Christmas 2011

Elder Gerrand and Elder Gravellese in Billingham

We worried a bit about being away from our family for Christmas, but were able to fill our time with rewarding activities.  On Christmas Eve we set off to deliver Christmas gifts that arrived late for missionaries throughout the mission.

Sister Brown and Sister Freeman in Stanley/Durham

Elder Herlin and Elder Otte were especially excited



Sunderland Zone



Wearin' me flat cap at St. Mary's Island

It was a fun day for us and we even found time to stop off at the seashore.   It was quite cold, but there were many people walking along the beach and the air was so refreshing.

Elder Cumming, Elder Wietzel, me, Bert Van Aarde

Christmas Day was a treat for us, with a missionary from Germany, another from Scotland and an new convert from South Africa sharing our Christmas meal of California favorites, enchiladas, rice, & beans.  They loved it!

Mission Christmas Holidays! Part 1

Such a sacrifice to be away from home during the Christmas season! What does an aging couple do when far away from the familiar and loving traditions of home, hearth and family?

The season starts about Halloween right?  Well, right after Halloween festivities comes an English holiday called Guy Fawkes Day.  On Guy Fawkes Day we tottered up to Ilkley and enjoyed a sumptuous feast at The Fox and Hounds with the Youngs (a missionary couple from Fillmore,Utah who are working at the Institute of Religion for Leeds University - their second mission - their first working in Malaysia).  We enjoyed a delicious gammon and turkey dinner. As we drove home we noticed that there were a couple of bonfires and the smell of smoke.  Closer to home we begin to hear fireworks.  The Youngs dropped us off and in a few minutes there was a cacaphony of fireworks all across the valley and all around us. Happy Guy Fawkes Day!!

A couple of weeks later as the season gets into gear we go together with the other missionaries in the area and attended a rather posh affair out at the Harewood House called the White Rose Music Festival. We rubbed elbows with Leeds elite and listened to fahncy music.

The next week we celebrated a holiday from the colonies called Thanksgiving with 6 other couple at the Institute building which is a Victorian 5 story building that has been refurbished and is a beautiful example of the architecture at the turn of the century.

The following week we had tickets to see "Top Hat" a song and dance musical at the Leeds Grand Theatre (make sure you make the ending "re" not "er").  We had a lovely evening and rode into downtown Leeds in hired cars (taxis). .............wait!  It says I'm at the bottom of the page......I guess I have to go to another page to continue our holiday adventures

Mission Christmas Holiday! - Part 2

Town Hall Interior

So as poor, lost expatriates we are managing to survive the Christmas Holidays away from home.  Lest you think all we do is play, we do put in a full day at the Mission Office each day.  But we do try to savor the culture of the Yorkshire area.  As it got closer to Christmas, we realised that this is the home of most of our cherished Christmas images.

Leeds Town Hall

As Christmas grew closer we went back into the city to the Leeds Town Hall to see a production of Handel's Messiah.  It was, of course, beautiful.  I was whistling those tunes for days. 

Christmas was getting close.  On the Tuesday before Christmas we had the mission Christmas Party.  President and Sister Lindley spent a great deal of effort to bring the entire mission together for a day.  It was held at the RAF base in Harrogate. That base is host to about 2,000 USAF personnel and welcomed our group of about 140 missionaries to their facilities.  The young missionaries love to be together and enjoyed an opportunity relax a little.  In the morning they bowled and played various sports.  In the afternoon was some entertainment and fun.  In the evening we dressed up for a lovely dinner and the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life."  It was great fun.



We gathered a few of our friends around us!



So I guess you can see that we are filling our time.  We do miss our family and friends but we are enjoying the wonderful experiences here.  The greatest of which are the wonderful people we meet.  For our Christmas dinner we enjoyed the company of a missionary fron Scotland, a missionary from Germany and a young man from South Africa who had just joined the church. We fed them Mexican food (my request).  We had a wonderful time and then talked to family on Skype. So we continue to totter on in our retirement having experiences and blessings we could not have imagined.  We love our Savior and rejoice in His gospel! 

Missionaries

Catching up

We love to see the young elders and sisters!   They are so dedicated to the work and inspiring.  They work and study so diligently and love to get together.  Zone Conference was great!

Serving one another

Sweet Sisters

One of the most enjoyable parts of being here in England is our association with the young people who have been called as missionaries here.  They come from many parts of the world and are dedicated and purposeful.  It is amazing to watch these young 19-25 year-old people be so self-sacrificing and noble.  I know they are just regular people, but they push themselves from a deep faith in God to become more than regular.  They overcome discomforts like cold, damp weather and long, hard days trying to get people to listen to their message.  They learn to live with a companion.  We love them!

Our House

Lorraine in the front garden

Is a very very fine house..just like in the old Beatles song. It is tiny and kinda like a doll house. We have a tiny frig and freezer and a washer/dryer combo that both washes and bakes our clothes into a mass of wrinkles. The kitchen is so small that we have to move in and out one at a time.  We have some delightful intimate moments as we clear the table and put the dishes in the sink.

There is also a living room and a dining room on the ground floor.  They are pleasant rooms with nice, rounded corners and substantial window coverings. We enjoy views into our garden both front and rear.  In England we don't have yards, we have gardens.  Since our building is semi-attached (that is we share a wall with the house next door),  our garden is not very large.  It is more garden than we really want to maintain, but we get to maintain it anyway.The plants stay green most of the time.  It is always slightly damp everywhere.  Even the concrete walk stays green (moss).

Crazy washer/dryer

String pull light switch

As you walk in our front door, you can walk to the right and go up the steep stairway to the second floor that has three bedrooms and a bath.  The third bedroom is a 5 by 8 closet that has a single bed in it so it IS a bedroom.  The bathroom is nice but one difference is that there are no light switches or electrical plugs.  You turn on the light with a pull switch that comes down from the ceiling.  Evidently we feel that a wall switch in the bathroom might create an electrical accident...makes sense.

Kitchen to front door

Down stairs to front door

Living room (TV is not connected to anything-just DVD)

Dining area

Our house is on a hill so that we can look down into the valley created by the River Aire and is in an area called Kirkstall. The area is named after Kirkstall Abbey which is a beautiful 12th century abbey built by Cistercian monks.  Of course there are only ruins of the abbey remaining.  We love to walk there in the mornings.

Driving on the RIGHT side

   One of the activities I have been challenged by and enjoyed is driving here in England.  I have always enjoyed driving.  We put lots of miles on our cars at home and as we came here I was looking forward to the challenge of driving on the "wrong" side of the road.

   Looking back a little,  I had an infatuation with British cars as a young man.  We had a Rootes Group Hillman when I was in high school and enjoyed the British attention it attracted, especially after my Dad painted it a bright green (not British Racing Green, a bright ugly, not very shiny green).  I later had a white 59 Austin Healy Sprite (Bug Eye) and I captured my bride with a beautiful, red 57 Austin Healy 100-6.  So I looked forward to driving in England.

   Our car here is a Vauxhall Meriva. It looks like the one below.  It has a diesel engine and except for a dead spot when you accelerate from a stop, it goes pretty well.  The hesitation is a distinct disadvantage when you come to a ROUNDABOUT!

A roundabout is the British concept of an intersection.  During my first forays the roundabout was a major point of trepidation.  Here I was, driving on the wrong side of the street and steering from the wrong side of the car and I approached what seemed to me to be the Carosel of Death!  As you approach a busy roundabout you look to the right to see if there are cars coming (cars from the right have right-of-way).  When there is a break you accelerate into the roundabout in 2 or three lanes.  If you want to turn left you must align yourself with the first exit.  If you want to go straight you must find (usually) the second exit.  If you want to turn right (an American left turn, except to the right because, remember you are steering from the right side of the vehicle) you align yourself with the third exit which is three quarters of the way around the roundabout.  I know you should use your turn indicators in some way but I haven't mastered that quite yet. 



After a couple of weeks I got the rhythm of it and now I am a proponent of the roundabout.

Anyway, driving here is fun.  I can never relax and drive, I always have to be focused.  Lorraine is having fun being the navigator.  She has not yet driven here, she is content to be the control force from the side seat.  We make a pretty good driving team.... 

Kirkstall Abbey

We love to go walking at the Abbey. It's not far from our little house and is amazing. The ruins of the abbey date from 1220 a.d. and it is huge. It's located on the banks of the River Aire and we often take walks along the river or on the footpath around the abbey.