Easter COLD

The weather man has informed us that this is the coldest Easter on record. It was snowing a little yesterday. We had a lovely day at church in the Kingston Ward.  Sister Millar was one of the speakers.  She did really well, prepared her own material and gave most of her talk without too many tears. It is amazing to see how much she is growing as she has to be doing more things out of her comfort zone.
     Since our last posting we have had transfers with 10 new missionaries, zone leaders council, and we are working on personal interviews in the nine zones. On Thursday March 21st we left for the Bristol zone at 7:30 AM.  We got home after midnight.  We interview the missionaries, attended a Stake Priesthood leadership meeting and then managed to take a wrong road due to construction resulting in a 30 mile detour.  I think we actually ended up in the Birmingham Mission for a while and didn't get home until after midnight. We interviewed the Staines zone the next day on Friday. Last week we did four zones. We travelled to Plymouth on Monday, stayed overnight since it is a 5 hour drive. Did interviews on Tuesday, drove 3 hours to Poole staying overnight again. Interviews the next day then home.  On Thursday we interviewed in Crawley then Friday back down to the coast to interview the Portsmouth zone. It is a busy time but very rewarding to spend individual time with the missionary. Each zone has 18 to 24 missionaries so you can see it takes a few hours. Next week we will finish the last three zones.
     The Book of Mormon musical opened in London last week.  The church is doing an advertising campaign to see if we can generate increased interest through Mormon.Org.UK.  We think it will increase the number of people wanting to talk about the church by chat.  We are setting up a few companionships that will be able to proselyte using digital and social media: chat, Facebook, Blogs, etc. It truly is a new age for missionary work. Never mind that older people like Sister Millar and I aren't exactly fluent in these technologies.  We are learning as we go and we do not work alone. Well these are the things that keep us busy and away from the computer talking to all our family and friends.
      Let me share with you some of the things that make us Happy. It is amazing to see young missionaries arriving in the mission, timid, scared, and wide eyed.  Two weeks later seeing them talking to strangers and loving it. We see miracles every day of finding those who are seeking for help in this troubled world, We attended a baptism of a young man who joined the church hoping to bring happiness to his family who are non christian and not really approving of his decision. We have several converts from China. There are a lot of students in the UK.  We have 6 Mandarine speaking elders and one sister that speaks Cantonese.  Sister Millar recounted and we now have missionaries from 51 different countries in the mission or are coming in the next two transfers, We have an Elder coming from the Peoples Republic of China, a Sister from Kirabati, and Elders from Mozambique, Nigeria, and Madagascar. Know that our health is good and we are Happy, but we sleep well.
     We will try to get you some more pictures next time.