AUTUMNAL EQUINOX ARRIVING SOON......

Yes, summer is fading fast and our wonderful trees here are starting to change colors.  We so enjoy all the massive ancient trees that adorn this beautiful land. We arrived in the dead of winter, then enjoyed a rather cool spring with trees coated with brightly colored blossoms. Then came a hot steamy summer, (a wonderful summer nonetheless), but a wonderful shade tree was always close by.  Now we feel autumn coming on.  Our leaves are starting to turn, and even fall a little.  We have almost completed the cycle of life since we arrived here!  In a few days we will have been on our mission for 8 months.

Winter at the London Temple.

Spring on the streets of London.

Summer in the Cotswolds.

We still remain very busy with our ward duties and slogging around London looking for lost sheep.  We have fallen in love with the members here, and are apprehensive about ever having to leave.  London is a huge city of over 8 million people, and they all seem to be in a hurry to get somewhere, fast! 

Enjoying a lovely rainy day with another senior couple at Royal Tunbridge Wells.

We have some beautiful areas in our ward such as Wimbledon, Richmond Park, Barnes Bridge, Putney etc.  We so enjoy traveling around these areas.  We also enjoy going across the Thames to northern London and jumping on a bus on our Pdays.  We have found some very interesting sights and eating places on our travels.

This sign symbolises many of our treks to find our beloved members. 

Sister Adams really enjoyed the Womens' Live broadcast from Offenbach, Germany on September 9th, with 3 General Authorities addressing us.  Elder Bednar and Elder Ballard both spoke about pioneering women, and likened us all in this Europe area to the early pioneer women and said these sisters are pioneers who are moving forward the Kingdom of the Lord.  It was for sisters 8 and over.  We had a really good attendance and it was very inspiring.  We were also both able to attend the UK and Ireland YSA Conference held in Brighton August 22nd to 25th.  What a great group of young adults!  We assisted in various ways chaperoning, modeling for their art workshops, accompanying them on their service projects and helping decorate for their dance.  We particularly enjoyed their devotionals and testimony meetings.

Our Senior Outing for August was to the beautiful Windsor Castle, just outside London, where the Queen likes to spend most of her weekends.  The castle was originally built a thousand years ago. The resplendent interior is in the late Georgian style.  What a lovely break from the city.  Windsor is a quaint town nestled on the upstream River Thames.  We enjoyed a lovely lunch with the other Senior Missionaries, toured the spectacular Castle and grounds, and took a relaxing river boat ride. (Believe it or not, over 500 people live and work in the castle.)

If you look closely you may recognise a senior couple!

 A view from the former moat, which is now a beautiful garden.

Lunch with some of the other Seniors at the Duchess of Cambridge Pub.

 The interior of the castle is absolutely breathtaking.

Just a few examples of the interior.

Once again, what used to be the moat but now is the moat garden.

Taking a self-guided tour of the castle.

We had the opportunity to travel up to the Preston Temple to attend the wedding and sealing of a young couple from our ward here, and stay there for a few days.  It was so nice to be up north and see old friends and feel "at home".  It was a beautiful wedding and a wonderful trip all around.  We were able to drive through the Cotswolds on the way up, and drive through the Peak District of Derbyshire on the way back down.  Such beautiful and amazing scenery!

So thrilling for Sister Adams to be approaching Liverpool and Wigan, two of her hometowns.

Sister Adams has had some unexpected dental problems lately. After much extreme pain for many days, and many visits to the dentist we are finally getting things sorted.  Things get serious at our age when trying to retain teeth that will enable us to eat! Anyway, after some extremely expensive procedures, we figure the pain in the jaw will be nothing compared to the pain in the pocket! 

We got a lovely surprise at the Womens' broadcast.  Sister Adams saw the lady who was rebaptised a few weeks ago, (the one who asked her to talk at her baptism), and she said her non-member husband is meeting with the missionaries and is going to be baptised next month.  She is not in our ward so we don't see her too often.  What great news!

We also got some other great news from home - David and Sarah, and Ruth and Theo are expecting a new member to join their family in late March.  Yes!!!

Ruth, Theo and baby number 3.

We had a great ward BBQ on Saturday.  Elder Adams did all the cooking of hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages and chicken, and the members brought salads and desserts.  A good time was had by all. 

 Some of our very faithful youth. We are losing two of these girls who are off to University - one to law school and the other to med school.

Beautiful weather for a fun day BBQ'ing.

Great sisters who really get things done.

How come these young missionaries always look so happy?! L to R from USA, England, Albania, New Zealand.

The work goes on and we couldn't be more thrilled to be doing our Member Leader Support Mission here.  We know the leaders and members appreciate all we do to help  No task is too big or too small.  The Gospel is true and we are here to move the work of the restoration forward.  As is stated in our Preach My Gospel handbook, 

"Our purpose is to 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".  

It's that simple.  This should be the credo for all members of His church. We pray it is.

Lots of love to all 'til next time (and we hope it wont be as long!),

Elder and Sister Adams

LONG HOT SUMMER...........

Yeah yeah I know, its not as hot as St George, but it has been unusually hot here. We have had a long streak of about 90 degree weather with 90% humidity. That may not sound bad, but we dont have air conditioning, and the buses, trains and subways can get downright swampy. We open most windows in our flat and have 2 fans going non-stop. Even the Brits, who crave hot weather, are starting to complain. Where is the rain??? It's actually only 79 degrees today, which is wonderful. 

If we turn one way from our flat, we might think we were in Instanbul, Mumbai, Africa or Baghdad.  If we turn the other way across the road, we have the beautiful Tooting Common -152 acres of beautiful grass, flowers, trees, lakes and wildlife.

Tooting Common

Tooting Lido is also across the road from us. It is the biggest swimming pool in all of Europe.  One lap in that pool would just about do us in!

We always stay busy with one thing or another. We have driven down to the Temple several times, and we usually take some single adult members with us.  It's great to spend time with these faithful members.  We have been teaching a Temple Prep class for Clapham Common Ward and Wandsworth Common Ward.  One of the couples that was in our class is getting married on August 9th, but in the Preston Temple, not the London Temple.  Preston is not in our mission.  After being invited to the wedding, we asked our Mission President for special permission to leave the mission and attend their wedding.  After requesting permission from our Regional Rep in Germany, he told us we could go.  Yipee!  We are so excited.  This young couple are going to be a great asset to our ward.  Plus, we are excited to head North to Sister Adams' home town, where we will stay for a few days.  Stay posted for some great pics as we travel up there through the Cotswolds and other picturesque areas.

We had the opportunity one P-Day a few weeks ago, to travel to Hartley Wintney to visit our old neighbor Dorothy Nolan's Goddaughter and family.  They live on a farm about an hour from here in a 400 year old farmhouse, and have several acres in a lovely rural setting. It was a lovely sunny day, except for a rainshower or two.

Hartley Wintney, as mentioned in a Jane Austen novel

We have been holding FHE here in our flat with YSA, SA and the other senior couple in our ward.  The last 2 times we had them all bring their laptops and we all got online and indexed.  After we got everyone trained and settled, we did some great indexing.  We both love it, and the others all had to admit that it is addicting.

We have discovered several ASDA stores around us, which is the UK version of WalMart.  Elder Adams loves WalMart, so he is thrilled that we now can enjoy ASDA.  We also discovered an Oriental Market next to ASDA where we can get real Chinese potstickers.  Mmmm so delicious.  With all the cream cakes and other English dainties, our waistlines are expanding.  Hopefully all our walking will counteract the effects of the treats.

Real potstickers

Elder Adams has been the only counselor in the Bishopric for several months, but a new counselor was just called on Sunday. Sister Adams teaches Relief Society, does the RS Newsletter, and is the Visiting Teaching Coordinator.  She was also just installed as the new Editor for the Senior Missionary Newsletter for the England London South Mission.  She was also asked to talk at the baptism this Saturday of a member who is coming back into the fold after having had their name removed from church records.  It should be a happy event.  

We went downtown to watch the Tour de France and got a front row spot after waiting there for 4 hours.  Obviously, we were confused as to when it was actually going to pass by, as we would not have waited 4 hours normally.  Elder Adams said it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and it just happened to be our P Day.  We stood right below Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.  Here's a video Elder Adams took.  (It may not work on a mobile device, but works on a laptop or desktop.)

We went to Kew Gardens for our monthly Senior Missionary Outing.  It is the most famous garden in the world with many venues including glasshouses, exotic rainforests, a Palace and the Princess of Wales Conservatory.  Also, we walked around acres and acres of beautiful gardens with the other Seniors.

Kew Palace

It turned out to be a lovely day after a few little rain sprinkles

Our Young Women had a Mexican Dinner fundraiser for camp, even though there is only one girl going from our ward.  We all helped set tables and decorate, and chop, chop, chop for a delicious dinner.  Mexican food is almost unheard of over here.  A good time was had by all. 

Elder Adams chop, chop, chopping (they assigned him the onions!)

One of our responsibilities is to clean up the ward list and find out who has moved and who is less active.  It is a time consuming job and requires lots of travel. We really enjoy it when we actually get to meet the people and have a good visit.  Several of the less actives have asked for blessings, and genuinely seem to enjoy our visits and invite us back.  We really love these folks here, all of them.

We had another opportunity to drive a missionary down to the mission office who was returning home to Spain.  We had a teary goodbye with the other Elders and Sisters before we loaded him and all his wordly goods into our car.  What great young people these missionaries are.

Missionaries from L to R: Australia, Netherlands, USA, Australia, Spain, Colombia, New Zealand, me, USA.  Happy in the work, but sad to see Elder Cantos going home

This blog has turned into a monthly event, sorry to say.  We get so busy and involved in all the missionary activities that it's hard to set aside the time it takes to compile this.  We are so happy in this work, we give thanks every day for this blessed opportunity.  Our assignment is MLS or member, leader support.  We feel really needed here, and we know the members really appreciate all the help we are able to give.  This is the Lord's work, building up His church, and there's no better way to spend our time. 

Cheerio until next time,

Love, Elder and Sister Adams

AND DID THOSE FEET IN ANCIENT TIME.........

"And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon Englands mountains green:

And was the holy Lamb of God,

On Englands pleasant pastures seen!.........."

This beautiful poem by William Blake, and set to music, is our England London South Mission anthem. We sing it at Zone Meetings. It always brings a tear to my eye. We love being in this mission - it is a joy to wake up every morning to face another missionary day. Each day is filled with new missionary adventures. We truly love the opportunity to serve, and are learning to love our new friends here just like family.

Where does the time go, however? In a few weeks, one third of our mission will be over. That's a scary thought, because we feel as if we just got here. June has been a busy month but we will try and cover some highlights here.

On June 6 we met with some of the senior missionaries in the beautiful seaside town of Brighton. It turned out to be a glorious sunny day, and after a lovely lunch together and sharing some tearful thoughts with couples who were leaving for home soon, we toured the town and surrounding places of interest.

This was taken before we got smart and took our coats off!

In front of the Royal Palace, built in1787, as a seaside retreat for George, Prince of Wales who became King in 1811. It is often referred to as the Brighton Pavilion. It is built in the Indo-Saracenic style prevalent in India for most of the 19th century.

Elder Adams clowning

A look back in time as we peeked over the wall behind St Margaret's Church

We attend weekly District meetings with our local young Elders here.  We also get to teach with them quite often, which we love. We are called upon to help with YSA (Young Single Adult) activities sometimes too, and anticipate another Temple trip with them this coming week. Tomorrow we are driving some single adults down to the Temple also, and treasure these times with the members. Elder Adams, as the only counselor in the Bishopric, has pretty much been acting as Bishop recently, because our Bishop has had some tragic events happen in his life.  We are so glad we could be here to help out. Sister Adams also gets to help out a little in the Stake FHC from time to time, and with RS and Visiting Teaching.  We Home Teach/Visit Teach about 8 or 9 families, and love to be in the members' homes and get to love them and know them better. We have seen some miracles happen.

We were asked to feed 30 missionaries at the last Zone Meeting, so we fed them 16 large pizzas, and tons of salad, drinks and desserts. We would have to say, the food disappeared very quickly! A few days ago, we took the tube into London and met Madison and Cody Irwin who were here on a business/fun trip.  We took the Thames river cruise with Madison, then debarked at the Tower of London and met Cody and ate a nice dinner at a French restaurant on the waterfront.  It was so good to see friends from home. What a lovely couple.

With Madison in front of Tower Bridge

We are really in the thick of things here in our neighborhood of Tooting Bec. Wimbledon, where the British Open is now underway, is in our ward boundaries. Elder Adams made the comment, "It would be nice to get tickets to Wimbledon while we are here. It shouldn't cost too much". Well, we inquired of a local man we meet on the bus from time to time, how much it would cost. He laughed at us and said one ticket would cost about £5,000 ($8,500)! Hmmm, guess we will pass on that. Then yesterday we noticed a flashing street sign warning us that the Tour de France was going to be passing us here on our street. We will be sure to get pics of that. He also told us we could get tickets to some of the London shows for £10 and up. We haven't seen any shows yet, but we probably should before we go home. The previous fervor over the World Cup has kind of fizzled out now that England is out of the running.

Sometimes we feel as if our feet aren't even touching the ground because we are so happy with what is happening with the people we are working with. We hesitate to name names and situations, so just know that the Lord is working miracles and we are priviledged to be a part of it. We have also been asked to teach a temple prep class to about 8 individuals and are looking forward to attending the London Temple with them. The Temple is only about 23 miles away, but it usually takes us well over an hour to get there because of London traffic.

Madison and Sister Adams down on the River Thames by Big Ben

Last Sunday night we attended a Fireside at Hyde Park chapel which is in the London Mission, north of the Thames. As seniors we are allowed to go across the Thames, but the young missionaries are not allowed out of our mission. The speaker was President Kevin Worthen, the new BYU President. He spoke about how to feel joy and happiness through living the Gospel. He seems like a very down-to-earth friendly man, and we are sure he will be a great president.

And so we go on in joy and happiness, and to continue the words of William Blake, referring to the work of building God's kingdom here in this spot:

"........I will not cease from Mental Fight,

Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:

Till we have built Jerusalem,

In Englands green & pleasant Land."

Lots of love 'til next time,

Elder and Sister Adams

THIS BLESSED PLOT............THIS ENGLAND

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
~ Shakespeare

We have done quite a bit of traveling over the last month, and have seen some marvellous scenery.  We always have our iPhone cameras with us so we don't miss a thing.  Our monthly Senior Missionary outing was to Bath, in Somerset.  It sprinkled rain just a little, but all in all it was a great day.  The previous few days had been termed a "heat wave" and had temps of as high as 74 degrees.  We were heading for the hottest May on record, but then it turned back to cooler weather.

The ancient Roman Baths

Bath features Georgian architecture from the 1700's.

Bath Abbey

I had an unusual experience several weeks ago as I sat in church. I had taken a purse that I was using for the first time over here. One of the side pockets had a key in it with a familiar-looking fob. I thought and thought, and thought and thought, but for the life of me I couldn't remember what it was. When we got home, I pulled it out and asked Elder Adams if he knew what it was. He gasped and gave me a look of astonishment. Just at that moment it struck me - "Oh..........it's our front door key at home!". It really seemed like a world away as we are so absorbed in our life and work here. We truly are happy in our work, and we are really learning to love the people here.  The members are so dedicated to the Lord and his church.

A day out in Regents Park with its secret gardens.

Elder Adams has been in charge of the ward pretty much as the Bishop went to Nigeria, then when the Bishop returned he fell down his stairs and spent several days in the hospital.  He is home now and recuperating.  We are sometimes invited to teach with the young Elders, and we always love that experience.  We will attend a baptism tomorrow evening.  We have a car, so we are asked to drive returning missionaries to the mission office as they return home at the end of their missions. We will do that again on Monday, and take him for a nice pub meal before he heads back to Spain.  We love these young missionaries!

A friend from schoolgirl days came to visit with her husband.  We went to Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath.

Kenwood House, a Georgian villa built in the early 1600's.

(My camera had a weird setting.  This stone is really a buttery color.)

The villa contains an amazing array of paintings by artists such as Rembrandt, Constable, Turner, Vermeer, Van Dyck, Gainsborough and more.

Kenwood House rear view.

We are actually working most of the time, and these outings are highlights of our time here. However, we are still loving being here and doing this missionary work.  We need to take more time out to write this blog, and not wait so long in between.  Au revoir until next time.

~ Elder and Sister Adams

AMAZING PEOPLE - AMAZING STORIES..............

What a privilege it has been to meet and take part in the lives of the people here. Most of them have an amazing life story to tell. We ask them why they come to London in the first place. They think about it for a while, and say they were drawn here. Fortunately, some of them come from countries close enough that they can pay a visit home from time to time.

We visited with a member couple who had come out of an Eastern bloc former Communist country.  They are limited as to what employment they may seek here, but work hard and struggle to make it. They told of both losing their fathers at an early age, one to cancer from the Chernobyl accident, and the other, a photographer, suddenly went missing and was killed by the Communists. They were both exposed to the church after the Communists lost power, joined, then met and married. We admire these lovely faithful people so much.

We mentioned in an earlier blog our Chinese professor friend who also comes from a Communist country and Atheism. She was searching and studied hard, and joined the church here in London. She has now returned to China where it is very hard to find other members with whom she can meet.  It is also illegal to proselyte, only with family. She is a rock. We love her so much. We stay in touch by email.

Just a week ago we had a baptism for a wonderful young man who came out of troubled Egypt. He has been a devout Muslim all of his life. He met the LDS missionaries some time back on the streets of London, and discussed both religions. It got a little heated. However, he received some materials about the church and went online to study more. Through his own study, and after visiting several different Christian churches, he decided this was the church he wanted to join. He showed up at the chapel one day and asked to be taught. Wow, how about that?! He knew much already, and was a real pleasure to teach. Sometimes we felt like he was teaching us!

We had another great day out with some of the other Senior Missionary couples to Greenwich (of Greenwich Mean Time, GMT). We saw the Cutty Sark, the Maritime Museum and other interesting spots. We all ate together at a restaurant and had a great time visiting, then went off to tour the town.

In front of the Cutty Sark, one of the last and fastest British clipper ships that shipped tea from Shanghai for the East India Company, before steam powered ships took over.  The Cutty Sark is named for a fictional witch in the poem Tam o' Shanter by Robert Burns.

This barge was built for Prince Frederick, the son of King George II in 1732, for when he wanted to go for a little float.  However, it took 21 men to power it!

These are actual preserved figureheads from sailing ships.  Figureheads were often religious symbols used to protect the ship, or animals or other characters to show power or frighten other sailors.

A local artist painting a beautiful street scene of Greenwich.

These britches and socks were worn by Lord Horatio Nelson as he fought and died in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.  The British beat the French and Spanish in that battle, and thus the Great British Empire became the ruler of the seas.

Meet Sir Elder Knight Adams. His headpiece is so heavy he can hardly move, let alone see or conquer anything!

We took a drive to see Hastings (of Battle of Hastings fame of 1066) on the south coast. Then we went inland a little ways to the town called Battle, where the actual battle took place.  William the Conqueror was made to build this Abbey as penance for killing so many English people.  (Of course, we are sure his enslaved English subjects did all the work!)

Last Sunday we celebrated our 40th (Ruby) Wedding Anniversary quietly at home.  It has been quite an exciting ride.  Where did all that time go?!

Our ward members gave us a lovely signed card.

A beautiful day at the London Temple.  We assisted the YSA group that went to do baptisms.

All in all, we love doing the Lord's work and are enjoying every minute of it.  We feel needed here, and hope we can be a positive influence in the lives of the British saints.

Tata for now,

Elder and Sister Adams