London--Old People's Training

We got to go to London last Monday for the Old Folk's Training!  We went "all by ourselves."  We didn't have any help, and We made it & were there Early!  It was actually quite fun.  We visited with a couple that we went through the MTC with and that was fun to trade adventures.  Then the night before Byron was looking at the list of emails of the couples who would be there, and there was a name from his past--Long Past.  His name is Nephi Chad Watt and he and Byron served their missions together back in 1965-1967.  He's from Pingree, ID and he went to high school with all my old friends from my Elementary School in Moreland, ID.  It was really fun to see him and his wife.  We forgot to take a picture of them.  There was so much going on and we had a Great visit.  It was a wonderful day with the Mission President and his wife and the other couples.  After the training the Sills (who work in our Zone) offered us a ride home back to Gravesend, but they wanted to miss the traffic, so we stayed on London until about 9pm.

 

We decided to go see Harrod's after our meeting and we walked through the back streets for about 10 minutes and this is some of what we saw.  Beautiful!!!  This is a Very Pricey part of London.  These were the Mews in olden times--another word for Stables.

 

 

It was a little wet outside. Did wonders for my hair.  ha ha ha

 

 

That's Harrod's in the background.  The most famous department store in the world!  I picked up a leather handbag to look at it and there was a sales clerk right there and I asked her for the price--10,000 pounds (the exchange rate is about $1.70) and she told me there was another one which was all alligator for 17,000 pounds!  I told her that I didn't own any oil wells.

 

 

This is inside Harrod's.at the deli counter.  In this store you can buy Mink Coats, Leather Purses, Cookies, Groceries, Dine in, Eat out, Make-up, Designer Clothes, etc. I bought a tin of cookies there back in 1985 so I could have a green bag with Harrod's written on it.

  

 

We were almost to the Hyde Park Chapel and it's next to the Victoria & Albert Museum.  That's some old English Chap who agreed to pose for me so I could take a picture of the Museum.

 

This is Yours Truly in front of the Hyde Park Chapel.  The Mission President lives right across the street four floors up.  That's some Expensive Real Estate!!!  They're GREAT People!!!  They also have a Lot of Important (VIP) visitors!

 

 

These were a group of the London Missionaries who have been performing around town.  They did a few numbers for us.  They were Cute!  There's all the "Old People" in front of us enjoying the show.

 

Sunday night we had a dinner/fireside at our flat and I fixed "Café Rio."  I think the kids really enjoyed it.  They Love getting together and socializing.  We have a problem here that the only jobs the kids seem to be able to get is retail and that means they work on Sundays and evenings.  BUT, the stores all close Early on Sunday, so we had them over to our flat and fed them.  We Love these kids!!!  We have a few more that we're seriously working on.

 

 

Flavia had to work in London but she came anyway and we still had enough food for her.  She's our Albanian Beauty.

 

 

There's the entire group that were with us Sunday night.  Great Kids!!!

 

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This is Hazel and her boys.  Sunday night I cooked "Café Rio" and it called for 5 lbs. of chicken.  Well here everything is Metric and the chicken came in Kilos.  Well I put the Entire bag in and cooked it.  I couldn't understand why there was No Liquid in the chicken.  Anyway with All the people who ate here Sunday night, I still had half a crockpot of chicken, so I invited Hazel and her boys over for Family Home Evening!  I made Fresh "Pico" and Fresh Lime Rice.  It was delicious.  They have tremendous appetites and even they couldn't finish it all--so I sent the left overs home for their son who couldn't make it.  This picture was actually taken a few weeks ago when I tried out "Pulled Pork" over here.  There wasn't a "Taste" left!  I found "Bull's-Eye" at the grocery store.

 

Anyway we're doing well--we're LOVING it over here!!!  We're even handling the rain and the walking.  Byron is suffering a bit with his shoulders.  I think it's been All the heavy "carrying" we've had to do.  We have to walk everywhere or take the bus, but that means Groceries, Computers, etc.  It's Hard on these "Old" Bodies!!!  We're getting ready to go teach Institute tonight and we're loving that!  We're teaching the Book of Mormon and it's Wonderful!!!

 

We LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Bye for now!

Lehi Came to our Institute!

Well we are really getting into the work!!!  We have been asked to work with the YSA's (Young Single Adults) and we are holding Institute every Tuesday evening.  We have over 10 YSA's in our ward and seven committed to come and Two showed up Late!  We've got some Work to do here!  The Guys who came were Great though and we really Enjoyed them.  Our full time missionaries also came and lent their support, so that was nice.  Anyway we had a Visitor and he Enhanced the lesson!!

 

The single sisters heard that we were studying the Book of Mormon and they requested to join the YSA's, but that would conflict with the program we're trying to establish with the YSA's, so we are doing it Two nights.  One for the YSA's and One for the sisters or anyone else who wants to join.  We had seven sisters come to the lesson on Wed. night during Mutual.  We found a room upstairs away from the youth and had a GREAT lesson.  Lehi came to that one as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ladies Loved it as well and immediately got out their iphones and took pictures.  One of them posted it on My Facebook page.  In spite of all that, there was a sweet spirit in the room and the lesson was very effective!  We won't be dressing up every time, but it was a good attention getter.

 
 This was our last District Meeting.  We ride to train to Gillingham and then take a taxi to the church.
We had transfers last week and Lost four members from our group.  We've been getting close to them, so it's kind of hard to say good-by.  Our Brazilian, Elder Torres (who looks like he could belong to the Tirrells in our ward) is behind Byron and he was transferred.  He is such a Great Elder.  We will certainly Miss him!  Sister Som (from Cambodia) next to me was transferred and the two elders directly behind her were also transferred.  Elder Yap is from Malaysia and Elder Orr is from Alberta, Canada. 

Actually this is what it really looks like.  ha ha ha  When our six weeks is up, we make guesses where everyone will be serving and then we take pictures.  Since there are no Extra people there to take them, everyone sets their camera on a table (which doesn't get the best view) and then sets the timer on their cameras and then Runs back to their chairs.  We don't always make it.  ha ha ha  Looks like I need to sit up straighter.

Byron with Elder Torres and Elder Palmer.  Elder Palmer is from Sugar House in Salt Lake.  He's just been out 6 weeks longer than we have.  This was in Canterbury.  (Beautiful City)

This is what we woke up to a few days ago.  It's called London Fog!  We can hear the fog horns on the river.  There was a 100 car pile up on the bridge just a few miles to the North.  We can see it on a clear day.  We'll be getting a Lot more of this.

I just can't get over how BIG some of the ships are that travel down the Thames.  It's so fascinating!
I can't even get the entire ship in when it's in front of our flat.  It's too large to see it all at once in the camera.  It looks like there's the equivalent of 18 semi's side by side and who know how high they go.

We spent the day with one of the sisters in our ward who was gracious enough to be our taxi.  We spent seven hours together driving all over trying to find less active members on our ward list.  We stopped at this restaurant for one of the Best hamburgers I have ever eaten.  Couldn't resist taking a picture on our way out.  Just to give you an idea of how expensive it is over here--our hamburgers were 9.5 pounds each. (That's British Money)  Then we shared an order of fries--they were delicious but large, and we each had a Fanta.  For three of us it was $60 in our money.

 

This is one of the areas we were working in.  It was a bit chilly that day.

 

 

 

This was a good looking English Chap that we picked up on the way!  He said he was interested in our message!

 

 

This is Tina at the end of the day.  We had a Wonderful time with her and she was so Gracious to drive us all over the countryside and down the little narrow lanes.  It's truly Beautiful over here. I like having a lady driver, then I can sit in the front seat and enjoy the view.  Tina is a hoot!!  We laugh a lot!  We found people (well they weren't there) who had moved over four years ago.  I guess what I'm saying is we found their homes and talked to their neighbors and found they hadn't lived there for over four years.  We got to one door the same time the cleaners were delivering the cleaning, so they had to acknowledge us, but the person we were trying to see was on the "phone" and couldn't see us.  But we did manage to have two GREAT visits and they were worth the Entire day!!! 

 

Well I could go on, but we have a LOT to do to get ready for our next Institute lesson which is this Tues.  We've had a Very Busy week, but We LOVE It!!!

Bye for now.