short cold days

The days are getting noticeably shorter.  It's beginning to get dark now at 4 pm.  The sun comes up in the southeast, rises up to what looks like 9:30 or 10;00. THEN GOES EAST TO WEST setting in the southwest.  Today was our coldest day so far.  It was -2 degrees C. With the dampness, it seems that we never quite get warm.  The cold starts on the inside.  The heating systems here are hot water radiators, but they cycle on and off throughout the day and go off at bedtime.  `it gets cold by morning  and takes a little time to warm back up in the morning. You can see why the English wear sweaters.  I have one on now. (Proper English Gentleman)
     We attended the Crawley Stake conference yesterday and today.  Sister Millar and I had the opportunity to speak three times each. There was a visiting area 70,  Elder Craig Wright, presiding . It was a very good conference.
     This past Tuesday we received Elder Patrick Kearon of our area presidency who came to tour the mission. We went to Poole that night and then held a Zone Conference with the 4 western zones on Wednesday.  We have had so much flooding that it took some on the missionaries  up to 12 hours of travel to get there.   The next day, Thursday,  we met with the 5 eastern zones in Crawley.  These went from 10;00 AM to about 4:30 PM.  It was intense and a little nerve racking to have the first mission inspection.  They did not fire me yet. We did receive some useful suggestions.  Like I always say: I'm in the process of BECOMING. We always have a few problems to deal with: flu, sickness, depression, a dying mother of one of the Elders, family problems at home, the death of an Uncle , etc.

 London Temple at night  winter

 lighting the Nativity scene APs Elders Albrechtsen & Crystal, ZL Peltier and Sutcliff,Crawley

Visitors center on left        Nativity Scene

 Nativity

 Squirrel inside bird feeder

     We are going over to the Temple tonight for the lighting ceremony for the Nativity scene on the temple grounds. I'll try to take a picture and attach it when we come home. It is hard to believe that in three weeks the days will start to lengthen  out again.  We haven't had any snow yet but we have had rain almost every day this week.  There have been flooding problems in the Western part of the mission. Down in Cornwall and Exeter area.