Boxing Day

IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE THAT IT HAS BEEN TWO WEEKS SINCE WE WROTE IN THE BLOG. This is Boxing Day, which is a big holiday in England. The significance of the name is a little in question.  Val says it is the day after Christmas when the nobles boxed up the left over food and gifts from the feast of Christmas and delivered them to the poor.  In more modern times some say it is the day when people box up the unwanted gifts and return them to the stores for a refund.  Who knows? They both seem plausible. It is a slow day for proselyting.
     Last week was very busy.  We brought one third of the mission in to the temple for a session,  fed then a nice big ham dinner, had a short program, destributed their packages from home and then sent them back to their areas. To cover the whole mission we did this three days in a row, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It was a lot of work but so much joy to have all the missionaries together, and watch them interact. It wA VERY SPIRITUAL TO HAVE 70 MISSIONARIES IN ONE SESSION IN THE TEMPLE. That was the high light for most of them, many of them spending their first Christmas away from family.

     On Sunday we went to sacrament meeting in Kingston Ward and then drove half way to Bristol to meet the Zone leaders with belated packages. Monday we drove to Poole, where we met the Zone leaders from Plymouth and Poole with presents. We then drove over to Southampton to deliver gifts to the Portsmouth Zone. That was about a 250 mile trip.  On Sunday night they had a fireside at the Visitor's Center at the London Temple.  The speaker was Savannah Stevenson.  She is  a British Actress that played the part of Mary in the Bible videos that many of you have seen on lds.org.  If you haven't seen them, just log on to lds.org and click on the Bible video site.  There are many short videos on the life of Christ and many of the stories told in the New Testament.  These were filmed on a permanent "Jerusalem Set" that the church built down in Goshen.  It is Southwest of Provo.  It was very special at Christmas time to hear her feelings of what it was like to portray the mother of the Savior. I'll include a picture of us with her.
     We did not have a white Christmas, but we did have a very soggy one.  It has rained so much.  The ground is so saturated that water just stands on the lawns and out in the fields.  Many  rivers are flooded and it is supposedly one of the wettest years on record. Christmas day was very quiet for us. Talked to most of the family by phone, Skype, or FaceTime . It was so good to hear your voices. Val especially loved the pictures of her Cats.   We are bracing ourselves for a big year in 2013.  We hope we will be equal to the tasks placed before us.  Thank you for all the support you give us.  President and Sister Milllar.

Susannah Stevenson

Flooding in Cobham near Old Mill  Dec 2012

Narrow road in Cornwall Dec 2012

Mid December time flies

Dear family and friends,
     IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE THAT IT WAS TWO WEELS AGO THAT I wrote our blog.  Here is a brief update: Last Saturday we drove to Southampton for a missionary fireside.  It was fairly well attended  with a good spirit of missionary work. On Sunday we attended Sacrament meeting in the Kingston ward then drove 4 and a half hours to St Austell which is in Cornwall. There we had a special Sacrament meeting at a town hall in North Hills adjacent to a town called Launceston.  We had about 30 people present with a few in actives, 2 nonmembers and 2 new members that just moved into the area. We didn't have a piano, so we sang several Christmas hymns accapello.  We had enough people singing parts that it sounded great and the spirit was very strong.  They will have a new branch there some day.  As we get more missionaries will put another set of missionaries on that end of the ward. We stayed overnight at a bed and breakfast then drove home Monday.
     The four missionaries going home came into the mission office on Sunday and the office couple took them into London for a walking tour of central London.  We joined them in the afternoon and spent the evening with them.  Tuesday they go to the temple.  We usually go with them but I went into London with one of our Elders that had a Doctor's appointment because of headaches.  In the afternoon, I interviewed them all and then we ate dinner and finished with a testimony meeting.  These are so special to hear them summarise their experiences as a missionary. Wednesday morning the departing missionaries had to be at the airport at 3:30 AM. It was a short night for the office Elders that drove them.  Wednesday we had one sister arrive from SLC at 6:30 AM and the other 4 missionaries  arrived at 9:20 AM from Manchester.  We fed them, interviewed them, oriented them and sent them out to their areas.  We had two Elders one from Fiji, and one from Romania.  The three sisters were from Armenia, England and Finland. STill maintaining our international flavour .
    We had thursday to get ready for Zone Leaders Council.  We hold it at the Mission home.  We feed them a light breakfast, have meetings all morning, feed them lunch then finish off about mid afternoon . Our purpose was to establish goals for baptisms for the year 2013. The year 2012 has had the lowest number of baptisms in 9 years.  We will have about 250 for the year.  The goal they set by prayerfully meeting with their local wards and branches was 731. It is quite generous but reachable.  We have our work cut out for us.
     On a high note: we are having a very good month for December for baptisms.  After an all time low of 11 baptisms for  October we then had 12 for November.  The first two weeks of December we had 14 with another 10-12 should have been performed yesterday.  The final report will come in tonight at accounting calls by the assistants to the President. We also have about 15 more dates for the last two weeks. Last night we attended a baptism for a family of 4 in our home ward of Kingston.  Today we spoke in church and are now trying to wind down from the week.
     Some have asked for our address :  10 Beechwood Drive, Cobham, Surrey, KT11 2DX  UK.
     The Mission Office address is: England London South Mission, The London Temple, West Park Road, Newchapel, Surrey. RH7 6NB, UK.
     Merry Christmas to everyone.  We will miss you but we have lots of company.  We are bringing all the missionaries to the Temple, Feeding them and sending them home  after a short program.

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.

Happy Thanksgiving

We hope you all had a wonderful  Thanksgiving.  We were fortunate enough to talk to some of you.  Thanks for the calls. We were invited to the home of one of our Stake Presidents. His name is Ronald Judd. He is a American who has lived in England the past 12 years.  He has been the President of the Staines Stake for the past 5 years.  It was very nice and very traditional.  We had a great time. hope all of you were well fed also.
    We receive one missionary this week.  He is from Hungary.  The only one in our mission and only one of 7 from his native land.  He will be a great leader in the church in the future.  We also receive our revised missionary complement .  This means the number of missionaries that the church would send to us to fill our mission.  We went from 124 elders and 20 sisters up to 188 elders and 58 sisters.  The senior couples visiting center sisters and couples did not change. This will mean over the next several months we could increase the size of our mission by 102 missionaries.  That is 51 companionships . `it also means 51 new apartment and a bit more administrative work.  We are excited to see how the work is hastening with the lowering of the age requirement  for both Elders and Sisters.  Pray for us, we will need it.
     We are heading into a busy time with a mission tour from and area 70 this next week, transfers and then the Christmas Season.  We will try to keep the blog current.  We Love you and think about you as often as we can. Seven Stake conferences done, only two more to go.   13,800 miles.

Nov 17,2012

I added a lot to the last blog but I seemed to have lost it and couldn't add a nice photo of the colours in our back yard. Last monday we went to a play called "Deamboats and Petticoats".  I was a clever musical full of rock and roll music fro the 60s.  it was fun.  Tuesday we drove down to Portsmouth and caught the ferry over to the Isle of Wight to visit the set of Sister missionaries.  One of them needed some counsel and a blessing. That evening we went to a video conference with the area presidency from Hong Kong to talk about the returning of new chinese converts back to communist China. We teach a lot of students form China that join the church, but many of them return to China and are becoming the means by which the church is growing in China. Thursday be went to Yeovil to interview a prospective convert with some special problems, then on to Poole for a missionary correlation meeting with the Stake Presidency and the Zone Leaders.  Friday we received a call from one of the Elders who needed a visit and a blessing. He was 225 miles away.  We got in the car after packing a lunch and drove down and back.  Our mileage is now at 13,200 miles since we arrived.Good thing we like to drive and like each others company.  We do spend a bit of time in the car. We have many marvellous experiences some very tender.  We continue to love what we are doing, and feel we are where we supposed to be.  Tomorrow we have another Stake Conference that we will get the privilege to speak at.   Thanks for the newsy emails.  We love the pictures and to hear of what you are doing ,even if we don't have a lot of time to answer each one.  Keep writing!! Love to ALL.    

  I'll try to attach a photo of our back yard.  The colours have been lovely.

Fall is here

   

The trees have all changed colours, and most of the leaves are coming down.  The days are very much shorter and the weather much cooler.  That means fall is here.  We are still travelling a bit.  We ent to `poole last weekend for a play called Redemption.  It was written by a local member. it told of a couple very much in love. He was killed in the first world war in France.   They had two children.  Her children joined the church and after she died as an old women in the first of the play, they found out much more about their grandfather by journals and letters in the attic.  They were sealed in the temple as the redemption of their love.  It was very well done and was put on near Armistice day, or poppy days as they call it here.  Lots of non members came and it was well received.
     We are planning for a visit from the Area Presidency for a mission tour in two weeks.  Lots of plans.  `new missionaries coming. Only five but they are from five different nations: Armenia, Hungary, Fiji, Romania. and the USA.  The diversity continues.

Spain Seminar

 London Eye

 Big Ben and LONDON phone booth

 MADRID,SPAIN TEMPLE ABOVE                           LONDON TEMPLE BELOW

We attended the London Temple on Saturday with our departing missionaries. The Maidstone Stake Conference was on Sunday followed by exit interviews withe the four Elders and four Sisters going home. On Monday we sent them off and welcomed 6 more new ones from 6 different countries: France, Germany, Hong kong,Philippines, South Africa and England.  Tuesday morning we flew out to Madrid Spain to meet with the 30 mission presidents from the Europe Area.  We had a marvellous time, including a session in the Madrid, Spain temple.  We found out all the things we aren't doing perfectly and repented to improve.  We have a very lenient boss or most of us might get fired.
     It truly is a marvellous experience to be involved in a work where you feel the promptings of the Spirit in almost everything we do. The young missionaries have small miracles in everything they do.  The AP s had a flat tyre and while getting it repaired, being led to a second shop they went to, a man came up to them and asked to be taught more about the church.  They truly felt they were suppose to be where they were and the flat was only a minor inconvenience.
      We will include some pictures we have taken this past week to show where we have been.  We are busy, happy, and sleeping well.  We love you all. `hard to believe that halloween has come and gone. There are fireworks the past two nights celebrating Guy Faulk's day.  `he tried to blow up Parliament House on November 5 sometime in the 1600s. It's sort of like the 4th of July in the US.