I also took a picture of the counter where they order food.

We had the Elders for dinner this evening since they didn’t do well with dinner appointments this week (the only one being on Friday). I served beef stew and corn bread. Thank you Delight for the recipes. Now I am dangerous: I have recipes and measuring cups and spoons (all the things I’ve taken for granted for years). Oh, boy!!

Walt and the Elders went to the PEC Meeting tonight after dinner and after they tracted for a half hour (they found someone interested in the gospel and got an appointment to teach her on Friday). I boxed up corn bread, cherry pie and custard for them to take home since we had to leave promptly for the meeting as soon as the Elders returned from tracting. I sat in the chapel lobby at a table and worked on my lesson for Sunday (I brought my laptop since I figured I wasn’t really a member of the Priesthood Executive Committee). President Chasteauneuf is going with us tomorrow to help give our sister a blessing.

Tonight it is raining again (but not very hard) with 60% chance of precipitation for the next 3 or 4 days.

Wednesday, 14 January 2009
We woke to a beautiful robin’s egg blue sky this morning – it was glorious. We left home at 10:30 am and finally returned about 9:30 pm. First thing we did was go over and give our sister a blessing. This may turn out to be our first miracle. It seems she had been labeled “No Contact” for years because of her husband, but I didn’t know because it wasn’t noted on the branch list. So, you know me, I contacted her. She is starving for things spiritual. She wants visiting teachers and would like to do some visiting teaching. She is going to try and negotiate with her husband to get out to Sacrament at least twice a month.

We left her with a short spiritual message taken from D&C 68 verse 6: “Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you; and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God, that I was, that I am, and that I am to come.” When things are hard and you feel like your world is tumbling down around you, remember who the Lord is and know that He loves you and will stand by you. You’re never really alone.



Next I went to the Relief Society Enrichment Luncheon (their “Lunch Bunch” which meets religiously monthly). I took these 3 pictures as we were eating. What a great bunch – some very dry wits – I was laughing so hard my sides hurt.

Walt picked me up from the lunch at 1:30 pm and we headed for Blandford (out in the country) to see our appointment for this afternoon. After that we headed the 30 miles back to Bridport (the English thought we were crazy running from one slide of Dorset to the other in one day – well, with petrol at 84.9 pence per liter maybe just a little crazy) to meet with the Ayles (the Branch Missionaries).

Along the way (it was about 3:00 pm) it started misting and raining. I did take a couple of pictures of the pastoral scenery in the rain. Here’s the best.

When we reached Bridport, it was easy to see why people live there so far away from most things (just like living in the Santa Cruz Mountains). The scenery is lovely. I took the following picture off the Ayles back steps:

We had a very nice dinner: chicken stew with carrots, onions, and mushrooms with roasted potatoes, brussel sprouts (the English call them Brussels sprouts), and peas as side dishes. Then for dessert we had a lovely trifle. After dinner we discussed how we would have our first cottage meeting and left the date up to the Ayles since it is easier for us to fit into their calendar.

As we were leaving, the Ayles suggested we take the coast road home since it was the most direct way. I wish it had been during the day when we could see something. It was foggy and we followed a double-decker bus almost all the way home. It was obvious the driver knew the road a whole lot better than we did.

Friday, 16 January 2009
This morning again started out glorious with a beautiful blue sky. Look below: isn’t the sky beautiful? We had an appointment with a sister who hasn’t been out to church for a very long time over a grave misunderstanding. She reminds me so much of Angela Landsbury, calls me Luv, and I just loved her. I hope we said the right things. She is currently feeding dinners to the security personnel who are keeping environmentalists from stopping an alternate route (goes out and around Weymouth) from being built. She promised us that as soon as this commitment was over (end of January she expects), she will come to church.

After the appointment we headed over toward High Street to the letting agent and the HSBC Bank since they sent me a notice that my debit card was there to be picked up. We needed to pay the rent and get that set up for automatic payment.

Since it was so lovely out (9˚C) we decided to walk along the harbor front before going onto to High Street. The first thing I took a picture of was the ferry (cars and all). It is a gigantic catamaran.

Then I took a picture of the 3-master that was across the harbor from us. The name of the ship is the Pelican of London. One of these days, we’ll get over there and really see it.

The next picture I took was of the Gasometer, which is considered a “landmark” of Weymouth. Of course, I went looking for a definition: A gasometer, or gas-holder, is a large container where natural gas or town gas is stored near atmospheric pressure at ambient temperatures. Sorry, just some local color.

This picture is of the Weymouth Bridge from the opposite side as the last picture you saw of it. You have to walk across the bridge to get to the High Street.

At last, a picture is of the 99 Pence Store that I have talked about. It really is true: Nothing is more than 99 Pence.

We spent a little over an hour at the harbor and on the High Street, and when we crossed over the bridge, here is what we saw:

You can see the demarcation just over the houses. The sky below was blue, but the rest of the sky was dark and gloomy. I expect it will rain later.

Since I have time this afternoon I will post this. If something comes up that is really interesting, I’ll put it in the next blog entry. Again, miss and love you all. Jackie