Missionary Journal

England (March 2010 Weeks 1 and 2)

March Week 1

Monday was hair again, laundry, and cleaning. The weather is getting warmer, but the wind chill factor is quite cool. Temperatures are at 45˚ F but with wind about 37˚F.  It is too cold for me to be wondering around. The daffodils are out and lovely in some places (ours are up but still buds since we don’t get a lot of sun in the front; just the back). We wake up to beautiful sunlight in the kitchen (it is just flooded when the sun is shining).

Tuesday was not District Meeting because we have Zone Training on Saturday. President Shamo will be at Stake Conference this weekend. That meant we had the day for visits. We are working with the Branch Council to get Visiting Teachers to all the less–active sisters (it seems to be working). We met with several and their prospective Visiting Teachers and proposed luncheons to get teachers and teachees together. We have a luncheon set up for Kim Shorters and her VTs in two weeks and plan to take the Ayles out to see three of their sisters that live out toward Bridport.

Wednesday I worked on Gospel Doctrine while we were waiting to speak with Merra Lee Moffitt (our financial guru) for our quarterly update on our finances. In 2008 we were down 30% (which was pretty good compared to the Dow) and were up 27% to year end 2009 (which puts us close to being back where we were when the drop-off happened). Thank goodness we didn’t need to draw on those funds (with Dee taking care of house costs we are living here cheaper than at home). Of course, with the exception of software, clipart, and Family History web sites, I’m not buying much of anything. I’m almost always with Walt (unless he’s out on Priesthood duties without me and then I’m usually at home), and we don’t take much of any time for shopping (except for food).  You certainly buy less when you have to think about leaving it here in November when we come home.

Thursday we spent talking with Weymouth folks and preparing for our Salisbury visits tomorrow.

Friday morning Walt and I spent going over the Salisbury membership list. Then we spent the afternoon and evening in Salisbury. We visited with active and less-active members. Of course, Salisbury is a “Cathedral Town.” Salisbury Cathedral is an definitely a Gothic edifice located in Salisbury, about 90 miles southwest of London and 1.5 hours from Weymouth. It was built almost entirely in the 13th century, boasts the tallest spire and the largest cloisters in England, and attracts more than 500,000 visitors yearly. We haven’t had time for a visit but you can see the daffodils outside. One of these days we will make the time. (We did visit when we were here seeing Allie and Leigh years ago.) We finished our visits just in time to have dinner at a pub (The Chestnut) and get to President Moore’s at 6:00 pm. Unfortunately, it took more time than we expected to get our food (they must have had to kill the cow for my steak) and we were late. I spent the evening with Eva (President Moore’s wife) while President Moore and Walt went visiting people that needed to been seen pending possible disciplinary action (it seems President Moore has trouble getting his counselors to go out with him). They returned about 9:00 and we spent another hour chatting before leaving at 10:00 pm. That meant we got home going on 11:30 (it only took an hour and a quarter to return home at that time with almost no one on the road).

Saturday we were up very early and on our way to Bournemouth at 7:45 am to arrive by 9:00 am for Zone Training. We were at Bournemouth Chapel because Poole was being used for Stake Conference. It wasn’t easy to get into bed at midnight and by up at 6:30 to leave!  I’m too old for this!!! Since this was Zone Training, the major activity was being interviewed by President Shamo. We did hear one interesting thing: Due to the Chile earthquake the earth shifted on its axis three degrees and shortened the day. Wikipedia says: Seismologists estimate that the earthquake was so powerful that it may have shortened the length of the day by 1.26 microseconds and moved the Earth's figure axis by 8 cm or 2.7 milliarcseconds. It also moved the entire city of Concepción 3.04 metres (10 ft) to the west. The capital Santiago, moved almost 24 centimetres (10 in) west, and even Buenos Aires, about 1,350 kilometres (840 mi) from Concepción,[19] shifted 3.9 centimetres (1.5 in). Talk about earthquakes in diverse places!

We ran out of Zone Training at 2:00 pm to get to the Priesthood session of Stake Conference in Poole at 3:00 pm. While Walt went to that session I sat in the Stake Clerk’s office and worked on my laptop on my Gospel Doctrine lesson. We were invited to eat with the General Authorities between the meetings and were ready for 6:00 pm (all Adult) meeting. We had Elder Kopischke (President of the Europe Area) and Elder Kearon (Local Area Seventy for the British Isles from Clevedon, England) in attendance. Everybody was speculating on a possible Stake Presidency change out (President Martin has only been Stake President (this time) for nine years).

Here is a picture of the Europe Area Presidency (left to right: President Caussee, President Kopischke, and President Teixeira).

The three things I want to keep in mind from  Stake Conference are:

1. There are three centers of Spiritual Excellence:

- Home: (a) Follow the Principles of the Proclamation on the Family; and (b) Council together at: (1) Family Prayer; (2) Family Home Evening; and (3) Scripture Study.

- Sacrament Meeting: We need to prepare spiritually to attend.

- Temple: (a) Receive Instruction and (b) Receive Revelation.

2. A quote from Sister Julie Beck: Motherhood is the eternal role of the female children of Heavenly Father. The Priesthood role of fathers is to preside and pass the Priesthood to his generation. The Priesthood role of mothers is to hold the family together (spiritual glue) and to influence her children. These roles are complementary and interdependent.

3. Elder Kopischke’s mother used to gather her five children together and sit them on the bed and say: “There is a verse in my patriarchal blessing that says: ‘You will be the mother of obedient children.’ So, act accordingly!” I thought that was great.

Sunday was Stake Conference and we arrived home about 1:00 pm. I ate lunch and sat down to see if I could finish up next Sunday’s Gospel Doctrine lesson. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I finally gave up and went to take a nap. I think I woke up at 7:00 pm and made dinner. I think I was tired. Oh, by the way, we did get a new Stake President (President Crew who had been 2nd Counselor in the Presidency).

March Week 2

Monday we were still trying to gather energy to do much of anything after last week. We did laundry and shopped in the morning and then I worked annotating the Ward/Branch Missionary Process presentation we gave in Weymouth for Salisbury (we are presenting it to their Branch Council tomorrow).

Tuesday was Elder Trevisan’s first District Meeting as District Leader. We had District Scripture Study first and then Elder Trevisan gave a good lesson on Planning, Measuring Key Indicators, and Reporting; then concluding with Time Management.

Tuesday afternoon we were on our way out to Salisbury again visiting and then presenting the “Ward/ Branch Missionary Process. We used their Branch Mission Plan and worked from there to get five names of less-actives to concentrate on activation activities.

Wednesday I pulled together a sharing time for Primary and tried to complete my Gospel Doctrine lesson. Wednesday afternoon we were out and about doing visits in Weymouth.

Thursday we received a big box that contained a “used” computer” for President and Sister Chasteauneuf. Walt spent the afternoon at their home getting it set up. The computer they had was so very old that it wouldn’t open PDFs or print anything very large. That meant that notices he was sent from either Salt Lake or the Stake had to come to Walt or me so that we could print them. Now, they are happily e-mailing, printing, and doing Family History on the computer. In the evening we had the Elders for dinner (Elders Trevisan and Gardner). I made a chili and cornbread casserole (it was Elder Gardner’s first acquaintance with cornbread).

Friday at noon was the monthly Relief Society Potluck Lunch. Here are some of the sisters in attendance (left to right: Val Chasteauneuf, Linda Black (a new convert), two of her friends, Carol White (in the brown skirt you can just see), next to me on my left is Sister Judy McDowell (who is less active but attends these potlucks faithfully).

We left the potluck just about 1:30 pm. There was a small pot by the edge of the driveway that caught our attention.  Aren’t they lovely – setting there among the detritus of last year’s plants waiting for Spring to come.

Here is a picture of Sisters White, Black, etc., pointing out the pot of flowers. You can see that they are waiting at the bus stop that is just outside the Chasteauneuf’s home.

We drove by the house so we could drop off my dish of cottage pie (what little was left). Then we headed out to Salisbury for more visits in the afternoon. We had a very quick dinner at The Chestnut Pub again (it’s just two blocks from President Moore’s home). We spent a few minutes with Eva and then out on splits: Walt with President Moore and me with Sister Evelyn (pronounced Eve Lynn) Watts. Evelyn and I visited three sisters in the time we had. One young woman just turned 18 six months ago and had promised herself when she was 18 and could make decisions for herself she would take a vacation from Church. Well, she has and some of her decisions haven’t been the best. Evelyn was her Young Women’s President, loves her dearly, and spoke quite frankly with her. Hopefully, we will get her back in the fold before any harm comes to her. We arrived home again very late and tired but content with our day.

Saturday, I slept in until after 10:00 am. It seems to older I get the more sleep I need. I always thought older people needed less sleep, but I sure seem to be wrong. I checked on some sleep studies and got the following dated 22 February 2010: “The popular notion that older people need less sleep than younger adults is a myth, scientists said yesterday.

“While elderly people tend to sleep for fewer hours than they did when they were younger, this has a negative effect on their brain's performance and they would benefit from getting more, according to research.

“Sean Drummond, a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Diego, said that older people are more likely to suffer from broken sleep, while younger people are better at sleeping efficiently straight through the night.

“More sleep in old age, however, is associated with better health, and most older people would feel better and more alert if they slept for longer periods, he said.

" ‘The ability to sleep in one chunk overnight goes down as we age but the amount of sleep we need to function well does not change,’ Dr Drummond told the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in San Diego.

" ‘It is definitely a myth that older people need less sleep. The more healthy an older adult is, the more they sleep like they did when they were younger. Our data suggests that older adults would benefit from continuing to get as much sleep as they did in their 30s. That's different from person to person, but the amount of sleep we had at 35 is probably the same amount we need at 75.’

“In his research, Dr Drummond has compared the sleep patterns of 33 adults with an average age of 68 with 29 younger people with an average age of 27. They had their brains scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging, while they memorised a list of nouns.

" ‘Older people who got less than six hours were the ones whose brains could not turn on the areas needed to memorise things,’ he said. ‘Older brains look sleep deprived and the question is, are they really sleep-deprived. Our data suggests that yes, sleep does impact performance and brain function.’

‘The absolute number of hours spent asleep matters more for older people, while for younger people sleep quality is more important, Dr Drummond said. ‘If you were to fall asleep, never wake up until the alarm goes off and then jump out of bed, you have 100 per cent sleep efficiency. In older adults that happens less and less frequently. The most common characteristic of sleep as we age is that you wake up in the middle of the night.

" ‘There is data to suggest that what breaks down as we age is not the need to sleep but the ability to sleep in a solid chunk. As we age the strength of our circadian rhythms breaks down. It's harder to be awake during the day and to be asleep at night.’ ”

OK, so I’m not unique – I guess the pace of my life and what I’m doing means I need more than eight hours of sleep a night. Hallelujah!! Right again!!

Saturday morning we were at Sister Bev Webb’s helping her with her talk for the 21st of March so that she could take the train to Cornwall to visit family for Mother’s Day. This is the first Mother’s Day since her husband died and she doesn’t want to spend it here. In the later afternoon we shopped, I did the bulletin, and we prepared for our duties on Sunday (such as making sure the sisters speaking tomorrow are ready, etc.).

Sunday, since it was Mother’s Day, was not Munch and Mingle. After Church Walt did the tithing and we all (President and Sister Chasteauneuf and Walt and I) took the tithing to the bank (we must have two Priesthood Holders) and then took them home. When I got home we had lunch and I worked for a while on next week’s Gospel Doctrine lesson. I couldn’t keep my eyes open again. Oh, boy, another long Sunday nap and up in time to get dinner ready by 8:00 pm.

Oh, almost forgot. As Val Chasteauneuf and I were sitting on the sofa in the lobby waiting for our men to finish, I was speaking with Melanie Drinkwater. She told me the cutest thing: She has custody of her grandson (Orson) who is almost 5. Melanie asked me how Walt’s back was since he seems to be getting around so well. It seems that every night when Orson says his prayers he remembers to ask Heavenly Father that “Uncle” Reimers back will be better. I guess he doesn’t understand “Elder” Reimers and uses a word he does; so Walt is “Uncle” Reimers. When we are together he calls us the “Cookie” people (since we usually bring cookies when we visit).

Another lovely two weeks in beautiful England. My love to you all, Jackie