Welcome to the Mission

Welcome to the Mission

This has been a hum-dinger of a welcome to the Mission!  We should start off by saying we love it here and the Young Single Adults are nothing short of amazing!

As expected, we both slept in on our first day in the UK since we enjoyed less than two hours of sleep the day before ~ even for us short people sleeping on the plane was all but impossible!  The flights were all smooth, but by the time we landed in Birmingham we were totally sleep deprived.  When we awoke it was raining, but shortly the clouds cleared and we had a beautiful blue sky. 

I went to our refrigerator, this morning, which by the way is just larger than a bread box ~ OK, maybe two breadboxes, to get a cold glass of orange juice only to discover that I had mistakenly turned off the receptacle that powers it.  Have we mentioned that every electrical outlet has its own switch attached to it?

We tried communicating with a few locals today, but could only understand about half of what they were saying.  I guess watching Downton Abby and other BBC programming was not a very effective language training program.

Welcome to Our Flat

Entry Way to the Flat

The Kitchen

The Living Room

The Master Bedroom

The Guest Bedroom
We have room for YOU!

The ELECTRICAL Control Shower in the Shower!
Go figure... 

                           Art work from the grandkids!

The day was going well until we decided to venture out after mustering enough courage to drive a motor car with the wheel on the wrong side and, of course, driving on the wrong side of the road, but then again I guess that is all relative since to the British we have it all backwards … regardless it was nothing short of a challenge no matter who is right!  To make matters worse, the roads are very, very narrow and people park their motor cars wherever they please.  Oh yeah, at least half of the roads are partially blocked with vehicles parked half way on the side walk and the other half blocking the motorway leaving only enough room for vehicles going in a single direction.  We spent way too much time waiting for oncoming traffic to pass by so we could safely proceed ~ its like playing the game of chicken to see who will pull over to let the on coming traffic pass.  And you guessed it ~ we always lost and ended up waiting and waiting and waiting!  If that is not bad enough try dealing with these roundabouts!  Holy cow they are horrible.  Its like trying to jump on or off a merry go round going 40 miles per hour.  Yep you guessed it, it was just another game of chicken.  We must say; however, everyone has been very forgiving of our driving errors even those involved with a few close calls!

The steering wheel is definitely on the wrong side of the car making every drive a white-knuckle ride!

Not sure how to pronounce it, but this is the make of the car.

Back to our venturing out ~ we wanted to find a few electrical adapters and a hot spot so we could email the kids home to let them know that we had landed safely and that all is well.  Sounds easy, right?  After all we have a new Garmin in the car ~ well guess again.  The street names used by our sweet British Garmin lady don’t always match the street signs.  Speaking of those street signs they are often set so far down the desired road that we did’t see them until its too late to turn!  We finally were within a mile or so of our desired destination after sitting in bumper to bumper traffic for nearly an hour and traveling less than a mile when we reached the most important turn in the roundabout and, of course, we erred and speedily drove off in the opposite direction.  At that point another decision had to be made ~ forget the adapter and go find a hot spot as quickly as possible.  After all we didn’t want the kids to worry.

Eureka!  We found a McDonalds!  Even though we don’t eat their food we often used their restrooms and thought what the heck let’s try their WiFi.  Yep we managed to access it and get on line.  Sounds perfect, right?  No way!  For whatever reason their server was down and our emails to the kids are now eternally floating in cyberspace never to reach the kids!

Did I mention we left our flat at 2:30 with just a few errands to run?  The sun sets early over here and it was getting darker by the minute.  Oh yeah, but 5:00 its dark over here and the last thing we wanted to do is drive in the dark!  One of our goals was to go to the grocery store ~ forget it!  We decided we would go to a fish and chips place near the flat.  Another challenging drive for us.  One round about after another and one wrong turn after another.  After nearly an hour of driving a trip that should have only taken about 20 minutes and we found the place ~ ok, it wasn’t really the place we were looking for, but it was a place and they did serve fish and chips so we counted it as a victory, well at least until we got back to the flat, which was another adventure, and our hot food was, of course, cold!  Ever eat cold fish and chips?  DON’T!

                               

Tomorrow we will attend the Harborne Ward, which should take only about 15 minutes to get there.  They meet at ten so we plan on leaving by 8:30 and hope we make it on time.

Our second day got off to a rough start!  Knowing that we never sleep in we did not set the alarm … mistake number one!  I was sleeping soundly when I heard Chris yell out, “Steve, its 8:16!”  Uh oh, and we are supposed to be leaving for church in 14 minutes!  We both jumped out of bed and I rushed to hop in the shower.  No problem, right?  I hit the button to turn the shower on and guess what happened?  Nothing!  No water, no drip, no nothing.  We scurried around the flat looking for a water value that may turn the water on, but to no avail.  I remember Chris saying, “What about that pull chord in the entry way closet.”  “What a stupid idea,” I thought and in my brilliance I simply shrugged off the ridiculous idea.  I continued to look high and low for a valve.  A few moments later Chris told me to, “Check it now.”  I ran into the bathroom and pushed the on button inside our small closet sized shower and hot water immediately came out of the head.  Yep, Chris is now our official plumber ~ she simply pulled the electrical chord in the entryway closet that lead to an electrical box in the ceiling.  Who in their right mind would have come up with such a design ~ in fact, who ever thought of controlling water flow with an electric switch.  It does tend to make us both a bit nervous every time we step into the shower.  We later found out why this system is the way it is ~ the government of the UK does not allow electrical outlets in the bathrooms … mmm, but it is OK to have an electrical water control switch in the shower.  What am I missing?  Regardless, we have a shower and plenty of hot water and we are very thankful for both!

We left for church just after nine and much to our astonishment we accidentally found the church with five minutes to spare…such a tender mercy!

We love the ward and especially Bishop Ward.  One of the first things he did was invite us to sit on the stand so he could, as he put it, “show you off.’  What a crack up!

Birmingham England Stake Center
Harborne Ward

We have twelve missionaries, yes TWELVE, serving in our ward.  At least one set of missionaries, perhaps two, teach in Mandarin Chinese.  

Immediately following the meeting we had to run to the mission office to meet with President Leppard.  The GPS routing took us through the heart of Birmingham, which is the second largest city in the UK and which is totally under construction.  Needless to say, the drive was a nightmare and the system had to reroute us on multiple occasions.  Have we mentioned lately how much we dislike the roundabouts? 

We had a wonderful visit with the President and his wife before driving home IN THE DARK!  Try driving in the dark, on the wrong side of the road from the wrong side of the car after only a day in the UK.  Let’s just say, Chris’ screaming in terror of “left lane, left lane” is still ringing in my years.

Our third day in the UK was awesome because we actually found Costco!  Oh yeah, it was like a piece of home and the best part of all was they carry Skippy peanut butter, a treat we thought we would have to wait for, for two years.  All was going swimmingly well until it was time to leave when we quickly came to our first roundabout and ended up driving down a one way road the wrong way!

Next to driving, the biggest challenge we have been facing is finding stores that will accept our internationally recognized debit card.  Did we mention it is an INTERNATIONAL card … you know, one with a computer chip in it and designed specifically to be used anywhere around the world?  It turns out that some of the stores in the UK have not received that memo yet.  (Note to Self:  find an ATM and get cash.)

By day five we actually started feeling like missionaries.  No television, which we do not miss, only peaceful soothing music in our flat and, of course, reading scriptures and other good books.  We also attended our first stake Young Single Adult Committee meeting and we absolutely love them all.  We have been so warmly welcomed by everyone we have met.  We love the young single adults - all of them!  We already love the mission presidency and the stake presidency ~ each have given us wonderful counsel to love the young single adults and also take time for ourselves to enjoy the rich history of the UK.

We ran to the mission office today.  It brought back such fond memories of the California Roseville Mission because today was transfers.  Did we mention there are 214 missionaries serving here representing 42 different countries?

On day six we attended our first District Meeting this morning and Ward Missionary Correlation Meeting this evening.  It was great just rubbing shoulders with these members who are all dedicated to their callings.

The Mormon world is a very small world - the bishop’s wife is related to the Florence family in Loomis II Ward who we know very well and the Ward Mission Leader’s best friend is married to Arora Florence.  It’s been a good day.

We enjoyed a wonderful dinner with President and Sister Leppard on our seventh day.  They took us to a traditional English restaurant called Toby’s Carvery which featured several roasts, vegetables and potatoes.  The food was really good and the company was outstanding as we had the wonderful opportunity to get to know the Leppard’s really well.  It became very clear very quickly why they have been called to serve - they really are amazing people with such powerful testimonies of unwavering faith.  They are clearly cut out of the same powerful spiritual pattern as are the Weston’s and the Marston’s.

We love Bishop Ward and his family.  We enjoyed a “delightful” Sunday dinner with them.  Their kids are so much fun … reminded me of our grandkids, which, by the way, we miss a lot!

Bishop Ward and Family

We spent today in Birmingham’s China district with Elder Low and Elder   Arocho shopping for food for our YSA Chinese New Year’s celebration this week - so glad they are both Mandarin Chinese speaking elders or we would have been totally lost!  Of course we had to treat ourselves to a traditional Chinese lunch.  We will need to go back to city center in the near future and spend a day or two or even three just walking around there is so much to see there.  Everywhere you look is history, history and more history!  We really do love it here.

Elder Arocho and Elder Lo

 

Birmingham Grand Central Station
Very cool design!

Special treat for the kids!

We have not taken many pictures yet so next week we will post some pictures of the surrounding area … it really is a great place to be.

We had over twenty YSA attend Family Home Evening last night and everyone is simply amazing!  One young sister taught the lesson and it was so powerful.  For the opening hymn we sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and they all have beautiful voices.  After the lesson we all played the Family Feud game and it was hilarious!  We love hanging out with these great young adults!

We took a brisk walk this morning (February 8) and came across this beautiful church just a few blocks from our flat.  It is St. Mary & St Ambrose Church of England.  The church first opened for services in 1895.  We were welcomed into the church and given permission to “walk about” and to take these pictures.  The people were very friendly and we plan to return and hope to have a gospel discussion with them eventually.

First flower of spring ~ right outside our door.