Driving, Advertising, and Another Castle

It is gratifying to feel we are making a positive difference in a few young adults' lives, which is the objective of our mission.  There is no end of work to do, and we can't claim to have turned anyone's life around, but we see progress.

Burden Lifted:  A major accomplishment since the last update is Paul's passing the practical test for a driver's license (a US license becomes unacceptable after 12 months here).  It's not as easy as one might think, and it's expensive, too (over $500 for lessons, book, video, provisional license, and test fees.  The government got about half of it.)  But it's over, and he feels relieved of a great burden.  To see what it’s like driving here, watch some of the 16 video clips at the bottom of the page at this website:  http://www.driving-test-success.com/hazard/hazard_perception_main.html.   And if you want to see some skillful British parallel parking, try http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/odd/news/a469107/tightest-parallel-parking-guinness-world-record-broken-video.html.  

Incidentally, British drivers must be the most polite drivers in the world.  If a day passes without our seeing two or three drivers voluntarily yield the right of way, it must be because we didn't go anywhere that day.  It's not because they're taught it in driver training:  the manual actually warns against it because it can tempt other drivers to take risks.  

London:  Speaking of driving, Paul broke a vow never to drive in London when we took a couple of London university-student children of family friends to dinner.  Here are a couple pictures of strange things we saw in the big city:  a tiny car driven by a large repairman, and a musician whose instrument emits balls fire.

"I don't care what you say, so long as you spell my name right":  The most exciting Church happening right now is the ad campaign underway to capitalize on the publicity surrounding The Book of Mormon musical, a vulgar, blasphemous mockery produced by the creators of South Park that opened last month in London.  While the Church obviously had nothing to do with the production, our leaders decided to capitalize on it rather than whine about it.  Consequently, they

• Have rented every square foot of advertising space in the Charing Cross tube station for one month (a tube station seemingly has acres of advertising space)
• Are advertising liberally in several other tube stations and on signs on 250 London buses
• Have created a UK version of mormon.org featuring British members
• Have missionaries handing out Books of Mormon outside the theater
• Have three full-page ads in the play program itself with messages such as, "The book is always better than the play," and, "Now that you've seen the play, read the book." 

There were stories about the Church in four national newspapers just last week, plus radio interviews.  Google searches in England about the Church were reported to be up 10-fold a month ago, and that was before our campaign started, perhaps caused by the ad campaign for the play itself (a huge campaign with signs proclaiming "The Mormons are coming," among other things).  Our stake president commented yesterday that while negative things are being said about the Church amid all the publicity, it is not being originated by the media.  That may be some kind of a milestone in itself.

History and Culture:  The weather warmed up to the low 50s last week and we had a dry day, so we visited Arundel Castle, the origins of which go back to 1067 AD.  It is a magnificent structure, and its living quarters have been for centuries and still are occupied by the Duke of Norfolk (the premier duke and earl of England, according to Wikipedia) and his family.  Part of the movie, The Young Victoria, was filmed there.  We found it interesting that the family was and remains Catholic and that they and the castle survived, though they were not untouched by, the troubles following the establishment of the Church of England and the English Civil War between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists.  One item on display there is the quill pen with which the king signed the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829, which removed many restrictions on Catholics, only 8 years before the first LDS missionaries arrived in England.

Arundel Castle

Castle Tower

Arundel Castle Family Quarters

Arundel Castle Panorama View

Language:  The local paper headline reported a man convicted of flytipping, which we just had to investigate.  It means dumping rubbish illegally, not, as you might think, overturning insects.  In other news, a man was glassed in a pub fight.  We wash dishes with washing-up liquid.  Q-tips are called cotton buds.  Acetaminophen is called paracetamol.  And I had the most unusual conversation when at a church event a sister told me she had cut her finger on broken glass in the kitchen (she was glassed while washing-up) and asked, I thought, if we had a pasta in our car.  After repeating the question several times and seeing by my confused look she wasn't getting anywhere, she explained she needed a band-aid.  I had forgotten a band-aid is a plaster, and when pronounced without the “r” and rhyming with the way we say pasta, ... you get the picture.

This mission is a great experience.  We marvel at the caliber and dedication of the missionaries among whom we work.  The members are loving and gracious.  The local leaders are amazing.  We highly recommend the experience to anyone who is able to serve.