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