Missionaries, Francis, Sid and Marc

 Our six young missionaries showed up this morning at 10:30. They all offered to work in the kitchen, but I had nearly everything done. I had made lemon cake last night, and let me just say, I would have been better off with  lemon bars...which I love.

I saw a lemon cake recipe that looked fairly simple, and it was. It was also so dry that it crumbled! Yes., like a cookie. The frosting was wonderful, but it didn't save it. I served it with ice cream, which also failed to redeem it.

We had a great meeting, with some excellent training. I love these kids! They are so young, but they are wise in so many respects, and I love their enthusiasm and eagerness to serve. I have volunteered the elders more than once to help someone who needed heavy lifting or moving or whatever, and they have always been so willing to assist. 

After the meeting, we sat around the table and ate Chicken Stuff (thinly disguised chicken alfredo). When Elder Ferguson told me that his mother called it Chicken Alfredo, I told him that I ought to call it Chicken Stanfordo. I'm not sure that will catch on, but since the children dubbed this dish "Chicken Stuff" years and years ago, we may stay with that name.

One of the elders forgot his jacket, so SK kindly obliged by dropping it down to him.

Soon after the missionaries helped clean up and left for various and sundry destinations, Francis came. He is such a great young man, with many adventures and opportunities ahead of him. He will leave tomorrow for London, then a brief stay in his home in Togo, then to New York! He has been invited to speak at BYU in November. (We may have to pay a visit to the Packers then). He has a delightful sense of humor. We gave him some of the art books that we got from our neighbor a few weeks ago. He loved them and was happy to have them. And I am happy not to have an extra thirty pounds of books to carry in our suitcases.

We said good bye and SK got broken up. We gave Francis a little Christus cube from Denmark. Dave and Deb ordered enough to give one to every missionary for Christmas 2019. I helped them order from the little Church of our Lady in Copenhagen and ordered a few extra for us. We only had six and have given out four now. 

Then we hugged him farewell. I hope that he does visit the U.S. and that we will have the opportunity to see him once again.

Francis is one we hate to say goodbye to - but we hope to see him sometime in the States.

If you live in the U.S. you just amble in to any Deseret Book Store and pick one up for $20, but I am unaware if you can get them anywhere in Europe besides Copenhagen, and I think they are awesome.

We met Sinaida and Marc for dinner, and gave them one of the remaining two. I wish I had a few more to give away. 

Sid (Sinaida) is one of my favorite people here in Oxford. She converted a few years ago and has a marvelous testimony. I love to hear her talk about her faith in Jesus Christ. She is getting her doctorate from Oxford this Fall, and has been so very busy trying to finish up. 

We went to dinner at a Thai restaurant that is a nine-minute walk from our flat. The outside looks scary. It looks old and slightly dilapidated. We stepped inside and were transported into a vibrant beautifully decorated Thai world, complete with elaborately carved wooden tables, chairs and wall hangings. The tables were beautifully set, and the restaurant was full of people, many dressed up, and the food we glimpsed as we walked past looked delectable.

We adore her boyfriend/almost fiancee Marc. He is from Barcelon Spain and he is awesome. He is her intellectual equal, kind, thoughtful, quiet and soft-spoken - not shy - just quiet. He is from Spain. They will be visiting in Spain later in the month.

After dinner, we said our goodbyes (this always makes SK emotional). We have come to love Sid and Marc and so hope that we will see them again, but all things considered, we don't know if that will happen.

One thing I love about Europe is the ease of traveling from one place to another. It is similar to the States, where you drive across borders without hardly the blink of an eye. They do that in Europe (or used to before COVID and BREXIT, but they are working it out and it seems that they will get back to normal.

It is not just the ease of movement, but the incredibly cheap fares that make it so alluring. If we weren't on a mission, we might have flown over to Copenhagen a few times. The Roskelleys will fly to Ireland when their mission is over, and spend two weeks there.

I keep telling SK that we ought to purchase a summer home here, and have the whole family come and visit us at some point during those months. In the Cotswolds. Ahhhh. Dreaming is such fun. I've remodeled our Gilbert home a thousand times on nights when I have trouble sleeping. It is just something that brings me happiness.

Some pictures from this past week that I forgot to post:

The first is a backyard glimpsed from our flat windows. See the clothes hanging up? Isn't it almost quaint? A backyard here is called "a garden" regardless if there are flowers or food growing there.

I find front yards charming. Some people just haul off and make it a driveway which absolutely loses the enchantment of walking up the short sidewalk past unique decorations, greenery and up to the door which the owner has put their own mark on - like bright red paint.