Missionary Journal

England (May Remainder 2009)

Monday-Thursday, 11-14 May 2009
Pretty low-key week as we spent lots of time visiting members and doing flat checks on the Elders including the Zone Leaders. I put the flat checklist on the computer so I can complete them and e-mail back to the Mission Office.

Friday, 15 May 2009
We met a less-active couple at the Thomas Hardy in Dorchester for lunch today. It was quite nice and food was good. They have a Monday-Friday luncheon special (several entrée items with a sweet for £4.99). I had a lovely 4 oz. steak with rhubarb crumble and custard for dessert. We had a nice chat and then visited other members in the area that afternoon.

Saturday, 16 May 2009
Today’s special visit was to Carol White’s son (Stephen). I was chatting with Carol one day and said I was very happy to be back here where I can get custard on my dessert. When we were here years ago for Erik’s baptism I discovered custard as the English use it (to pour over everything sweet) and couldn’t find the same thing when I returned to the US. Carol told me her son made the very best custard, and she talked to him about giving me the recipe. The upshot was that during our visit, Stephen said he would have his mother set up a tea time so that I could watch him make the custard and could ask questions as the process progressed since he doesn’t have a set recipe for custard. Those of you who have watched me cook know that I have a measuring cup and spoon for any measurement that is possible. Oh, boy!!

Sunday, 17 May 2009
I taught Sunday School and my lesson was on the 3 Kingdoms of Glory. Fortunately I found out how to remove the background easily from a figure and save it with a transparent background so it can be put into another background. Therefore, here is Jesus walking in the Weymouth Branch building lobby. Really fun!!

The topic for this 3rd Sunday Primary Sharing Time was “I Can Be Baptized and Confirmed.” Since every child in the older group has been baptized and confirmed, I decided to expand my topic to renewing the baptismal covenant through the sacrament. It was fun. I spoke about repentance and being clean again through partaking of the sacrament. Then I took “Peanut Butter Boy” (printed and laminated), calling him Brian and told the story that he wasn’t baptized at 8 and made a few mistakes after his 8th birthday. As I enumerated the mistakes he might have made, I smeared peanut butter on his face. Then I told them when Brian was 9, he was baptized. I picked up a paper towel labeled “Baptism” and wiped the peanut butter off his face. Then we talked about some of the sins he might have committed after baptism. With each one, I wiped more peanut butter across his face. Then we spoke of repentance and I picked up another paper towel (this one labeled “Sacrament”) and wiped his face clean. Not terribly creative, but it got the point across.

Monday, 18 May 2009
Today was laundry, house cleaning, and my hair appointment (every 4 weeks).

Tuesday, 19 May 2009
There was no District Meeting this morning since Zone Meeting is Thursday. This afternoon we visited some folks in Weymouth and then in the evening went on a Blue Bell hunt with John Dadds and 2 of his boys. He took us to the Thorncombe Woods. It was a lovely evening (the sun doesn’t set here at this time of year until after 9:00 pm). We wondered through the woods and came to the conclusion that the blue bells (flowers) were quite early this year and probably were past their prime. However, I took more than a couple of pictures. Here are Walt and John Dadds talking.

This is a picture of my crazy husband imitating Tarzan (notice the short pants).

Next we have John doing the same thing to his son.

Here we have a picture of one of John’s older sons, Tom. Tom is in my Sunday School class. It seems he is as much an avid picture taker as I am.

This is one picture of the blue bells (they grow wild here and I’ve also seen them in gardens). The woods were lovely and quiet and we had an absolutely super time.

Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Today we visited more people in Weymouth ending up with Brother Joseph Paul. He is our 89-year-old widower who lives in an extension his son built onto his own home. Joe goes out twice a week in his car, takes a walk, and has lunch at a pub. He showed us his books on “Pub Walking.” He also told us about a lovely church that is at Moreton. Fortunately Moreton is only a few miles from the most south-eastern members. We haven’t been to visit them for a while, so we decided to go out to Moreton tomorrow morning and work our way back to Weymouth.

Thursday, 21 May 2009
Moreton is out in the country as can be seen by the picture to the left. The road is overgrown by trees and is extremely picturesque.

Just as we started from the car park, we saw people going into what looked like a small cemetery. Sure enough it was a cemetery and just happened to be the one where T. E. Lawrence was buried (you know, Lawrence of Arabia). This is a picture I took of his grave. It seems to be quite a tourist attraction. There was a tourist bus parked there and people were around the cemetery and church.

The church at Moreton is St. Nickolas and I have absolutely no idea what denomination it is. However, it is more than lovely with etched windows and set in a quiet tree lined spot in the English countryside.

Of course, we went into the church so I could take a few pictures of the windows:

Here is what I call the Nature Window.

Here is an enlargement of the butterfles in the left hand corner of the window:

Here is an enlargement of the top ball in the center pane of this window:

Here is what I felt was the most interesting window (I called it Cosmos):

Here is a picture of the inside of the chapel from the middle of the pews facing the altar:

This is a picture of the Moreton Gardens. I took several more pictures of the gardens.

To the left are dark pink and white rhododendrons and below a hawthorn bush.

Here is a beautiful wisteria covered trellis.

More gardens.

Our first stop was at Derek and Paula Whitthread’s home (the first house on the right).

This is the view of their yard with a pasture and horses beyond.

Along the road after we left Whitthread's there is a White Horse Pub. I thought it was a neat name but didn’t realize why it was called that.

As you look to the right across the road, you see White Horse Canyon and the White Horse Farm.

Friday, 22 May 2009
Today was Zone Meeting. We picked up Elders Arrington and Crockett at 7:15 and left for Poole. Since this was President and Sister Swinton’s last Zone meeting, it was a bitter-sweet meeting. They are not leaving until the end of June, but the last meeting we will have will be a Mission Temple Conference where all the zones in the England London South Mission will attend at the London Temple.

Sunday, 24 May 2009
Today I taught Relief Society (4th Sunday). I taught the “Adversity” talk by President Eyring from the April General Conference.

We discussed the ways we can cope with adversity: Prayer, Scriptures, friends, and family.

After church we had our Missionary Correlation meeting and pulled together things we would like to see happen in the Branch: (1) bulletins with announcements; (2) quick stand-up meetings prior to church so that the leaders of the auxiliary organizations would know who and what investigators would be in church that day; (3) some “linger longers” or (as Elder Arrington suggested) “at the trough with Chasteauneuf;” (4) more activities less-actives or investigators can attend; and (5) a Sunday Sacrament devoted to missionary work.

Monday, 25 May 2009
Today our landlord (Clive Cassidy) came to work on our flat. He bought me a new convection (electric) oven. It is super – when you dial for a certain temperature, the oven stays at the temperature. He also put a heater in the bathroom (wonder of wonders – warm bathroom!) and retiled the shower (it had been leaking through tiles that weren’t well grouted).

We really like him; he is a great landlord. He was an Army pilot and then flew for different companies as a corporate pilot. They own this flat, another in town (near the harbor), and their home near Cambridge.

While he was working on the house, Walt and I did laundry.

Since today was another bank holiday, the library was closed; fairly early the Elders called to see if they could use our laptops to do the 0.5-hour e-mail time they have per week. That’s Elder Crockett (left) and Elder Arrington (right).

Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Today was District Meeting and then the Yeovil Elders did a split with our Elders. We got Elder Hardy and Elder Arrington, while Elder Crockett stayed in Yeovil with Elder Kuse. Since they were doing splits, we brought bag lunches and got back to the flat about 2:00 pm.

This evening we had Branch Welfare and then Branch Council. Since the Elders sat on the side of the room that we started on for announcements or activities, Elder Arrington brought up all the suggestions we had from Missionary Correlation. As a group, the Branch Council thought all the suggestions were great and voted to put them into operation. We will do our missionary Sacrament meeting on 14 June since the first Sunday in June is Stake Conference. In order to get a bulletin moving, I took the responsibility. It isn’t going to be easy – no one wants to put something down on paper in case it changes. We’ll see??

Wednesday-Friday, 27-29 May 2009
These three days we were visiting members mostly in Weymouth. We’ve managed to contact 80% of the members so far this month. I worked on my Sunday School lesson and contacting people for the bulletin.

Friday evening we had the Elders for dinner (8:00 pm so they could go knocking early before most parents are putting their children to bed). I made a roast, baked potatoes, salad, and cooked zucchini, with a rhubarb crumble for dessert.

Saturday, 30 May 2009
Before we headed out for the day, Walt made about 3 dozen peanut butter cookies (with Skippy Peanut Butter, of course). These are for a fireside we are having tomorrow. There is a group of young people walking around England doing a 2-month English Literature/History Cultural class. They will put on a program of song and spiritual thoughts. It should be fun.

As we were over on Portland Island visiting members, I took this picture of the sailboards in Weymouth Harbor. I was a little too late to take pictures of the kite-surfers, but you can clearly see the little triangle sails.

Goodness, having 40-some young people and two professors (one literature, one history) and their wives added to our congregation made it nicely crowded. I wish we could do that every week. I didn’t get any pictures of the group since the fireside was in the chapel, but they did a wonderful job of their presentation. I think it is great that you can take a group of English Lit/History students and get a choir like that. Of the 40, at least two could play the piano, one played the flute, all but one sang, two conducted, and it was beautiful. I made lemon bars this afternoon and all the cookies and lemon bars disappeared quickly afterwards.

I will post this now (since it is the first of June) and work on this week’s journal. All my love to everybody. Jackie