TheSecondTimeAroundEngland

 Another warm and glorious day in Oxford!  We reached 70 degrees again, but beginning tomorrow it will be no more Mr. Nice guy for now. Although the temperature will get up to 59 for April 1, it will plummet to 36 in the nighttime, and then by midweek next week it will be in the 40's in the daytime, dropping down to possibility of snow two nights.  Isn't that crazy?  You would think we were in Utah! One of the sweet experiences of this day was visiting Joan, our sweet little 95-year-old member.  She is justifiably proud of the fact that she is the same age as "our beloved queen."  I took her a little Easter treat.  She was standing on a stair, which gave her about 5 inches more in height, as she greeted me enthusiastically.  "Bless you my Darling!" she exclaimed. "Lord love you." she said.  We stood and talked for awhile.  At one point, she forgot I was there...it was nothing like dementia.  She started thinking of her husband who p...

 I was up at 6:30 to get the chicken in the oven for chicken croissant sandwiches.  I am not sure if I just tried to do too much or if I am ridiculously slow, but from then until 11:30, I was in the kitchen preparing four kinds of sandwiches, and putting together 2 large bags of sandwiches, chips (known as crisps here), lemon bars and a few goodies.  According to government regulations - as of today, up to six people can meet together outside.   Our young adult rep told everyone to come and join us briefly for lunch and visiting. She always puts those things on the Oxford Young Adult feed.  Going in to today, we had only seven who said they would be attending.  We had purchased all the supplies we needed yesterday, and so I thought I was ready with what would be simple.   I ended up making 20 sandwiches because of the open invitation for one and all to join us.  I would have been thrilled if 20 had showed up, but concerned that we would ...

 Ah Monday!  Known as P-Day to the young missionaries.  This is the day of the week that they do all laundry, and deep clean their flats.  P-Day is done at 5 when they go back to work.  That includes attending our Family Home Evening.  And after Family Home Evening, there is a zone meeting that lasts for about 45 minutes. Most of our evenings are similar.  But I love all that we are doing.   It's been a grand day.  I am still humming Lamb of God.  So many refrains running through my head.  I so enjoy it.  Dave called around dinner time to ask if I would introduce it to the young missionaries at our zone conference on Thursday.  He said I would have 10 minutes.  That makes me so happy!  I fell in love with it the first time I listened, and then seeing it performed live totally hooked me.  But I don't know what circumstances will be when the missionaries watch. He asked two other senior missionaries to in...

 We have attended our usual line-up of meetings today.  They were all good.  In our so-called Sacrament Meeting (we partake of the Sacrament at home and then meet together on Zoom to hear inspirational messages.), our two young elders spoke.  They are so cute.  They each gave marvelous talks, with our newest elder giving "The Touch of the Master's Hand" as he closed his talk.  I love that poem and haven/t heard it for some time.   We also had a young man who just turned 15 speak.  He is the oldest son of a family who moved in last fall from Utah.  The mother is pursuing a PhD and the father is working remotely for a large American corporation.  This young man is pretty solid, and gave a excellent talk.  It was easy to tell that he wrote it himself and thought it through thoroughly.  We met with the missionaries for a half hour as they taught a brief Easter message to new members.   We met with our young adult rep...

 We will be released from the England London Mission five months from today.  It is all going by so fast...too fast.  Dave and Deb are down to three months and feeling the crunch. Today marks the day of a very beautiful week for us.  As a mission, we started a 24-hour fast this evening with a telephone zoom call.  A prayer was said and we were united in asking for help for several people.  Most of the people we were praying for are relatives of the missionaries, people who are being taught and people who are preparing to go to the temple.   I have seen how faithful these young people are, and I know the Lord hears and answers prayers, especially from ones so dedicated to His work.  Tomorrow evening we will gather on the zoom call again to end our fast with a prayer.  In the evening the senior missionaries will have the sweet blessing of watching Lamb of God , on a zoom call.  It is the one that is in theaters now.  The wonderfu...

 Haircut for SK #2.  I mostly trimmed around the bottom of the back and around his ears.  Considering I hardly know what I am doing, and considering that last time I left quite a dent in his hair on the side, and considering that his hair kind of has a mind of its own on the sides, it is a wonder that he looks alright.  But he does, and I think he'll be fine for another three weeks when he can get in to see Nife - the real barber.  I have 27 days until I can get in to see Jeannie - the lady who will save me from this hair. It is driving me crazy.  It feels so long and limp.  The thing is - I am not sure how to tell her to cut it.  I think what I would love is the Judi Dench look - you know - about as short as SK's, except a little longer in back and on top....just a little. Our walk took us down one of the busier streets, but you can see that it wasn't exactly overcrowded today.  There was a brisk wind and it was a little chilly - a perfect d...

 March 25, 2021.  It is already Thursday evening.  It has been another day when it seems like I got very little done, but we were occupied all day. We left our place this morning at 8:30 to travel to a town that should have been an hour away.  But it took us an hour and a half to our zone leader's flat in Reading (pronounced Redding).  From our parked car, we joined in the meeting we have with the zone every morning at 10.  After the meeting, we phoned the elders to tell them we had something for them and that we were right outside their apartment. They came down, we handed them a bag with all the makings of the BBQ pizza.  We put ready-made pizza crust in the bag, but these guys are cooks and could probably easily make their own pizza dough.  The whole idea was to give them something tasty and quick and easy.  They seemed happy about it. They came bearing gifts also!  They had three little containers of pumpkin cake roll.  One for ...

  Have you ever had a day when you felt like you didn't accomplish anything?  You would think it happens often with us, stuck in our flat, but we actually get a fair amount done.  Today.....not so much.  We have a Zoom meeting for just a few minutes every morning with our zone.  That is at 10.  I wanted to do a little cleaning before we left the apartment, and I told the sisters (who are still in isolation) that we would pick up some groceries for them.  They have until this coming Monday, when they will be more free than they are now. We decided to drive to the outskirts of town where there is a superstore (not quite as large as a Walmart, but good-sized nevertheless).  It takes us about 10 minutes to get there.  We filled the car with petrol, and then here is something fun - we drove through a Burger King!  It was lunchtime - past - and we were hungry.  The burgers tasted pretty much like we remembered them.  We sat in the ca...

 Yes indeed!  Bill is our resident heron.  Last month we came across a magnificent heron standing at attention, waiting for dinner to swim by.  Ever since, we have been checking the river that runs by our backyard castle for Bill, our own so-named fowl.  (David gave it that name last fall.) Isn't he cute?  Although, I am wondering if he is a she.  Look at this picture of his cousin we saw last month... He was not there the first year we were here, but showed up last September, shortly after we arrived back in Oxford, we noticed him standing silently - attentively watching the water.  Then sometime later, he was gone, and we felt his absence.  As of March 1, I have been betting SK that he would be back.  We started with $100 and doubled it every day that Bill was not there...double or nothing each day.  As you can imagine, I was deeply in debt to SK!  Today, the slate was wiped clean.  Bill is back! Spring is in high gear n...

 I made cinnamon rolls....thinking I had all the ingredients, but I was missing a key element in SK's estimation, the maple flavoring.  I had ordered it on Amazon, but hadn't arrived when I took the rolls out of the oven, so I just made vanilla frosting.  We took it to the two young women who visited us yesterday, with disclaimers about its lack of maple. They both got back to me pretty soon and loved them.  That's a good thing.  Not my best effort, but I haven't quite figured out how yeast here works....if it is similar to the years I commonly use in America.  I will try them again next week when I have the maple flavor. I've been working on Travis and Ally's names done in calligraphy for her wedding announcements.  Just their names, and then the rest of the invitation will be typeset.  I have only one metal nib, and have been working with that one, hoping that I don't run out of paper before I get it right.  It is something I truly enjoy, a...

 It is late, and I am sitting here staring at this blank page....not because there is nothing to tell, but because it has been a lovely day, and I am trying to decide what to focus on.   Perhaps the sweetest thing to happen today was when the doorbell rang.  We expected it to be the sisters bringing back the car which they had borrowed.  Instead, it was two of our young adults.  They had gone for a Sunday afternoon walk and decided to stop and visit.  We put on our coats and ran down to meet them outside.  We stood out there visiting for nearly an hour!   Kristina is our young adult rep and a math major.  She is working on her thesis and should be done by summer's end.  We love her.  She is engaged, but not telling anyone about it.  She is so steadfast about attending everything.  She is a lovely young woman and quite in love with Cameron.  We love him almost as much as she does! Sid is working feverishly on...

 We didn't set out to spend time on the road again today, but somehow ended up doing that.  We set out with a very normal Saturday ahead of us....thinking we had time to do some of the things on our "to do" list.  We still have over five months left, but I don't want to be spending the last weeks desperately trying to clean out cupboards and closets. When we have our morning prayers, we always ask the Lord to help us know where and how to serve.  I felt strongly that we ought to do something for Elder Day and his new companion.  So we purchased the things for BBQ Chicken Pizza - Erin gave us that recipe, which is so easy!  We packed up plastic bags with Naan Bread, Baked Diced Chicken, a Red Onion, Grated Mozzarella Cheese, Cilantro and directions for assembling it and baking it. We delivered to three sets of missionaries, which took us about 3 hours.  On the way home, our young sisters called (they are on a 10 day isolation lockdown), wondering if we ...

 We were up bright and early to take our car to the sisters' flat.  They needed it until noon.  We walked home -- great exercise!  We walked back to retrieve it when they were finished with it.   There were three there until a fourth one arrived.  When the fourth one arrived, we took two away.  One we delivered to her new assignment in a new area.  Her companion arrived with another senior couple shortly thereafter.  The other sister - went home today to her own country and home.  She is a beautiful young woman who always seemed cheerful.  We don't know why exactly she went home after only 2 months of serving, Dave said that she was determined to go, that this wasn't what she expected. We talked with her most of the way to London, never broaching the topic of her leaving. I felt a sense of melancholy for her.  I see how these young people have grown up over the course of their missions, and hear how they testify how hard i...

 This is transfer week, and so today we were driving again.  We began in London.  We didn't have to leave until a little after 10, so we had a good bit of the morning to work on other things.  The drive was pleasant and uneventful, except that even with the trees still bare, it is a beautiful drive. There were at least a dozen missionaries there, all elders, waiting for rides to their new assignments.  Some were brand new elders, mostly from the States.  They were all in the cultural hall with all of their luggage, all looking a little nervous.  I wondered how many of them had traveled through the night and were sleep-deprived.   When we were here in 2019 arrivals of new missionaries were amazing occasions.  If you saw any of Deb's posts, there was a full day of activities...everything from a wonderful welcoming ceremony where they were introduced to their trainers/new companions, a lovely meeting in the historic Hyde Park Chapel, a deli...

 It is Wednesday.  We have had 2 Zoom meetings with our young missionaries and then Institute this evening.   I made a carrot cake for Francis, who received his doctorate degree this week.  It has been a long time coming for him and I am certain that he is so happy.  Now will come the big decisions, where to accept a job, where to live, whom to marry.  He is dating someone, but we are uncertain about how serious they are.  He is a tremendous young man from Togo Africa.  His father travels the world regularly with the country's diplomatic services. In the afternoon we went out for a walk....if is difficult not to pass our backyard castle no matter what direction we go, and so today, we went through the castle quad or whatever it is called.  I love that place!  SK was kind enough to indulge me by posing.   SK - posing as a debtor We passed by a building that was razed in one day.  SK went past it first when he went to ...

Waking here in the morning is  sweet experience.  The sounds are very different than the sounds I hear in Gilbert coming to consciousness.  The apartment complex is U-shaped with a large rectangular building in the middle (the last vestiges of "The Brewery" with original stone walls are a part of that center building).  The top of the U is St. Thomas Street, with two openings out onto the road.  The entire surface outside our apartments is paved in a sort of stone/brick.  Since that surface is surrounded by brick buildings, the sounds that ricochet off of everything have a haunting echo-like sound.   It used to be that we would awaken to all kinds of sounds out there.  We have our bedroom windows open around the clock.  Delivery vans, cars coming and going, garbage trucks twice weekly and the sound of workmen chatting as they labor at their tasks.  Normally, there is a variety and a cadence to the noises we hear. But the last few mo...

 I was so taken yesterday by the thought of celebrating those who mother, that I didn't even think about it being Pi Day until the evening --- too late to do much about it.  I told Kristina, one of our young adult reps that we ought to have pie today to mark that special day, especially since she and her fiancee are both majoring in math.  I repeated it again today to them in Family Home Evening.  Kristina explained to me that they don't celebrate Pi day here in England....it doesn't really work. I know I must have looked blank, and then she reminded me that the English speak and write dates with the day first, month second and year third.  In America, my birthday would be 01/17/49, but in England it is 17/01/49.  So there is no Pi Day since the fourteenth is expressed as 14/3/21!  I knew that, but it just didn't occur to me. Have you ever had a night when you just couldn't sleep?  Last night was like that for me.  I was relaxed and lying in ...

  Happy Mothering Day!!!! An online source says: Mothering Sunday, sometimes known as Mother's Day, is held on the fourth Sunday of Lent. It is exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday and usually falls in the second half of March or early April. Mothering Sunday was originally a time when people returned to the church, in which they were baptized or where they attended services when they were children. This meant that families were reunited as adults returned to the towns and villages where they grew up. In time, it became customary for young people who were working as servants in large houses, to be given a holiday on Mothering Sunday. They could use this day to visit their own mother and often took a gift of food or hand-me-down clothing from their employers to her. In turn, this moved towards the modern holiday, on which people still visit and take gifts to their mothers. Yes, today is England's version of Mother's Day.  I didn't realize it until late last night whe...