Oxford, England

We are staying for a short time with a senior couple in Oxford. They showed us some interesting sites yesterday.

The home of C.S. Lewis. The inside can be seen by appointment only.

The pond is short walk from his house.

The ducks lost interest in us when no bread appeared.

And now for the Harry Potter fans, here is Christ Church College where many of the scenes were filmed.

Real cobblestones.

We've Arrived!

After a rocky start (delayed flights and missed connections, losing each other at the airport) we arrived at the headquarters of the London South Mission. We are still dealing with a major case of jet lag but are making progress with it. Afternoons are the hardest.

Today we met President Shamo and his wife and have received some instruction as to our duties here. In a few days we will be traveling to Oxford to stay with another senior couple to learn first hand about their Centre for Young Adults. Then we’ll stay with another couple in Reading for the same reason. The location of our Centre for Young Adults will probably be Maidstone, but that’s still up in the air. He says that several places would like to have us.

England is exactly like the photos and like we expected, except for the lack of rain. They say they are having a drought. Although it has been mostly cloudy since we arrived, it has not rained. The lawns are starting to turn a little brown since they depend on rainfall for irrigation.

The Rhododendrons on the temple grounds are huge!

This is the classic view of the London Temple with the pond and ducks in the foreground.

The office elders took us shopping at Sainsburys in East Grinstead. Our room at the accomodation centre has a little kitchen so we won't starve.

Yesterday we went for a delightful walk to the Wiremill pond and saw swan parents and their ugly ducklings--er, cygnets.

MTC: The Last Days

International Flags at the "Happiest Place on Earth" No, not Disneyland, it's the Missionary Training Center.

Today new missionaries arrived and I couldn't help but watch as parents dropped off their precious sons and daughters to serve the Lord.

Time to do one last load of laundry before we leave.

Where else would you see a sign like this?

We took a trip down memory lane to see my dorm in Heritage Halls.

Our group of senior missionaries before we scattered to the ends of the earth.

My cousin (once removed) Diane who is the dietician at the MTC cafeteria.

And my cousin Linda. She and her husband took us to the BYU Creamery for a treat on our last night here.

MTC: The First Days

We feel very special as senior missionaries. We are surrounded by a multitude of friendly young men and women who open doors, carry luggage and give us directions. We’ve been told that we can take cuts in line in the cafeteria, but that hasn’t been necessary. At the devotional Tuesday evening the soft seats in the front rows were reserved for us. Nice!

The grounds are beautiful. We are staying in a dorm but fortunately we don’t have to sleep in bunk beds. Since we are able-bodied we are on the third floor. No elevator. No problem.

So far we have learned the missionary purpose:

Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.

Short and sweet but it has a lot of meat to it. We have enjoyed the classes and exercises. Today we did role playing which many of the missionaries were quite nervous about. It went fine and was a valuable learning experience. More of that tomorrow. We are becoming familiar with the manual, Preach My Gospel, as it is the basis for the missionary lessons.

We are part of 25 senior couples and 5 single sisters. About half are from Idaho. There are about 1800 missionaries here this week. There will be 2400 by the end of June. We watched the new young elders arrive in the rain today. Each has a host missionary to guide him and the newbies have a colored sticker on their name tag which is known as a dork sticker. That’s not very kind!

Every Tuesday night there is a devotional with a general authority which this week was Elder Richard G. Hinckley. Before getting into spiritual matters, he had some very practical things to say to us. About six months ago there was a pair of elders in Romania who died of asphyxiation in their apartment. It was a very tragic and preventable death. He wanted all of us to promise that we would make sure that our apartments had working CO detectors as well as smoke detectors.

Some of his remarks were aimed mostly at the young elders; he quoted from II Timothy 1:6,7 and said “Don’t try to be cool,” but rather be a representative of the Lord. Use clean and dignified language. The word “dude” isn’t vulgar, but it’s sort of teenage-y.

And above all, preach the divinity of Jesus Christ.

More Goodbyes

Some of these go back a ways in time, but we can't leave them out.

Girl's night out

Ron and Madelyn set a great example by serving three missions.

How can I live without going geocaching with Kristine?

One last dinner at Carlos' with Henery and Deena

We spent our last night before reporting to the MTC with Pam and her family.

Twenty years ago we delivered John to the MTC for his mission to Dresden Germany. Today he returned the favor by dropping us off.

Time to Say Goodbye

During the past month we have been traveling around to visit friends and family to bid farewell for a while. It has been fun to share some time with them, but sad to comtemplate not seeing them for such a long time.

An April visit to New Jersey and New York to see Susie and her family.

Cousin Ray and his wife Betty

The Discovery Center with Michael...

...and Brian

David's grave in Haines, Oregon

Monday nights will not be the same without our good friends from the Family Home Evening group.

We were delighted to be invited to share about our mission with the Latta family. An added bonus was having Pam and her children join us.

President Chick set us apart as missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I guess we're official now!

Next stop is the Missionary Training Center in Provo.

New Assignment!

We received a call a few days ago from the missionary department with a change in assignment. Rather than working in the mission office, we will be working in a program called Centre for Young Adults. Where we will be located is a mystery to us at this point, but somewhere in the mission boundaries. I was able to gather the following from web sites:

The Church developed a program called the "Institute Outreach Center" and later renamed the "Center for Young Adults". This center focused on four aspects. One of these was institute courses. The others were an activity council that would plan activities geared towards outreach, full-time missionaries who focused on reaching out to men and women of their own age group, and a senior missionary couple that would provide practical and spiritual guidance for the whole endeavor.

The CfYA is a place where young adults, age 18 to 30, LDS members or nonmember visitors can gather to enjoy a good home cooked meal, have a gospel discussion and enjoy wholesome, fun activities, along with quarterly service projects.

In the three years since the Outreach effort has been organized, it has "proved to be effective in activating the less active," Elder Perry said. "It has been a shot in the arm. It's been very encouraging to see them come back with great spirit. They needed more than a place for spiritual gathering."

At the heart of the effort, he said, are the senior missionary couples who offer friendship, counsel, assistance and encouragement. (that’s us!)


This is a well put together web site of a Center for Young Adults in the Manchester area. I can't seem to make it a link. Sorry.

http://ldscfya.co.uk/

Photo by Elder James Jurgen
Young single adults in an Institute Outreach Center in Kiel, Germany, socialize with others after a day of studying at various universities. Missionary couples oversee 23 such centers in Europe.