Only a Couple of Weeks Left in England

A lot has happened the past two months.  I will try to be concise and yet informative. We are sad to be leaving England, as we have loved the work, the scenery and the people, but we are anxious to see our family and friends once again.

Rapeseed fields were everywhere

April was an amazing month as the countryside exploded in color as the fields of rapeseed blossomed in golden splendor.  There were acres and more acres of bright yellow fields which took our breaths away.  This was followed with blooming flowers of all kinds in May. Our own Gamsey Woods were filled with a carpet of glorious bluebells.

Poppies and peonies in front yard

Bluebells in Gamsey Woods, which is in our yard

I don't usually get this excited about flowers, but we had a very long winter, so new splashes of color were good.

Our own roses

During this time Jill and two of her daughters visited, and we had many choice experiences with them.

Inside the cathedral in Ely

We were also able to visit with our granddaughter Abbie, who was in London on a 6-week study abroad program with BYU.  We spent part of an afternoon with her after attending the temple in London, and enjoyed seeing her flat.  Driving in London is a real treat.  It took us 2 1/2 hours to drive the 40 miles from the temple to Abbie's flat. The concept of I-15 cutting into the heart of the city is non-existent here, and traffic tends to be terrible.  By the time we finally took her to lunch, we were ALL starving.

Our work load continues to increase as we are racing against deadlines where certain houses need to be completed for new tenants.  We have been killing mould on walls and ceilings, painting, fixing pipes, leveling ground with a spring harrow and rakes,  planting grass, mowing a TON of existing grass, and installing mailboxes, to mention a few of our projects.  Of course, there are always unexpected snags in the work which need to be resolved before we can move on, but we keep working as fast as we can.  One such snag occurred when Bruce was replacing some floorboards but hit some hidden water pipes with three screws.  Not good, but fixable.

The big news in May was the Royal Wedding.  No, we did not join the thousands throughout the country who watched the events at various royal palaces on big screen TV's.  We spent the day with a small group of saints and our guide touring the Benbow Farm and pond, where thousands of United Brethren were converted and baptized by Wilford Woodruff.  We also were able to visit another church built in 1859 from the stones and plans of William Tyndale's church on the same location where he heard the call to translate the Bible into English in 1523.  Although martyred in 1536 he wrote, "But the word of the Lord endureth forever."  Side trips to the Roman Baths and Stonehenge made the trip even more enjoyable, especially with our guide.  I won't mention the rented van that suddenly broke down with a broken crankshaft pulley in the middle of nowhere....just part of the experience that makes for a great journal entry.

William Tyndale church

This is my "Windy Day" hairdo at Stonehenge

On the local front, Bruce and I were able to participate in early morning Seminary for two days, and gave eulogies at the "Funeral for the Nephite Nation", which was quite fun.  We recently did our Ministering by having a summer barbecue (it was actually quite chilly and windy with temps in the low 50's), and then played Rounders with the kids, which we plan to teach our grandkids at our upcoming family reunion.
I have been working with the Young Women on a couple of Polynesian dances for a fundraising Luau, as well as teaching them  some hand chime numbers that we will be performing in a couple of weeks.  These are all new experiences for the Young Women (the girls couldn't even say the word Luau), and they have been having a lot of fun learning new skills.

Some roadsigns that caught our eye recently were "No Fly Tipping", and "Watch for Elderly People", which we interpreted as Watch for Elderly Pickpockets.

No, you don't have to blindfold your cats.  This means that there are no reflectors in the middle of the road.

This is what I learned in choir about reading music:  a crotchet is a quarter of a semi-breve (or a quarter note and a whole note), a quaver is half a crotchet (figure it out), a minim is 2 crotchets, and watch out for  semiquavers because they are really quick to sing (sixteenth notes).  What language are they speaking?  This place is delightful and we will miss it.   If you really want to get technical, they also have a demi-semi-quaver, and a hemi-demi-semi-quaver note, but you don't see them very often.

Can you name the notes.  There are some crotchets and quavers.

The experiences we have had here have reconfirmed our feelings that it was not "chance" that we have been serving in England for the past year.  We have retraced the steps of our ancestors and felt of their faith, dedication to the Gospel, and sacrifices.   This has made our lives richer and brought us closer to them.

                                                Good bye England.  We will miss you!

Time Goes Marching On

March came in like a frozen lion and went out as a drenched lamb.  The amount of rain we had hampered some of our outside jobs, but there was still plenty to do.  At the first of the month there was water damage in two of the larger homes we service from frozen pipes, and at the end of the month we had water damage in our own flat from an exploding washing machine.  Naturally, all three of these homes experienced the leaks on the top floors, so the two bigger homes had parts of the ceiling that collapsed, but our leak just made a waterfall through a light fixture downstairs.  We pulled out a lot of soggy carpets in March!

Yup, this is my laundry "room", but now it's all patched, painted and pretty!

This is the dryer in the living room.  A bit inconvenient until the laundry space was repaired, but it worked!  A bit awkward when the Visiting Teachers dropped by.

One tender mercy this month was an answer to prayer that can only be classed as a miracle.  Bruce had been working for many months to research, find, arrange, and expedite the delivery of a mower deck that was only available from the states.  This required negotiations with our farm manager, the seller in the states, the shippers and the receiving company in England.  After completing all the paperwork, the shipment was in limbo for awhile,  sitting at a shipping dock in Chicago because of a matter that was unforseen, and seemed unsolvable without a lot more money and time involved.  After diligent fasting and prayer, Bruce received an email stating that the shipment was moving forward.  The agent stated that he could not explain how that happened, as it was a most unusual occurrence.  The Lord is indeed involved in the matters of our lives and service.

Enough about work for now, the highlight of the month was more family visits from our daughter Melinda and her daughter Ella, who live in Arizona, and from Marcie's family from Indiana.

In high school Melinda had been an exchange student in Germany, so while she was in Europe she wanted to go back to the Hamburg area to see her host family, her old home, school, and other familiar sights.  So Ella and I accompanied her on this excursion for 2 days. 

We had a great time, saw some beautiful sights, attended an evening fireside at the church, and ate some amazing food!

    We are on the roof of a Cathedral in Ely, England, after climbing LOTS of small winding stairs.

Marcie and Melinda's visits overlapped by 3 days, so we were sleeping and feeding twelve people in our tiny flat!  It was cozy and wonderful!  Marcie had served her mission in the Manchester area, so her family traveled all over the northern areas of England, including a piece of Scotland and Wales.

Unfortunately, I didn't catch a picture of their entire family, because the day we went to London, Gwen and Claire stayed behind with Aunt Melinda (and they had a GREAT TIME!) So this is Marcie with 3/4 of her family, and cousin Ella.  

                             Jason was a great help in getting us on the right underground trains!

   This is the exact location where Melinda had her picture taken years ago when she was visiting from Germany with her school class, and where Bruce and I had our picture taken for our Christmas Cards this past year.

We were hanging out with a Roman Dude outside the Tower of London

We loved having the time to spend with family!

One of our historical excursions took Bruce and I to a castle/fortress in Lincoln.  This picture is looking down on an old prison within the walls of the castle.  The rounded section is the prison church, which is the only remaining original prison church in the country, and was quite unique.

  This shows the cubicles that the prisons would have been sitting in.  There was absolutely no interaction with anyone.  Their view was totally restricted so they could only see the preacher.

I got a first hand glimpse of four peacocks this month, while I was within four feet of them.  Actually I was feeding them bread crumbs.  Three were pea hens, then the peacock came around and started strutting his stuff.  It was beautiful.

This is the backside of a fully fanned peacock.  The little white feathers are very fluffy.

The month ended with us feeding three young missionaries, and I happened to serve roast a'la FLOOR!  The oven door is so low that I am doubled over to extract the contents of the oven, and the roasting pan happened to bounce off the door, tipping everything on the floor...roast, grease and gravy drippings.  The missionaries didn't seem to mind, so the dinner went on...after mopping up the grease.

For those who know us well, we couldn't let April Fools pass by without a little fun, so we spread some "joy" (wooden joy) around the ward.  We had some funny results!

Conference was amazing, and we are moving forward with faith and confidence.

It's Us Again, and We're Still in England

The weather has been very British this past month.  It has been cold, windy, and rainy. Right now we are experiencing a brutal storm from Siberia which includes snow drifts and icy roads. Great weather for thermals.

The work schedule for the men has included making minor repairs on houses and a major moving project.

These are the old shops that we moved out of

Our wood and tool shops (right behind our house) have been ear marked for a major renovation, turning them into two new homes, so we had to move everything of worth out to another place that isn't as handy...or big.  The newer place is 1/4 the size of what we had.  Bruce and Elder Foy made shelves, tool holders and work benches for the new facility.  Picture a workshop that has been accumulating "stuff" for over 25 years and now needs to be sorted, cleaned and moved.  It has been a big job, involving trips to the recycling drop, charity shops and rubbish bins.  It has been a cold job, but we are making progress.
Sister Foy and I have been helping with the move as well as painting two vacant houses.  One of the houses has water creeping up all the interior and exterior walls on the ground floor, which results in white salt crystals growing like soft fuzz on the interior walls, as well as big wet spots in random places and sizes on the walls.  So, we have been painting the upstairs rooms for now, while the men were removing carpets, baseboards, and doors downstairs in preparation for the professionals who will try to fix the water problem.  For those interested, the color choice for walls in England is magnolia.  It shows up in nearly every house.

While cleaning out the new shop we found this adorable doll house that the previous owner didn't want.  It has carpets on the floor, curtains at the windows, wallpaper, and even some real glass in some of the windows.  There were also a few dead bugs, spider webs and a lot of dust on it.  It came with 8 people and a lot of furniture, including a little piano, entertainment center,  bunkbeds and more.  We cleaned up the house and carpets, washed the curtains and furniture and gave it to our Farm Manager's kids on National Pancake Day.

The activities last month included a Youth Temple Trip to London.  It was wonderful seeing our two priests being able to baptize and act as witness' for their own siblings and their own family names. The youth had so many family names that we weren't able to complete all of them on this visit.
Following the temple experience the senior couples drove into London for a river cruise on the River Thames.  We won't mention that due to bad traffic it took us 3 hours to go 46 miles into London, or will we mention the parking fiasco or the fact that our GPS (called Sat Nav in Europe) died on the trip into town.  Fortunately the Foy's had their Sat Nav and saved the day....we made it home!

The "tender mercy" of the month revolved around the birth of our 44th grandchild, born to Mark and Cadence, in Bremerton, Washington.  Mark is in the navy and was out to sea on a submarine as the time grew close for the delivery, but the boat "happened" to come in on a Sunday evening and the baby "happened" to be born on Wednesday, which was 3 days before the scheduled due date.  The boat was scheduled to head out again on Wednesday evening, but Bremerton "happened" to have snow that night, so Mark had an extra day at home, shipping out on Thursday evening.  They had a healthy boy and are naming him York Fitzwilliam Fillmore. Another tender mercy was that our daughter, Katie, was able to leave her family in the hands of her capable husband, Ken, and spend two weeks up in Washington with Cadence to help her with the birth and the care of the other two children.  Aren't families wonderful!

Another highlight was the visit of our daughter Stephanie and her husband, True, who are currently living in Kentucky.  Stephanie was a missionary 15 years ago in the Birmingham England Mission, so we drove around and visited with people that still know and love her in Peterborough and Merthyr Tydvil, Wales.

This is the church in Wales where Stephanie served

This is the flat where Stephanie lived in Wales.  It's on a steep hill.  Merthyr Tydfil is full of steep hills.

These are the Malachowski's who hosted Stephanie at Christmastime when she was a missionary and who fed us Sunday dinner.
Stephanie spent a full day in Peterborough visiting members who were delighted to see her again.  Several old friends mentioned how they felt like Alma when he met up with the sons of Mosiah after 14 years, and they all rejoiced that they all still waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth. (Alma 17)

February was a very good month!

Another Month Come and Gone

Missions are made interesting by trying new things you've never done before, cooking new foods, and meeting new people.  For three months we have been anticipating the arrival of our new senior missionary couple, and they finally arrived on January 12th.  Life has been a blur of activity since that time.  We have a lengthy list of things to be done before spring, but some of the tasks needed more than just the two of us to effectively complete them, so we were elated when the Foy's arrived.

Our work list was going smoothly for the first six days with the new couple, then January 18th came upon us, complete with rain, strong howling winds, and flying slate and ceramic roof tiles.  One of the barns in our backyard is currently sporting large gaping holes where tiles used to be.

The tiles that were blown out of this roof landed all over our yard, with one tile hitting our car and another one hitting our work van.  Fortunately we are not using this barn, so cleaning up the yard was all that was required.  Then the phone calls started coming in.  Seven of the thirty homes we service had roof damage, with more rain expected daily.  The list of buildings affected included our Farm General Office as well as the home of our 94-year old friend, Mary.  So the two Elders jumped into high gear, while the women-folk continued with the patching and painting of the vacant home that we have been preparing for the next renters.  One of the challenges the men faced was that each house required a different style of ceramic tile or slate to replace the broken ones, and some of the tiles are so old that they don't make them anymore.  Trips were made to Peterborough on the north, St Ives to the east and Cambridge to the south until all tiles (or "close enough" tiles) were purchased.  Wind, rain and cold air created other delays in the roof repairs.  At one house,  Bruce climbed up into the attic to place buckets under the leaking roof until conditions were favorable for fixing the tiles.  What he discovered in the attic was that over one section of the house there were 12 rolls of insulation sitting neatly in their wrappers, but had never been installed.  Once the Elders laid out the insulation the tenants reported that their bedroom was much warmer.  Who knows how many years the insulation had been waiting to be installed.

The tile replacement process included climbing up high ladders then laying a smaller ladder flat on the brittle tiles so the men could climb over on it to replace the broken tiles.  The flat ladder was secured on the roof by throwing a rope over the top of the house and securing it on the other side by tying it to a tank, the van, or Elder Fillmore on another ladder in once instance.  (You remember how heavy he is!)  For the taller roofs the men would assemble the scaffolding first.  The Elders have finished the roof repairs and now they are moving on to the long list of things that need to be done before spring.

For fun and entertainment we sang in a bi-ward choir for Stake Conference, have done a little touring, and fed the full-time missionaries multiple times.  Bruce did a clever thing by taking the young missionaries with him as he went to make an adjustment on a tenant's fridge.  it was a great missionary moment with the lady who has been inactive for years, and she enjoyed the visit from the Elders, (who are doing follow-up visits with her).  She promises to come to church again with her 14-year old nephew who she is raising.

In-the-meantime, back in Utah, our own home experienced a little trauma with a blocked drain, so currently our basement has linoleum, carpet and drywall that has been removed.  It's interesting that we are across the ocean fixing up plumbing,  plastering and floors in homes here, while someone else is fixing up our house.  Isn't life great!

All you former UK missionaries will be proud to hear that I made my first Yorkshire pudding, Eccles cakes, and cottage pie, and I have been cooking with Swedes (turnips, not people from Sweden), courgettes (zucchini) and parsnips.

These are Yorkshire Pudding and they are typically eaten with beef and gravy over them. The term "pudding" is also used to refer to dessert.  "Eat your vegetables so you can have pudding!" (which is cake, or other sweets that have no resemblance to pudding)

My new favorite fruit is pomelo...it's like an enormous grapefruit, only sweeter and harder to peel. I was first introduced to pomelo by cousin Jennifer in Germany, and was thrilled when I found it in the shops in England.  The British friends we have eaten with serve LOTS of vegetables and we are feeling quite healthy!

This is a pomelo sitting next to a normal apple.

This is a side note for cousin Frank.  When we sang in the bi-ward choir for Stake Conference I would sit next to a lady who is from the Czech Republic.  She, her husband and children are converts to the church and are living in England for one year so they can learn English.  At the third choir rehearsal I took a copy of the story about Frantiska Brodil found in The Master's Touch, pages 275-279, for this sister to read. As soon as I handed her the copy and she read the first line, she was instantly animated, and began chatting away with her husband, who also became animated (and grabbed the papers right out of his wife's hands so he could start reading it).  She said that they had learned about Sister Brodil and her daughters from the older sisters in the ward, who spoke about them with fondness and reverence.  It was an emotional interchange when she found out that Jane Brodil was my aunt, so I shared a little bit of her story after she moved to America and married my Uncle William.  The lady was thrilled when I told her the copy of the story was for her to keep.  There is something magical about being in Europe where this rich history took place that has captured my heart and my tear ducts.

The Magical Month of December

This was a magical month packed with all kinds of activities, sweets and surprises....and work.  We'll get the work part out of the way before we launch into the magical moments.  We currently have three empty homes that we need to repair and paint, the operative word being REPAIR on all three.  Most older homes have six things in common; cracks in the walls and ceilings, cupboards in need of fixing, plumbing issues, mold in varying degrees of severity, the need for a complete paint job,  (outside as well as inside), and yards that need cleaning up and fences to be painted.  The yard work will have to wait until spring.   One family got really creative in their paint colors, so we are trying to cover deep purples, mauves, oranges and blues.  We'll spare you the details and get on with the month.

Trying to "Light the World" through service was a focal point for us.  I'll just mention a few things we did.  Remember the 94 year old lady we visit?  I have been without hand chimes for 2 Christmas', so I ordered a set of Baby Bells on line, and what came in the mail was "Preemie Bells".  Rather than being 6 inches tall, they were about 3 inches tall.

Despite  the fact that they were rather small and high-pitched, I taught 4 little girls to pay 5 carols, which we took to our sweet friend's home.  We also took a keyboard along so the girls could play their favorite carols.  The 5-year old forgot her music book so she played a tune called "Chromatic Scale" involving every note.  It was precious.  Our elderly friend doesn't get out much, so she was thrilled with our musical serenading.

We were also instrumental in helping the Young Women make toys to give to every Primary child in our ward (only 17 kids), and we took three boxes of toys to the Children's Ward at a local hospital.
The Youth also made Cookie Plates for the older members of our ward, so we split up and delivered them on a Mutual night.

Bruce was able to literally "light the world" for a sister he home teaches, whose porch light hasn't worked for a long time.  He made her very happy!

I went on a history excursion with two sisters in our ward and visited Chatsworth Estate. The Estate celebrates Charles Dickens and his works, so the whole place was decorated for Christmas with  scenes from many of his books.  I took a ton of pictures but will just share a couple.

This is a dining room from Great Expectations, where Miss Haversham's wedding celebration was canceled because the groom didn't show up.  Miss Haversham actually appears in the dining room in her aging wedding dress and tells her story of woe about how her beau ran off with a considerable amount of money that she had loaned him.  The cake, candles, etc include years worth of cobwebs.

 
In one of the ornate bed chambers an animated Scrooge is literally shaking in fright as he awaits one of the Ghosts that will appear.  It was amazing and fun.  Although Charles Dickens didn't live here, he actually visited several times and we saw a couch in the library where he actually sat at one time.

The highlight of the month was traveling to Germany for Christmas, where we visited Bruce's brother Ed and his wife Judy, who are serving at the Freiberg Temple.

We stayed in one of the apartments that Temple Missionaries live in next to the Freiberg Temple.
The Temple is on the left, the meetinghouse is on the right, and the accommodations building is behind the two.

So, our December temple excursion was in the Freiberg Temple!  How wonderful is that?

We visited a Christmas Market in Dresden and bought a couple of ornaments.

We also toured the famous church in Dresden that was destroyed in the war and was featured in one of Dieter F. Uchtdorf's conference talks.  The church was rebuilt using as many of the original blocks as possible.

The black blocks are from the original church, and the dark section on the right was in shambles, but remained standing.

Another Germany highlight was spending time with my niece Jennifer Maschke and her family.

Jennifer, Frank and their six kids at church.

Of course the biggest highlight of Christmas Day was talking to our kids and their families across the good old USA!   Because of a 6 to 9 hour difference in time, we had an elaborate schedule where we could reach everyone....some at 7:30 in the morning their time!  What troopers!  It was a lot of fun.

Things we learned this month at a sing-along concert:  not all countries sing the carols like we do in the USA.  The English have a whole different tune for "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" and "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night".  We all speak English, but not the same vernacular.  While ice skating with the YW/YM, I got derailed by a Kleenex that had fallen out of somebody's pocket.  While explaining the situation to the YW, they all said in unison, "What is a Kleenex?"   Also, Christmas Crackers are not something you eat in England.  It is something you wear on your head, read and play with after opening.  Are you intrigued?

We are grateful for this time of the year and the tender feelings that people express as they remember the birth of our Savior.  We love you all!