September – Busy Month
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| Ben at London Temple |
September was a wonderful
month, full of special experiences and great people. We have mentioned "Ben" Zhang, our Chinese friend who
has sought asylum here in the UK. He is
so good and so strong. He was able to go to the London Temple and receive his own
endowments. He has given up everything
in his quest for freedom and has chosen to stay here in England to build a new
life of service and growth. Ben asked me
to be his escort at the Temple. Everything
was a new experience for him and he was so ready that the Spirit was there
teaching us and strengthening us. As a trained attorney, he
is starting to get his training transferred to the UK so that he can again be a
productive part of this new society. He
is currently volunteering his legal services for the Red Cross. May God be with him always!
Some of our Stakes have been
a little slow to come on board with Self Reliance. One Stake had given the Self-Reliance
assignment to a Counselor in the Stake Presidency. Because of “holidays” and other delays,
nothing happened. The Stake President
decided to take the responsibility back upon himself and he called a new Stake
Relief Society President and was prompted to assign her to be the Stake
Self-Reliance Specialist as well. Her
husband, a past bishop, has been called to the High Council and so he was given
the Self-Reliance assignment and so now when we need to have a Self-Reliance
Committee Meeting, the Shepherds and Stake President get together and they
nearly have a full Self-Reliance Committee.
All we need is a representing Bishop. We went out to train the couple and they were
so very responsive. They realized that
the next “Bishop’s Training Meeting” was not for three months so they took the
initiative to call a special meeting with all of the Bishop’s. It was brilliant. Every Bishop was there, we were there
supporting, and the Stake Pres. Counselor attended. The principles were presented and all were
responsive. President North asked Bishop
Gonzales what he thought of it all. He had been quiet most of the meeting but spoke and said that he loved the ideas, immediately looked at Sister Baxter and I and
asked us to come speak in Ward Sacrament Meeting, gave us the date he was going
to present this to his Ward Council and he had a date for the MY PATH
devotional. The other Bishop’s there felt the urgency and their plans started
to be formulated. We left the meeting
with three assignments for follow up and support. That was terrific.
September was also a good
month for training. We had Clayton
Christensen visit. He is a Seventy and
also a Harvard Business Professor. He
has a special way of teaching where the Gospel is important and we
should share that with our friends and neighbors. As a successful missionary, he invites the
Spirit and listens more than he speaks.
He asks investigators what they know and what they have difficulty with
in terms of the Church. Then he invites
the investigator to read and as they talk, he guides them to answer their own
questions. Reading from the Scriptures
and allowing the questions to come and fall where they will he allows the Spirit
to direct the teaching. He is a
brilliant teacher. We attended one of
his public business meetings and heard him explain Disruptive Management and he
explained it so well that even we understood what was being taught. If you understand something well enough, then
you should be able to teach in terms and ideas that anyone can understand. That is what happened, not only in a Mission
Conference, but also in the House of Lords and his prominent government meetings. What a great ambassador for the Church.
Upon leaving the meeting from the government office building across the street from Parliament, we were walking
toward the Tube when a tall man whizzed by.
He spotted our name tags and immediately stopped to chat for a
moment. It turns out he was the Stake
Executive Secretary for one of the stakes that we had been trying to get a
meeting with. He asked us about
Self-Reliance after noticing our name tag designation and then told us of a
Bishop’s Training meeting that was scheduled for the following week. After a brief chat and our explanation of the
Self-Reliance Initiative, he promised to get us on the agenda for the
meeting. What a “tender mercy”. We followed up with the Stake Self-Reliance
Specialist who had previously been unresponsive. Things are now starting to move forward in
that stake.
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| Lincoln Just Arrived |
September we welcomed Grandchild #18 into the family. Lincoln
was born to Neil and Brittney. He will be in good hands with
his Brothers and Sister.
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| Lincoln with his Sister and Brothers |
Another Tender mercy. A few weeks ago, we had been invited to a Ward to make a presentation. We
enjoyed their Sacrament meeting and during sunday school we were checking out
the electronic equipment and trying to get the TV to talk to my
computer. They would just not talk to
each other. As I kept trying different
configurations, several men dropped by and asked if we needed help. Of course, we said yes. Each tried, each suggested, and nothing seemed
to work to get the two pieces of equipment to communicate. This was destined to really scramble our
presentation. A young missionary from
Germany walked by on his way to an assignment.
He stopped and asked if he and his companion could be of
assistance. How could a German speaking
missionary, in a British meeting house get an American and a Japanese piece of
equipment to talk to each other?
Whatever he did, it worked. We whizzed across to the Chapel with 2 minutes to spare and made a successful presentation in a MY Path Devotional and signed up 21
participants for workgroups. We felt the
Lord watching over us and bringing us assistance in our time of need so that
His work could continue moving forward.
Mid-September, we were asked
to come to the Wandsworth Stake to help out at a YSA weekly meeting. School is
just starting up again and the leaders wanted to help the youth gain a bit more
direction. We came to administer a Work
Choice Profile (psychometric testing experience). This is the first time we have used our new
tool which is an electronic version of the vocational interest evaluation. We had 22 YSA all attempting to do the test
at the same time. We met in the family
history room of the church and had only 4 working computers. However, with two additional laptops, 6-8
tablets that the youth had brought and the rest using Smartphones, they all got
on line and took the test. See LDSJ.org
if you would like to try it. Amazingly,
everything went pretty well. We were
there to help counsel the students once they had completed the testing and help
them identify and prioritize occupations that they showed interest and aptitude
for. It appeared to us to be a good evening.
It is not all work over
here. Some may have heard that England
is hosting the Rugby World Cup for 2015.
We have one senior couple that are Rugby fans. The opening match of the tournament was
England vs Fiji. Well, this couple
served a mission in Fiji just prior to coming to England so we got together and
watched the opening match on our TV.
What a brutal game. Not sure I
know all of the strategy, but I am learning.
I know that when you Try, you get points, and at times the men on the
field are actually gentlemen. After the
guy with the ball gets brutally tackled, he merely sticks his hand out of the
pile of bodies (keeping at least a finger on the ball) and no one takes it away
until one of his own team members picks up the ball and tosses it down the line
to his team mates. Scrums are hard to
describe and the throw-in actually causes one team member to be thrown into the
air to catch the ball about 10-12 feet off the ground. I guess you have to see it to believe it and
it takes more than one watching to understand the game.
We have to tell you about
Anna, a Hungarian tour guide. Anna is a
cute little lady about 75 years old.
Keeping up with the new working conditions of guiding tourists is
driving her crazy. She has to use the
computer to get her instructions, set up tours, make reservations, and to
communicate with her office. She is not
a member of the Church yet has found some dear friends in our Hyde Park chapel. She comes up to our SR Centre and asks for help
to get past her logins, her web searches, and dealing with passwords that seem
to change every week. Anna invited Afton
and I to go to a Hungarian restaurant and to a Hungarian concert to say thank
you for the repeated help we have given her.
She could not get a reservation at Rules, the oldest restaurant in
London, but we did walk in and look around. Then we walked up the street to a
restaurant named Carlucci’s (Italian,
not Hungarian). As we went in, Anna
asked if Carlucci was in and the waitress said she had not seen him in the last
couple of days. I thought they were
making jokes as Carlucci’s is a chain of restaurants over here. During dinner, we found that Anna actually
knows the originator of the restaurant chain and that this was his original
restaurant. Meal was excellent. The Concert was held in a Church in Covent
Gardens – a very popular shopping and entertainment area. The concert was a tribute to Bartok, a
prominent Hungarian composer. It turned
out to be absolutely amazing. There was
a 24 year old violin soloist who was incredible playing mostly in chords instead of single
notes and the young pianist was an award winning girl of about 21. One of the best pianists I have ever heard
play. Quite an evening.
London has so much to see and
do. There are many many homes and
estates that have been built in the past by families with boo-coo loads of
money. They are usually tucked in the
middle of very busy part of the city.
You only see a driveway with a small sign, and then when you go in you
can find these magnificent estates that sit on hundreds of acres of ground and are beautifully built architectural marvels.
These places are usually loaded with interesting artifact,historical treasures and
magnificent art collections... Two we have visited include
Kenwood House
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| Kenwood House - home of 1920 Mayor of London |
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| Beautiful Library |
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| Loads of cool Art |
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| Poacher taking game |
and ….
Waddesdon House. This second one was built with the Rothschild
fortunes and employed 20 full time gardeners during its hayday. A group of senior missionaries took a P-Day and drove out to see this magnificent place. Here are a few pictures.
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| Waddesdon House |
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| Gardens behind the home |
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| Coming from the Aviary back to the main house |
We walked the grounds to find riding area, stables, a huge Aviary, fountains, and so many beautiful places to explore. At the time it was lived in by the family, there were about 20 of these estates in Europe all supported by this family fortune. When the WWI and WWII broke out, they could not get enough domestic help to keep the places running. This estate has been turned over to an historical trust for preservation and public viewing.
Well, we have to get back to
work. Our last P- Day was spent at Costco. We had to get supplies for the Self-Reliance
Centre, for the Self-Reliance training meetings where we had to provide meals for two
days for 13 people, Pathway treats for the three groups we have each Thursday,
supplies for the Mission Office, and we also a bit of shopping for ourselves and
for some of the other missionary couples.
Costco is not close so it is almost a full day experience when you are
shopping for so many different groups. But it makes life a bit more interesting and
life better for others, so we do it when we can. We did manage a walk in Hyde Park to visit our Parrot friends.
One big joke around London is
that someone will say that they are going to have a spot of Royalty drop
in. Well we did – sort of. Each the other morning we were walking in Kensington
Garden / Hyde Park. As we were walking and we heard a large machine
coming in from behind us. We looked around and there was a deep blue helicopter coming in for a landing about 100 yards away
from us. It was landing next to
Kensington Palace. Police drove up and guards were quickly posted on the edge
of the park while Prince William got out of the chopper and shuffled passengers
around. A few minutes later they were off.
I guess that is how Royalty drop in and get ferried out.
Just want to let everyone
know that we are working hard, loving the experiences, especially the people, and
hopefully doing some good. Note: We have a new friend here, Michael
Warner. He is a retired actor who has
performed with Audrey Hepburn, Lawrence Olivier and others. He was the voice of the BBC for many years
with his clear deep and rich voice. For
his own project, he decided to read and record the full Book of Mormon. It took him about 3 months but he got it all
on cassette tape. Now he has asked me to
fix a few spots and then to record it digitally so that it can be preserved and
shared more easily. It took me a while,
but I now have the means to duplicate and share this wonderful work with him
and his friends. He has some other
writings that he has done and recorded on cassettes. Looks like I will be doing some more for him in
my spare time.
We leave you with the Family Home Evening lesson material for this month :
See: My Foundation, Principles, Skills and Habits, Chapter 7 Become One, Work Together
Found at SRS.LDS.ORG
Check out this video and ....
https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-06-1170-in-the-lords-way?lang=eng&category=principle-7-become-one-work-together
Copy and past the above link into a browser and hit enter
For home evening you can do the activity in the manual, see Chapter 7 above.
Keep Calm and Carry On
Steve & Afton from JollyOlde' England
