Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross....

Week of May 13 mostly from my journal.

Monday we took a bus to Moulsecoomb to visit the T. family since they have a son turning 18 soon and should be entering our program. A girl answered but mom was just inside holding a large baby. “We’re busy” she said. After a short conversation they announced that they are now M. That ended that.

During the ride back on the bus I got a phone call saying that FHE was cancelled because of a bomb threat at Sainsbury’s supermarket which is right across the street from the church. Actually we had seen lots of police cars and a fire engine in front of it on our way past.

The standoff lasted several hours before negotiators talked him out of the men's toilet. No weapons were found.

We went home instead where I spent some time indexing the 1940 census. I want California to get done so it’s searchable. I’ve already found my dad and my mom, but there are many others I want to find.

Tuesday and Wednesday we were helping at the mission office, or actually the kitchen in the basement of the accommodation centre. We had told Sis. Kearl that we would come and help her put on the dinner for the huge group of elders and sisters that are going home. There were 33 of them which is not typical at all. We took the bus to Crawley and were picked up by some elders. We made carrot sticks and celery sticks and added green pepper and apple pieces to the purchased cole slaw, etc. And we put paper on the tables and set them.

We were able to sit in and listen for a little while during President and Sister Shamo's talk and discussion with these valiant young men and women. They were asked to share the funniest things that happened during their missions. There were some good ones but my favorite was the elder who shared about when their boiler quit working. (water heater) They bathed in cold water for a while then got the idea to heat water on the stove and to use the electric hot pot (I don't know what it's really called but every kitchen we've been in over here has one) They thought it would be more efficient to plug it in the hallway closer to the bathroom. But unfortunately their smoke detector is actually a heat detector and it went off. What's worse, it activated the alarm for the whole building.

They weren't able to turn off the alarm, nor could anybody else. They did manage to lock themselves out of their flat--with pans of water heating on the stove! Eventually the fire department came and with their bucket put one of the elders through the third story window. What memories!

There was another story about a large mass of lady bugs that were on the inside of the curtain. The elders thought they could just smack the curtain and the ladybugs would fly out the window. Instead they flew into the room and it was chaos. The elders grabbed the vacuum and said it was like being in a great video game sucking in ladybugs left and right.

The next day we attended the temple, then helped Sis. Kearl again and did much the same things as we did the day before, this time for the incoming elders and sisters. There were 23 of them. Then we needed to get back to Brighton and carry on here.

Thursday night we had the elders to dinner. We now have Elder Wooley who we know from the mission office. This will be his last assignment before he goes home to Arizona. His parents will actually be out of town when he returns, and he will be picking them up at the airport a few days later.

Friday we got ready for our trip the next day to Banbury. There was a get together of couples from 3 missions that are over the Centres for Young Adults.  Bill made a potato salad to take and I made brownies. Like last time, they were awfully gooey and I should have let them bake more.

Saturday
We reluctantly got up at 5:15 and met the taxi at 6:15 and off to the Brighton train station for our trip to Victoria station in London. Then two short tube trips and we’re at Marylebone station. We had a little bit of time before the train left so we walked a short distance to find a geocache.

“Opened in 1899, this is the youngest of London's mainline terminal stations, and also one of the smallest. It is also the only terminal station in London to host only diesel trains, having no electrified lines.”



After getting settled into our seats on the train, and feeling smug that we had made all our connections,  there came an announcement that the trip was cancelled because they have no driver. Bummer! They had us get on a train to Birmingham and fortunately it stopped in Banbury.