Catching Up From the Past Couple of Weeks

It has been one week today since we arrove in England.  We are really enjoying our time here.  We have a lovely flat that overlooks the Thames.

 

  Two days ago we saw a cruise ship coming up the river and then it got close to the side and a little tug boat came up along side of it and they hooked a large cable from the ship to the boat and the little tug boat pulled on the big ship and turned it around so it could sail back out to sea.  It was very interesting to watch.  One group disembarked and then later on that afternoon, it sailed back out to sea with a new group.  We have seen two cruise ships so far.  All day and all night there are ships & boats sailing up and down the Thames.

August is a vacation month, so we haven't had much to do.  Our bishop has been in Utah and won't be back until Tues.  Church has been run the High Priest's Group Leader and Elder's Quorum President.  We have a very friendly ward, but it's very small.  We have a beautiful chapel. 

There are 35 new missionaries coming into our mission this Wed.  We had a District Meeting last Tues. and out of ten missionaries (not counting us) there were nine countries represented--Brazil (Rio) He looks like he belongs to the Tirrells, South Africa, Malaysia, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, England, & the US (Salt Lake & Las Vegas) & then us of course.  It was very interesting to see all these missionaries speaking English with different accents.  They were awesome missionaries.  We really enjoyed being with them.  Two were Sister Missionaries--England & Las Vegas.

We work under the direction of the bishop and since he is out of town, it's been frustrating for us.  Hopefully we will be able to meet with him this week and get a sense of what he wants us to do.  We have been to a recently re-activated sister's home for dinner with her four boys.  That was interesting.  She cooked a good meal.  She's had a 30 year vacation from church and about a year ago decided to come back.  She has two boys that are 24 and 21 from her first marriage & three from the second--14, 13, & 10.  The 13 yr old is interested.
She taught RS last week and did a fine job.  I played the piano.  In fact I played it in Sacrament as well.  Their only pianist has a broken hand.

Well since we haven't had any direction we have been familiarizing ourselves with the town.  It's a cute town.  We don't have a car, so we've been walking everywhere.  We didn't have a fridge until Thursday--what a blessing they are.  Our little fridge is smaller than our dishwasher at home--about the same height, but narrower.  Butt--it has a freezer the same size on the bottom.  Well there's not as much room in the freezer because of the motor, but it's so nice.  Tonight I cooked "Cafe' Rio" for the Elders.  One is from Salt Lake & the other Brazil.  They loved it!!!  Our Brazillian Elder ate two burritos and then had a large plate of rice & beans.  I couldn't make the dressing as there aren't any tomatillos here and no Hidden Valley Ranch, but everything else tasted very good.

We have been shopping everyday getting things for the flat and food of course.  It's looking cozy, but very different from an English flat.  We don't have much stuff, but it's very comfortable.  I'll send pictures as soon as we get wi-fi.  This has been hard to not have internet service.  We get it Friday.  Nothing happens fast here. 

Bye for now.

Our New Home--Our Flat

I thought everyone would be interested to see where we live.  Actually it isn't bad--much better than we expected.  We Love our little home!!!  This is our little kitchen--actually it's pretty comfortable!  I'll show you some other views, like our fridge, and sink.

 

 

This isn't bad for two people.  We have fed the missionaries twice and it worked fine.  We have four plates, four cups, six glasses, four knives, forks, spoons, etc.  We have to do the dishes so we can eat the next meal.  I think that is the way to go. 

 

Our washing machine is to the left of our sink.  We're grateful to have a washer!!!

Our fridge we're getting used to--it's smaller than our dishwasher at home.  It does have a freezer underneath and it's tiny as well.  We are Grateful to have them though as we went the first 5 days without anything!!  It's been Lovely to have a fridge!

 

We do have a very Cute Flat and we're really enjoying it.  We're right on the banks of the Thames and we see ships passing day and night--great big ones and all sizes.  The tall ships are supposed to be sailing here sometime this year.  We saw a lot of sail boats on Saturday or Sunday--can't remember.

 

 

Byron is studiously working at our dinning room/office table.  The window by him is the one that overlooks the Thames.  I'll show some pictures of that later.

 

 

This is a view of our living room taken from our kitchen.  It's cute and cozy! 

 

 

This is our bedroom and if you're curious, YES it's a Double Bed!!!  It's not bad.  We're going to get a memory foam topper for it.  We tried today, but they were out.  We have our own "little" 3/4 bathroom in what I thought was a closet to the left of the picture.  That is almost unheard of over here, so we feel very blessed!

 

 

It does the job, that's all I can say.  We're Thankful for it!

 

This is our Dryer!!!

We can change things around and put an air mattress in here and we can have company.  We're an hour from Central London on the train.  We at the present don't have a car, so we're bussing it, walking, and riding the train.

 

 

 

This is our closet.  That's our vacuum on top.

 

 

 

This is My bathroom!!!  LOVE it!!!  There are no towel racks and every Nail or Screw we put into the walls here, we'll get charged 100 pounds ($170) so we're making do.

 

 

And This is our Nightime View from our balcony.  Often times there are Big Ships traveling up or down the Thames.  It's Beautiful and we LOVE It!!!

By for Now!

 

 

We're Finally Online!!!

The first picture is us with our daughter-in-law's aunt at the MTC in Provo.  I don't remember their names, but we met the day before we left.  She asked us if we knew Jeff Lovell & we said he's our son.

We had a good time in the MTC and found out that we had the Largest group Ever--we had 129 people.  Most were married.  We were Shocked--we thought there would be a LOT More seniors.  We found out that the #1 reason couples weren't going on missions was Pets!  They couldn't leave their pets.  #2 was they didn't want to leave their grandchildren, and #3 was finances.  The church really caters to couples--they can go for 6 mo., 12 mo., 18 mo., or 23 mo.  There weren't very many couples who were going for 23 mo.  Most were 18 mo., and then 12 mo.  Couples don't have to change companions and they also don't very often change areas.  You can work as CES, MLS,(Missionary Support Leaders), Humanitarian, Temple, and more.  While we were there a new group of over 900 young missionaries came.  The MTC was bursting at the seams, but was extremely well organized.  We had to stay at the Marriott in Provo.......

We were only in the MTC for 3 1/2 days--not very long.  We flew out to London on August 9, 2013.  We flew all night and arrove here at 5:30 am London time.  The mission president and his wife met us at the airport and drove us to the Hyde Park Chapel.  We were there only about an hour+.  The president talked to us and then asked his wife if she was in agreement with what they had talked about.  She said "Yes."  Then he turned to us and told us that he wanted to send us to Gravesend.  It's in Kent almost at the mouth of the Thames River.  It was interesting because that was where Byron had suggested that he felt would be a great area for us to serve because it was the closest area to the London Temple.  Anyway we were very Excited!!!

We got here on Saturday afternoon--didn't have a fridge until the following Thursday.  We went to church on Sunday morning and walked in--nobody knew we were coming.  They had heard that we would be there on Tuesday.  There weren't very many people there--it's August & almost everyone goes on holiday, plus it's a very small ward.  The chapel is lovely and the people were so friendly.  The first thing they asked me was, "Do you play the piano?"  I have played every week since for RS & Sacrament Meeting.  We finally met our bishop this past Thurs.  He was on "holiday" the first two Sundays that we were here.  He's a good man!  We're not sure what he wants us to do yet, but we're sure we'll find out soon.

This was us at the MTC.  I do have more than one dress.  Just happened to be wearing it that day.
I'll write more later and upload some pictures of our flat.  Bye for now.

California Goodbyes

Thanks so much to all of you who came to wish us a sweet good-by!!!  It was a Great night and nice to see so many old friends.  It was fun to have some of our kids friends with their families--seemed like Old times.  I know I didn't get pictures of everyone, but we're still glad you all came!  We're in Utah now and Byron's sister Joan gave us another good-by party so we could see his family and of    course Steve & Lisa and their children and new baby!!!  We are Excited as ever to get to London--we Hope it's cooled down a bit before we get there.  Anyway  Thank you all for your support!!!

 

 

 

I Forgot the Biggest Tender Mercy.....

The church wants to know your complete medical history down to your hangnails and ingrown toenails.  The paperwork your doctor fills out has to have every question answered.  One of Byron's blood tests came back slightly elevated.  the doctor said he would watch it, but Byron told him that we were probably leaving the country for a couple of years and didn't know where in the world we would be.  At that statement our doctor immediately refused to sign our papers until we had everything thoroughly checked out.  We had a life saving experience.  One of Byron's associates had the same condition and just found out that he is terminal.  As hard as these last 12 months have been, this has truly been a Tender Mercy!

The Adventure Begins........

We are going on a Mission!!!  We have been called to the ENGLAND, London Mission and we enter the MTC in Provo August 5, 2013 and leave for London August 9, 2013.  We have been called to be MLS missionaries--which stands for Member/Leadership/Support.  Basically we'll be doing what the mission president asks us to do.

We've had an interesting 18 months.  It's been filled with a lot of Tender Mercies.  We thought we would have been out for a year by now, but the Lord had different ideas.

We started making plans months before Byron retired a year ago in May.  Our first priority was Chad.  We had to make sure he would be OK if we were gone for 2 years.  We Hoped he could stay home and not have his life too disrupted.  Scott & Lindsay had just returned from law school in Florida and were looking for work.  They wanted to be in Sacramento and were willing to live in our home and be here with Chad, but the jobs were hard to find.  they ended up looking ALL over the state.  After much work and prayer, Scott found a job in the AG's Office in Sacramento.  That was our first Tender Mercy.

When Byron retired we had to go on Medicare because of our advancing years, but Chad wasn't covered.  We were not able to find any insurance that would cover him even though he had a current physical and was very healthy.  We didn't know what to do.  After working and praying on this matter for 8 months, we were informed that he would qualify for Medicare in January.  This was a Tender Mercy!

In filling out the mounds of paperwork to go on a mission, we found that the church wants to know three things--how long do you want to serve, where do you want to serve, & what kind of a mission are you interested in.  We found that it's kind of like saying your prayers;  the Lord would like us to be more specific.  We had all kinds of suggestions from lots of different people--some of them in influential positions.  Last summer we were on one of our many "good-by" trips, when we ran into a person I had known in high school.  He happened to be serving on the missionary committee.  We told him of our desire to serve a mission and he then counseled us about being "specific" and he also told us that ALL missions were great, but his personal feelings were that a mission for him, was Working with the People!  He also counseled us to let them know where we wanted to serve, etc.  For us that was a direct answer to our prayers because we were stuck trying to figure out what we should put down.  It felt Right for us.  This was a very Tender Mercy!

Because our paperwork and medical problems took so long to complete we have been blessed in other ways.  One thing that Byron suggested that we do is to start walking.  (One of the requirements of the mission is to be able to walk three miles a day.)  In the last 3 1/2 years I have had a knee replacement and a broken femur.  This extra time has been very helpful to me in strengthening my limbs so that I could do the work on our mission.  We were also able to go to John's graduation from dental school and have been able to spend more time with our grandchildren and children.  We also were able to welcome our newest grandchild, #13.  We have been able to have regular time to study Preach My Gospel and we have been able to continue to serve in our Friday night shift at the temple--which we LOVE!  These have ALL been Tender Mercies!

Bottom line is we're down to just over 2 weeks!