THE MANY FACES OF MISSIONARY WORK
So much has happened since our last post nearly seven weeks ago. First of all, its hard to believe that we have been serving for almost seven months already - the weeks are just flying by! Sorry if this is a bit long, but there is just so much to share; nevertheless, we hope you enjoy every bit of it!
SHARING THE GOSPEL
We love teaching the gospel to those not of our faith. It is always such a powerful experience! This quote from Elder Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles pretty much sums it all up: "This is God's work, and God's work will not be frustrated. But there is still much to be done,” (The Truth of God Shall Go Forth, October 2007 General Conference).
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Our Friend John
Check out the paintings on the wall that he did!
Doesn't he look like John Muir? |
This past month we have had the wonderful opportunity to witness several baptisms and we were honored to be asked to speak at several of them. Best of all we have become such good friends with all of them. John was recently baptized and loves to do oil paintings of some of the greats and ride his 1932 Indian motorcycle - he reminds us of John Muir. Maria is from the former Yugoslavia and she will be getting baptized in a few weeks. She is amazing - she walked into the church on her own one Sunday and asked if she could attend! Her daughter will soon start taking the lessons in France. Just last week we starting teaching Phillis who is from Ireland and, of course, we taught the twins from Iran who were recently baptized as well. Exciting times! Sadly, not everything is good news - another Maria, this one from Portugal, has clearly felt the spirit and wanted to be baptized until her minister filled her head with anti-Mormon nonsense. Sad, but we continue to pray and hope that she will come back. During one of our last visits with her, without notice she had a dinner of pizza, crisps (that would be chips for you Yanks), bacon and popcorn - even though we all had eaten dinner previously we didn’t want to be rude so we ate … AGAIN!
INSTITUTE
We continue to teach Institute on Wednesday evenings in Birmingham and in Lichfield on Thursdays. It is a lot of work, not the least of which is feeding upwards of 40 YSA prior to class every week in Birmingham. It is a real labor of love for us with meals ranging from grilled hamburgers to jacket potatoes (baked potatoes with lots of goodies). We rarely return to our flat with any leftovers! Our class topics have ranged from the tremendous contributions of women in the church to the history of temples or archeological and scientific discoveries that testify of the truthfulness of the Gospel. Below are just a few exampled:
- Moses 1:33 “And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.” Google Proceedings of the National Science Academy Study Published in November 2013.
- Another great read, especially for those who attend the temple, is “Evidences of a Christian Population in the Egyptian Fayum and Genetic and Textile Stdies of the Akhmim Noble Mummies.”
- Look up Jane Elizabeth Manning! What an amazing woman with an incredible testimony of the gospel! Or look up our good friend Renee Heck Tully. What an incredible life journey she had and we are so thankful we had the opportunity to meet her several years ago at a service project and remained in touch with her until her passing.
DUDLEY ZOO AND CASTLE
Our Area President has said repeatedly that he wants the Senior Missionaries to enjoy their missions. We only needed to hear that once! Even though mission life is hard work, long hours and exhausting it is full of many, many blessings and we love it! In early July we took a day off to get an “animal fix” so we visited the Dudley Zoo and Castle. What a cool set up. They have built up a beautiful zoo in the area immediately surrounding the Dudley Castle. They even converted the castle’s mote into water features for seals, sea lions and the like. It was truly an amazing day. One of the things we liked best about the visit was how close you could get to these beautiful animals. Inside the castle ruins they set up several sections with animal and insect exhibits to reflect what life was like living in a castle. The exhibits included rats, mice, maggots, spiders and bats … lots and lots of bats. We know that sounds yucky, but it really was one of the most incredible exhibits we have ever seen. No doubt if time permits we will likely visit it one more time.
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Planning on bringing this kitty cat home with us after the mission.
Want to scratch his head and hear him purr? |
BREXIT
No doubt you have all heard about England voting to leave the European Union. All we can say is it was a very heated election and they are still debating the issue! The referendum turnout was amazing with nearly 72% of all eligible voters casting their ballot.
Just in case you didn't know, the European Union - often known as the EU - is an economic and political partnership between 28 European countries. It began after World War II to foster economic cooperation, with the idea that countries that trade together are more likely to avoid going to war with each other.
It has since grown to become a "single market" allowing goods and people to move around, basically as if the member states were one country. Interesting the Euro is used in only 19 of the 28 member countries. The EU also has its own parliament, which establishes laws in a wide range of areas - including the environment, transportation, consumer rights and even things like mobile phone charges.
Those that voted to leave the EU said Britain was being held back by it, which they said imposed too many rules on business and charged billions of pounds a year in membership fees for little in return. They also wanted Britain to take back full control of its borders and reduce the number of people coming here to live and/or work. The Leave campaign also objected to the idea of "ever closer union" and what they see as moves towards the creation of a "United States of Europe.”
BLACK COUNTRY LIVING MUSEUM
We enjoyed a recent P-Day visiting the Black Country Living Museum with Sisters Lowder and Berrett along with Elder and Sister Spors. We had so much fun with them. Elder Spors worked in the mines in his younger years so he was able to share personal experiences and in sight to life in the mines, which few people get to have.
The Museum is an open-air museum of rebuilt historic buildings in Dudley in the West Midlands. The museum occupies 26 acres of former industrial land partly reclaimed from a former railway goods yard, abandoned lime kilns and former coal pits. Most buildings were relocated from their original sites to form a base from where demonstrators portray life spanning 300 years of history, with a focus on 1850-1950.
The area claims to be "the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution” and is famous for its wide range of products ranging from nails to the anchor and anchor chain for the Titanic.
We enjoyed the best fish and chips we have had since arriving in England.
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| Best Fish'n Chips Ever |
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| Sisters Lowder & Berrett Chowing Down |
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| Sister & Elder Spors |
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| Hanging Out with Some Locals |
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| Ready for the Mine Tour |
NEW ASSIGNMENT
We were recently contacted by our Mission President and asked to write a series of newspaper articles about missionaries serving in or from the greater Birmingham area. Once an article is finished we will work with the various Stake and Area Public Affairs team to get the articles published in the local newspapers, which we are excited to do. Our first story is going to be about Jordan Whitaker, one of our YSA, who recently received his mission call to serve in the Alpine Germany Mission. What is so amazing about Jordan is that at age 14 he was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and the prognosis was not good. He is now cancer free and his journey is nothing short of a miracle!
FORTH OF JULY CELEBRATIONS
We put on two Forth of July celebrations complete with grilled hot dogs, watermelon and all the rest. The first celebration was on the afternoon of the forth with all our missionaries in the District - all but one of which is from the United States and he is from Finland. Part of the first celebration included a short fireside on the Declaration of Independence and we even had them read that amazing document. Sadly, none had ever read it before (this really should be REQUIRED reading for every high school student).
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| We played and ... |
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| ... we ate! |
The second celebration was that evening for Family Home Evening with the YSA just from the Harbone Ward who asked how we celebrated the Forth of July so we showed them (except no fireworks)! We had over 20 YSA show up and it was a blast!
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A few hours later we ate again!
Daren, Cameron, Julia and Bradley. |
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| Jamie, Camie and Jared |
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| Curtis, Jennie and Sharoon |
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| Chole and Curtis (Sweethearts) |
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| The Challenge! |
So thankful the weather cooperated with us for both celebrations. In spite of the great time we had we both missed being home on the 4th, which we never expected.
CAMPING, CANOEING & HIKING
Have we mentioned recently what a tough mission assignment we have? Last month we went on the long awaited and much anticipated campout with 22 YSA (sadly several had to drop out due to illness and changing work assignments - we missed them). We camped at the Bibblins Youth Camp on Friday night where we roasted hot dogs on an open fire, which was a first for many of them, made Smores (note to self: you cannot buy graham crackers in England - use Digestives (unique cookie similar to graham crackers)), sang “A Child’s Prayer,” told stories and laughed late into the night.
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| Get'n ready for the fire... |
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| Nothing like roasting marshmallows over the fire ... SMORES! |
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| Jennie love'n them Smores! |
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| Tina, Megan and Ruby |
The next morning we arose bright and early … well early, but not necessarily bright … enjoyed a light breakfast and dropped our canoes into the River Wye where we canoed for nearly four hours.
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| Timmy Amison ~ Reported to the MTC this Week Headed for Lyon, France |
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| Chris Hughes - Rise Shine Sleepy Head |
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| Breakfast in the Mess Hall |
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| Wow who is that old guy? |
Fortunately, nobody rolled their canoe and no one fell in, but there was plenty of splashing throughout. We saw so many amazing sites as we canoed into Wales. It was so cool to canoe under a bridge at Monmouth, Wales. We don’t know how old the bridge is; however, it was widened in 1835! The town itself was the site of a small Roman fort called Blestium, and the village was established after the Normans built a castle there after 1067. A little bit of history for you, King Edward II was briefly imprisoned at Monmouth Castle in 1326 after being overthrown by his wife Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer, the Earl of March.
Here is a little tidbit for you that may come in handy someday - NOT - the Council of British Archaeology designated Monmouth as one of the top ten towns in Britain for archaeology … bet ya didn’t know that!
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| Sharoon and Jared Up for the Challenge |
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| Chris is such a romantic - picking flowers from the shore for Meg is true love! |
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| Monmouth, Wales |
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| Jamie, Chloe and Darren |
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| Sarah, Jennie and Erin |
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| Michael, Timmy and David Amison |
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| Michael and Kynna - gaga over each other! |
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After four hours of paddling what else is there to do?
TAKE A NAP OF COURSE! |
We pulled the canoes out of the water at Redbrook, Wales, which is a village in Gloucestershire, England, adjoining the border with Monmouthshire, Wales.
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| Time to chill! |
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Sunbathing in England?
Nope ~ nap time! |
Redbrook was historically an important industrial center with many industrial sites including mills, an ironworks, tinplate works and copper works. The oldest site is the King's Mill, which was a corn mill and was first recorded in 1434 and remained in use until 1925. The village once boasted no less than 13 Inns and three breweries. It now has a booming population of 372 ... we fell in love with the place!
Redbrook is in a small valley. As we ate lunch an RAF aircraft, apparently on a training exercise on flying below radar, came flying through the valley just above our heads. I suspect it was no more than 100 feet above us. It was an amazing site (sure wish we would have had the camera out).
As if we didn’t get a good enough work out canoeing, everyone wanted to hike British Camp so off we went driving through the English country site in search of the trailhead.
The British Camp is an Iron Age hill fort located at the top of Herefordshire Beacon in the Malvern Hills. The fort is thought to have been first constructed in the 2nd century BC. Later a Norman castle was built on the site. The height of the summit of British Camp is 1,109 feet.
Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff and Willard Richards visited British Camp where they discussed and decided to print the Book of Mormon and a new hymnbook in England.
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| We All Made it to the Top |
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| Jennie (with the camera), Cloie, Sarah, Kynna, Michael (sweethearts) & Darren |
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| At the Trailhead |
We love the video below that Kynna Alforque, one of our YSA, made of our hike to the top of British Camp ... the video just says it all. ENJOY!
FOOT GOLF
We had a District P-Day activity recently and we all played Foot Golf at the Harborne Church Family Golf Course. Just in case you have never heard of Foot Golf before, which, by the way, neither had we until then, let us explain. Instead of using a golf ball and clubs the players use a football, a.k.a. soccer ball. It was so much fun and, much to our surprise, the course is shared with real golfers playing the real deal. We are pleased to report that Chris, who was a kickball champion in grammar school, did great; however, Steve took dead last out of the eight foot-golfers!
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Elders Holbrook, Jamie our Assistant Ward Mission Leader, Huff, Robey, Sisters Lowder & Berrett
Elder Kinnunen (Our favorite Finn!) |
Room in the Hole for Balls and the Pin
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| Lunch After Nine Holes of Foot Golf |
THE MOVE
When we first arrived in the mission field we were told that we would have to move in July. The mission has rented our current flat for years, but the lessor’s granddaughter will be moving in this August. Its been a great place to live; however, move we must so move we did! We are so thankful for the help we received from several of the YSA and our Zone Leaders and it only cost us a dozen donuts … talk about cheap labor.
Our new address is: 62 Jacoby Place, Priory Road, Edgsbaston, Birmingham B5 7UW, United Kingdom.
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Becca & Jared
~ NOTICE THE TWINKLE IN THEIR EYES ~ |
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Elders Short & Huff (our Zone Leaders) and Jared
Donuts Gone - Payment in Full |
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| Moving Crew Supervisor |
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| Jordan ... the Beast |
We were especially impressed that Jared brought his girlfriend to help! They live four hours apart and she took the coach, a.k.a. bus, down for a visit with him and, much to our surprise, they gave up a few of their precious hours to help us! To say the least we were humbled and honored by their help!
THE WEDDING
Our beloved Brother David Taylor, a.k.a., our favorite Nigerian, invited us to his daughter’s wedding. Brother Taylor is a former pastor who was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints just over two years ago - we love him! He has nothing yet he is the happiest person we know. Anyway … the wedding was a Nigerian / Baptist wedding. It was like nothing we had ever experienced before! The parents and most of the family wore the most beautiful of traditional Nigerian formal wear - it was truly a wonderful cultural experiences for us! The ceremony itself lasted for nearly three hours with lots of “amens,” shouts of “hallelujah” and the pastor asking, “can I hear an applause for Jesus.” Tell you what - the faith and love of Christ these people have is so powerful! We are so thankful Dave invited us to attend ... it was just so cool to witness!
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Dave Taylor
Proud Father of the Bride |
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| Anxious Mother of the Bride |
WITLEY COURT AND GARDENS
After the wedding we drove out to Witley Court and Gardens with Elder and Sister Michaelis. Witley Court was built by Thomas Foley in 1655. Until a disastrous fire gutted the house in 1936, Witley Court could claim to be one of the finest stately homes in all of the UK. There was a manor at Witley as early as Saxon times, and after the Norman Conquest the land was granted to a relative of William the Conqueror.
The manor had its own private church - Witley Church - which has an amazing Italian Baroque interior. The church’s pipe organ was once used by Handel.
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Along the path to Witley Court was discovered this beautiful oak tree,
no doubt it is hundreds of years old! |
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| Sister and Elder Michaels from Orem, Utah |
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| Witley Court Lake |
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Since a picture is worth a thousand words nothing needs to be said.
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FSY
For the Strength of Youth is the European version of Especially for Youth. We had the wonderful opportunity to be chaperons on the bus taking 36 youth to FSY, which is held at the University of Nottingham. We had so much fun with them and it just reminded us how much we miss working with the youth at home and especially Girls Camp (NOTE TO OUR PRIESTHOOD LEADERS - remember that when we return in 2017...PLEASE). The setting is beautiful and each bus is greeted by a cast of singing and dancing counselors. Of course Chris was more than happy to join in on the dancing while Steve just ran around taking pictures and visiting with our YSA who are on staff.
