Here are some pictures of the narrow streets and how they just park their cars in the streets and you pray a car does not come from the other way. Also this the way they park up on the sidewalk. There are narrower streets and I will take pictures of them later.

Here is pictures of the hall we meet in for church. We rent is and it is freezing cold. I am in front of the church with a couple of sisters from the branch. The branch members really want a building but they just about disbanded the branch just before we came but the Mission President told the Stake President that a great senior couple was coming and not to do it. No pressure on us!!!

There are sheep everywhere and this particular day they came running right out in front of us. I thought that the use of the four wheeler instead of a sheep dog was quiet unique. I remember the days as a girl that I hearded the sheep in Montana and I certainly didn't have a four wheeler.

Here is there Christmas Tree. The Primary acted out the Nativity story and the Young Women did several presentations and games. Santa came and concluded the evening. The Branch President is in front of the children with Santa. Everyone had a great time and we had several les active members there with us,

Here we are at our Branch Christmas Party. This is the rented hall we hold all of our meetings in. The lady in the top picture with the tassels in her hair is our Relief Society President and she does a wonderful job. The older man is about Grandpa's age and is not a member but says we can come and visit with him. He says he doesn't believe in God however, so we will see how far we get with him. He has three daughters who are members and his wife was before she died.

The dark haired lady is our Stake President's wife and very lovely!! We had a great dinner with their family on "Boxing Day", a National Holiday that stems from the days when the upper class boxed up food and gifts for their servants and gave them a day off--at least that is one version of this holiday. The stake president is a remarkable man and they have a great family. He has been stake president about 7 years. We had dinner on Christmas day with the Branch President and his family and the dinner was aweome and very traditional i.e. turkey, dressing, roasted pototoes, cabbage, leeks, brussel sprouts, carrots, Yorkshire Pudding, Christmas Pudding and non alcoholic fruit drinks. Below are our neighbors the Peters who have become such good friends. We especially love their daughter and grandchildren who we bought Christmas gifts. They have been a godsend to us. On the day before Christmas we went to a family in the branch whose mother had broke both legs and her arm in an auto wreck and helped them wrap their gifts. We also took a gift for each of them. We then cooked Christmas dinner for them on Christmas Day before we went to the Branch President's for dinner.

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Here we are at the Zone Christmas Party in Cardiff with three Zones. We played Mission Jeopardy and had questions from Preach My Gospel. These young missionaries are so fun and have so much energy. Our Zone leaders are from Scotland and from Italy. We also have an elder from China in our Zone There are missionaries serving here in England from all corners of the world. Just to be with them and feel of their testimonies was amazing to us. It is a miracle what the gospel does for these 19 year olds!!!! I had made Kristie's great recipe for Hot Fudge Sauce for each companionship and some plates of goodies. they seemed to enjoy the treats. We will in the next six weeks inspecting our zones flats and getting to know these elders and sisters better. I can't wait for that to start. We had a great English meal and a wonderful presentation of the mission events for 32009. Elder Crandall and I had to leave a little early in order to get back for our branch Christmas Party that night.

Here is our home away from home and our little car. There is a light snow this morning and it was 7 degrees. It is bitter cold when the wind blows and I truly admire the younger missionaries who tract out in this weather all the time on bikes. We are so blessed to have a car. Our good friends the Peters live across the street and have helped us adjust to a new country with so many new ways of doing things. When we arrived to our home the branch had been there and there was a Christmas tree up and Christmas decorations. They had also filled our refrigerator with food and the Branch President and two deacons stopped by and visited with us and brought towels and sheets for our beds. He truly is a great young man. The Stake President reached out of the branch boundaries to find and call him. He had served as a Branch President previously and was on the high council before he was called to this branch. He is just what they need. The first couple of days we got settled and bought food and supplies. The branch president had brought by a branch list and had noted the active members and noted the leaders. He suggested we meet with these active members and the branch leaders and get to know them and the branch first. We made Christmas goodie plates and met with Brother Peters and he told us how to get to there homes. I wrote down a detailed description of each location. It was very difficult until we bought a GPS. That little voice on the machine is my best friend. She tells me what exit on the roundabouts to take, when to make a uturn when I've gone astray etc. Traveling has become much easier. The people live in little villages and their homes are most difficult to find because their homes have names likeFfynon Berwyn in the village of Idole or Ffynnonwen Fawr in the village of Trelech. I think you get the point. We live by the postal codes which lead us to the general vicinity of their house and then we ask neighbors where to find them. We finally got the goodies to all of the active members and then we sent Christmas cards to all the less active with our phone numbers. We now are visiting all of the less active members.

Here we are at the mission home with the new young missionaries new that day along with President and Sister Odgen. We met the AP's and had dinner that night with two other senior missionary couples and the Mission president and his wife. It was typical English food and was delicious. The mission home is in a very nice area of Birmingham and here is a picture of some of the houses. Also is a picture of the famous roundabouts. We stayed the night with the Ogdens and then car vanned with the new sister missionaries to Carmarthen. The President had given us both a very general map and the car keys and sent us on our way. Elder Crandall drove for the first 3 hours and because he was stressed and I was a nervous wreck, he asked me to drive. The roundabouts are very difficult to understand if you don't know what exit to take and on some of them there are up to 6 or seven exits. We got lost multiple times that night but after many prayers we made it to our new home. Our mission president was quite concerned because he had not heard from us and we had lost contact with the sisters we were traveling with who also got lost and their zone leaders had to help them find their flat. It wasn't crossing the plains but I felt our lives were in danger several times because of traveling on the opposite side of the street for the first time and the roundabouts and in the dark--and it is really dark in these rural areas and often overcast.

We traveled from the SLC airport to Paris when we left the mission home and headed to England. Here is the Air France airplane we took from Paris to Birmingham. Below is our gate in the Paris airport waiting to board for Birmingham. We traveled by bus to the airplane. We met the nicest people from Australia on the bus and they had spent time in Carmarthen. They have asked us to email them through out our mission. Her husband was LDS but she was not.

Here is the Birmingham airport where we arrived in England. Our Mission President and office Elder met us at the airport and drove us to the mission home. Our Mission President is awesome and relies on the senior couples to govern themselves.

Here we all are that were trained together this week at the MTC

Our time at the MTC

We went into the MTC on Monday and had most of our classes in this building. Rex and I are at the famous MTC map with us pointing to England where we are going to serve for the next 18 months. Below are some friends we made and where they are going. There were 30 couples in training this week and they were going anywhere from Mongolia to Norway to Peru to Spain to Russia to Africa to the Philippines to Guatemala to Korea to Samoa to Canada. We loved meeting them all. You can see the picture of the whole group of us. Rex and I are on the top row. I will never forget the fireside we had on Tuesday night as we watched 2030 young 19 year old missionaries come into that auditorium. Talk about Helaman's warriors. There were no dry eyes among the senior missionaries. How we loved and were moved to tears with the amazing training we received. You would be totally amazed at the organization of this great missionary program. Most of our instructors were x-mission presidents, young returned missionaries and returned senior couples who have served multiple missions. They were all inspiring. We have learned so much, made many new friends, and cried for joy a lot. We can't wait to get to England. We have had 16 hour non stop days but tonight we are at Kristie's and Joe's. We will go to the temple tomorrow, wash clothes and do a little shopping and then return to the MTC tomorrow night. Sunday has some amazing meetings and then we will be on our way to England on Monday. Yeah!!!!!

What we woke up to this morning

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When we woke up this morning there was at least 6 inches of beautiful snow. This picture is right out the back yard of Kristie's and Joe's home. We feel it is preparing us for the cold in England and also for the symbol of a White Christmas found in the mission field as the elders dress in white with investigators at the waters of baptism.