22 July 2016

"Since we last wrote one of our young single adults, Edward Blow, received his mission call to the South Africa Johannesburg Mission.  He is a recent convert himself and had been one of our YSA stake leaders.  His story, in short, is that he went out in search of a crab sandwich and found instead the church as he was approached on the street by missionaries.  He expresses a strong testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and has consistently been one to be counted on in any request made to the YSA, sometimes arising very early to catch a train to help others out.  We will miss him when he leaves in October.

We attended the Exeter district meeting and made a presentation on working with members to find people to teach.  Afterward we took them all out to lunch and then put on our 'Hoover' repair hats again while inspecting the sisters' flat.  They thought the vacuum didn't work at all, but it turns out that previous missionaries had hooked up the hoses wrong.  It is amazing how sometimes simple fixes can bring great results.  This is our third 'Hoover' in our district we have managed to repair.

We took apple muffins to our meeting, and two of the missionaries asked for the recipe.  By the time we leave we should have quite a few missionary approved recipes.

Friday evening we were invited to dinner at the Zugcic home.  The mother was a missionary in England, and another guest was also a missionary in this very area (having come from Austria) and now lives in the same ward as some people she baptized.  We had a full bowl of soup and bread, which Mom thought was the meal; it was followed by much more.  We went away stuffed.  They have a flat right by ASDA, which is the Walmart affiliate here.  Some stores have an American aisle, but that doesn't really mean you can find anything you might want.  Did you know Chex cereals can't be sold here, but Cheerios can (although more sugar is added)?

Saturday Dad spoke in stake priesthood meeting on senior missionary service.  We will send it separately.

Dad taught missionary preparation, then visited with the Pearces, who have been called as the YSA couple in Exeter.  We count it as a great blessing as this ward has the second highest number in the stake, but don't have anything going except a YSA Sunday School class.

On Tuesday we visited Compton Castle, home of Humphrey Gilbert, half brother of Sir Walter Raleigh.  He established Newfoundland, but really only stayed there 2 weeks.  He is infamous for his brutality in wars in Ireland.  We are quite sure that had we lived in the times of those early castles we would have been field hands or in the kitchen instead of living in the house, but then they weren't always the best people.  This castle had a separate kitchen as they were worried about fire.  It was used in the filming of Sense and Sensibility. 

These little mice were hidden all over the house!

Yesterday we drove to Poole for a 3 zone conference and had to rush back for Dad to teach Institute, both ways providing rides for missionaries.  At the conference we were particularly impressed with Brian Martin, a counselor to President Gubler, who is British.  His humble manner and view of the history here that he has experienced firsthand were the highlights for us.  We were going strong from 5:00am to 11:00pm."