A Zone Conference, a Wedding and Goat Curry

What a week! The 4th of July was just another day with doctor’s visits for us and the long-awaited telephone installation. In the evening we went on a joint teach with the full time missionaries to a young couple who live near us. It was an education to see how the senior elder guided the conversation when things got off-track and how he used us by asking us to share experiences in our lives. The spirit was there and we were happy to witness for ourselves how these young missionaries are so prepared and focused on the work of sharing the gospel.

Tuesday we rode a train to a geocaching event in Elmer’s End. Don’t you just love the names around here?

The Rising Sun in Elmer's End

We met a number of people and enjoyed eating pub food. Bill enjoyed his hamburger and I ate some of the poorest lasagne I’ve ever had. I watched someone put fries between two pieces of bread and eat them, now that’s strange!

I met the CreepyCrawlies who had invited us and also beetstartz who has cached all around the world.

Wednesday we were privileged to attend the temple sealing of Jennifer and Ken, a couple from our ward. In this country couples have to marry civilly prior to being sealed in the temple, so they had done that earlier in the day. Jennifer has been our downstairs neighbor ever since we arrived here.

The zone conference in Poole was inspiring to say the least. That’s the most elders I’ve seen in one place since leaving the MTC. From the edge of the car park through the trees we could see the bay with boats.

I visited with an elder whose surname made me think we must be related, but if so, it isn’t really close.

Sister Shamo was one of the speakers at the conference and compared the senior missionaries to Alma who stepped down from his high position to become a lowly missionary as we read in Alma 4. We have stepped down from comfort to live in poverty (?) and be missionaries. She had everyone look at the back row where the senior missionaries were sitting. Well, we don’t live in poverty, but we have given up our comfortable homes and the closeness of family and friends to serve the Lord.

President Shamo in his remarks reminded us that sharing the gospel will bring salvation to our souls. There are over 30 scriptures attesting to the concept that if we do certain things that we will be forgiven of our sins.

1 Timothy 4:16 “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.”

Doctrine and Covenants 4:4 “For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul.”

That sounds good to me!

Friday we shared a spiritual thought with the Relief Society sisters at their luncheon in Orpington. Since we had just been to the zone conference we talked about how important member missionary efforts are.

Then that evening we had a delightful dinner and discussion with a couple that are over the Young Single Adults in the Orpington ward. We assured them that we were not going to displace them. We really miss being with our peers in our Family Home Evening group and this visit helped fill that void. We talked until about 10 pm.

Sunday there was a “Mix and Mingle” after church to celebrate the wedding of Jennifer and Ken. There were all kinds of food including Caribbean food which brings us to the Goat Curry. Now I can say I’ve tasted it. Really it was just bones with some sauce!

The building is two story with the chapel/cultural hall downstairs and classrooms and offices upstairs.

When the curtain is drawn across the podium, it magically becomes the cultural hall and playing ball and other things are okay. A different concept for us but it makes sense here where land is very expensive; they build upwards with a smaller footprint of land.

Jennifer and Ken