End of Mission

Our mission is officially over.  We arrived home December 18.  We have been released by our stake president.  We spoke in church today and greeted many old friends. 

We had our goodbye interview with President Millar after the mission temple session and Christmas dinner on December 12 and spent that weekend in Geneva, Switzerland with Connie’s sister and Paul’s brother (married to each other), who had serve a mission there a few years ago.  In Geneva we witnessed the Escalade celebration commemorating the defeat of a French duke’s invasion in 1602.  We returned to Southampton and spent a day orienting our replacements, the Nielsons from Mesa, Arizona, and said goodbye to our dear young single adults one final time.  Connie was in tears as we left.  As she put it, when we left home we knew we would return and see our family again, but when we left England we couldn’t be sure we would be able to see all our beloved English friends again.  

For English driving aficionados, we are pleased to report we spent the night before departure at a Heathrow hotel near the Hatton Cross roundabout, which consists of five small roundabouts surrounding a large one.  We negotiated two of the small ones a couple of times but decided not to try all six and risk our driving record this close to the end.

The mission has been a wonderfully rewarding experience, one of the best decisions of our life.

Hatton Cross Roundabout

It is hard to accept that the end of our mission is less than 2 months away.  We truly love, and we hate to say goodbye to, the dear friends we have made here.

Two more wonderful young adults were baptized since our last update, one English, one Chinese.  This seems to be an ideal place to preach the gospel to the Chinese.  Though the Church is not permitted to do missionary work in China proper, many bright young Chinese are accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ while studying abroad.

Busy, busy:  Last month we began teaching the Book of Mormon Institute class for young single adults, which is fun but takes a fair amount of preparation time.  We also accepted the assignment to furnish a new missionary flat in Hedge End, about 10 days before the missionaries' arrival, as well as to partially furnish the Zone Leaders’ flat in Fareham.  It took several trips to Ikea and a number of other stores.  Since the Church changed the age requirement for missionaries, the mission’s population has risen dramatically.  Our zone has increased from 12 to 28 young missionaries during that time, adding 4 with this month’s transfers.  By the way, while our young adults learn gospel on Tuesday nights, they learn other things on Thursday nights.  Recent lessons have included how to skin a pheasant (road kill) and how to pick a lock.

Great talk:  We haven’t done any sight-seeing since the last update, but we did attend an inspiring fireside talk in Reading at which well-known Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen spoke.  He described 3 things he loves about the Church, as follows (from Paul's imperfect notes):

1.  Mormons actually care about religion.  It is not a cafeteria church, in which people pick and choose their standards and beliefs.  A Marxist scholar, of all people, who came to Harvard to study capitalism and democracy, told Bro. C of his surprise at discovering that a democracy, unlike a dictatorship, really needs a strong religious underpinning.  A democracy requires people who will obey unenforceable laws because they believe they are accountable to God.  Imposing democracy on a country without a strong religious foundation produces chaos. 

2.  Mormonism values questions.  Christianity decided early on that it had all the answers (i.e., the Bible is the final word of God and there is no more revelation) and thus no need to ask questions.  The dark ages followed.  In 1820 a boy asked a question and revelation came.  He asked another in 1823 and an angel came.  God has all the answers but can't give them unless we ask, or we wouldn't understand anyway.  Mormonism is different from other Christian faiths because it keeps getting answers and thus keeps moving as they remain stagnant while arguing among themselves who has the best interpretation of the Biblical answers.

3.  Mormonism doesn't conflict with science.  Everything we learn that is true is gospel.  Original Christians believed God is in the universe, i.e., has power because He obeys the laws.  Greeks believed God is above the universe, e.g., doesn't have to obey laws of physics.  Hence Christianity's adoption of Greek philosophy led to trouble with science.  This is the only church in which more education strengthens faith; i.e., there is a positive correlation between higher education levels and church activity.

Culture and language:  Although we haven’t seen it, we learned that there is a large roundabout surrounded by 5 smaller roundabouts in Swindon, about 70 miles north of us.  It must be a thing of beauty.  We have learned that when some English add an “r” to the end of a word, such as when pronouncing Obama like “Obomber,” that is called the “west-country burr.” 

Swindon Roundabouts

 A mission is such a rewarding experience.  A missionary who served here told Connie recently, “You changed my mission.”  While we haven’t turned the world upside-down, we’ve done a few good things.  It feels wonderful.  We love the missionaries and the English people.

Our District, September 2013    2 Chinese, 1 Italian, 1 English, 1 Croatian

Baptism, Wedding, Camp, Convention, Sights, and Weather

This past weekend Paul baptized one of our young single adult men.  He has attended Institute and YSA family home evening faithfully all year and attended church for the past couple of months.   He is a good, humble young man.  As a two-for-one bonus from the conversion process, a formerly somewhat lukewarm young adult activated himself as he fellowshipped Josh, and now radiates the light of the gospel for the first time since we’ve known him.

We attended a wedding of two of our young singles.  British weddings differ from US weddings in several respects.  For one thing, people cannot be married in the temple but must be married in a public place (such as a church) approved by the government.  Certain wording in the ceremony is government-mandated (including the part asking if anyone objects to the marriage).  And the registrar is a key player—part of the service includes bride, groom, and witnesses signing his big book.  There was a reception right after the wedding, and then the bride and groom hurried off to the London Temple to be sealed, to change their “until death do you part” to “for time and all eternity.” 

Other events pale in significance by comparison to the above, but deserve mention nonetheless.  We had a nice campout in July for our stake YSA on the Isle of Wight, our first trip there, which strengthened ties between YSAs on the Isle and here on the “mainland”, or whatever you call this bigger island of England, Wales, and Scotland.

Isle of Wight campers

That was followed in August by an amazing (another oft-used word over here, but it really was amazing) YSA convention at Ardingly College, on a 420-acre campus about 20 minutes from the London Temple, attended by about 350 young singles.  It kicked off with American-style square dancing, complete with caller and live band, which was a great way to mix people quickly.  Paul’s favorite workshop was a talk by David Bradford (former CEO of Fusion IO) on “How to Start a Billion-dollar Corporation,” not that Paul plans to do it, but it never hurts to know how.  Sunday evening featured inspiring talks by LDS Paralympics gold medalist Jason Smyth and area authority Clifford Herbertson.  The convention concluded with a session at the temple on Monday.  A “college” here, by the way, is like a high school, though Ardingly has lower grades as well.  Students and teachers live on campus, though the college also takes day students.  Tuition, room and board run about $40,000 per year there.  We are told that British colleges are kept afloat in part by the parents of Chinese and Russian millionaires whose children attend.  After college, to further their education students go on to university, called “uni” for short.

Ardingly College

We helped another couple and the elders furnish a newly-acquired unfurnished flat for missionaries in the town of Romsey, and last week we found a flat for missionaries who will soon be stationed in the Hedge End part of Southampton.  We suppose we’ll help furnish it too, assuming the mission does indeed rent it.

In July and August we thoroughly enjoyed visits from our oldest granddaughter, Adrienne Powell; our daughter Christy and husband Ryan Cook; and Paul’s brother and Connie’s sister, Channing and Dede Hinman.  Places we visited with them include the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace (which out-poshes any other place we’ve seen here—too bad inside photography was forbidden), Windsor Castle, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral, Bath, Arundel Castle, Carisbrooke Castle, Osborne House (Queen Victoria’s summer place), Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Oxford (where we ate at a pub once frequented by C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkein), the British Museum, and the renowned Harrod’s department store.  A few pictures are shown below.  Incidentally, we have been doing our missionary work too.  We had a little more time to sight-see with Institute in recess for August.

This summer’s weather has been amazing:  warm (usually in the 70s F with occasional 80s and a rare 90) and dry nearly all summer, in stark contrast to last year’s record-breaking rainfall.  And very often, when it has rained, it has rained at night and been clear in the daytime, just as they sang about in “Camelot”.  Paul considers it probably the best summer weather of his entire life.  On the subject of weather, it was in April 2012 that the UK Meteorological Office predicted hotter and drier summers for decades to come, which prediction was followed by months of rain that made it England’s wettest year on record.  Then in June 2013 a newspaper article explained that ocean water temperature cycles mean Britain can expect cold, wet summers for the next 5-10 years, but we had a hot, dry one.  It almost causes one to distrust the decades-into-the-future predictions of climate scientists when they botch 3-month forecasts so badly.  

Carisbrooke Castle

Harrod's

Us at Oxford

Tolkein's and Lewis's Oxford hangout

Windsor Castle

Missionary Work, Temple, Gray Cars, and Old Ships

Thirty new missionaries arrived in the mission this week, and some old ones completed their missions and returned home.  Our district said goodbye to Elder Manga (Australia), Sister Naseem (Pakistan), Elder Carver (transferred), and Elder Bendall (transferred).  Their replacements are from Germany, Croatia, Italy, and the US.  This is quite an international group of missionaries. 

Making Temples Out of Marshmallows on the Lawn

Last Saturday was a notable day, and a long one.  We drove to the London Temple to assist our Young Singles with babysitting primary children whose parents were attending the temple.  We were able to attend a session ourselves.  We returned to Southampton in time for Paul to give a talk at a baptismal service for a retired (the British say OAP, for old-age pensioner) gentleman the missionaries have been teaching for the past year, and whom we have grown to love and respect.  After that service ended we drove to Winchester for a baptismal service for a young married couple.  Then we came home to put the finishing touches on a Sunday school lesson for the next day.  It was a very good day.  These baptisms followed a mission-wide fast a few weeks ago for the progress of the work.

Perfect Weather at the Temple

Other Young Singles activities of the past few weeks have included service projects to clean up a derelict English garden and to entertain primary children during a party celebrating the 40^th anniversary of the creation of the Southampton Stake of the Church. 

The mission had an interesting experience with a short-notice visit of an apostle, Elder M. Russell Ballard.  He was to have gone from Sweden, where he had given a major address to young singles, to Russia, but visa problems prevented him, so he came to London, and we were treated to an impromptu mission conference of sorts.  We were alerted Sunday evening of the possibility of a meeting the next day, and we left for London with a carload of young missionaries promptly after it was confirmed Monday morning.  We arrived at the Hyde Park chapel after travel by car, train, and a brisk walk from Victoria Station, where we were addressed by Elder Ballard and our mission president et al.  It was a memorable day.

The weather for the past month has been so unlike last year’s weather that it’s hard to believe we are in the same place.  It has been DRY.  Grass is turning brown.  Today it is supposed to reach 82 F here and 90 in London.  It has been above 80 at least 3 days in the past week, which rates as really hot here.  Since there is no air conditioning most places, it is fortunate that the humidity is relatively low compared to the southern and eastern US.  We’ve also had some cool weather, such as a high of 59 F on July 2.  One of the few times it rained was on a Young Singles picnic we had a couple of weeks ago.

Cars:  With mission president’s approval, Paul has allowed 2 missionaries to practice driving our mission car before they start taking professional lessons at upwards of £20/hour.  The American missionary with a US license can drive on it up to the 12-month point.  The Scottish missionary with a provisional license must have a 3+-year UK license holder in the front seat, so we borrowed a licensed member for that.  They got good enough before their transfer that Paul was bored enough to start counting gray and silver cars.  The English have a thing about gray and silver cars.  Our data show that 130 out of 342 cars counted (38%) were gray or silver.  If Paul hasn't forgotten how to do statistics, that means over 5% of all 3-car collisions in England involve only silver and gray cars.  Those colors seem to be best for not showing dirt or hard-water residue (this south coast is underlain with chalk).  We don’t know if it’s to camouflage the dirt, or if something in the British psyche prefers gray, perhaps to match the traditional weather.

Ships:  we visited the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard recently, where we toured HMS Victory, the ship on which Lord Nelson died.  The decks were designed for short sailors, with under 6-ft ceilings.  We also visited the Mary Rose museum, where are displayed the remains of the hull and artifacts from the Mary Rose, a ship of Henry VIII that sank near Portsmouth in a battle with the French.  Its hull and contents were mostly preserved by lying in the mud for 400 years, until it was discovered and raised some years ago.  It is thought its sinking resulted from a wind gust catching it as it executed a quick turn after firing its cannons on one side, in order to fire the cannons on the other side at the French.  Apparently a ship could be turned around faster than a cannon can be cleaned and loaded.  Anyway, the doors over the gun ports being open, the gust tilted the ship till water rushed in the ports, sinking the ship.  Since the top deck was covered with a rope mesh to ward off boarding parties, most of the 500 sailors were trapped and drowned, only 35

Nelson's HMS Victory

surviving.  It reminds me of safety reviews we used to have in the chemical industry where we considered how many things had to go wrong at once to cause a disaster.  In this case it took the combination of a turn, a gust, open gun ports, and a rope netting to end the lives of nearly 500 men.  Other things we learned at the dockyard were that a navy surgeon could amputate a limb in 90 seconds, which was good, considering there were no anesthetics and that liquor wasn’t administered until after the surgery because it thins the blood; and that in 1540 an act of Parliament merged the Company of Barbers and the Guild of Surgeons into one group, at which time barbers were paid more than surgeons (perhaps out of consideration of their relative contributions to society).

Language:  A headline in the local paper, “Robber Threatens Man with Catapult,” sent us to the dictionary—a catapult can mean a slingshot in Britain.  We are chuffed (pleased) with the nice summer weather.  Syllabification is different here:  they emphasize the first syllable of “contributed” and “distributed”, and the second syllable of “controversy.”