A Fun Tradition

When ever there is a school break, we go to lunch with our dear friends the Pomfrets. We went to the Stuffed Pizza place in Carmarthen on Friday and enjoyed the food but the company even more!! We love the Pomfrets!!!

Where Does Our Money Go?

The petro station in red shows what we were paying for petro when we first came out on our mission and the one in yellow is what we are now paying and it keeps going up. They expect it to be to 1.50 pounds per liter soon. We are paying now in the UK about $9.oo per gallon when pounds are converted to US dollars!!! You can understand now why the people here are limited in how much they can travel. The mission received two new cars recently and our mission president gave them to the two senior couples. They run on diesel fuel which as you can see is even more expensive but we seem to get more miles per liter.

A Great Family Home Evening

This past Monday night we had Family Home Evening with Yali Cheng and her two children, Ethan and Isabelle. The elders in Llanelli , Elder Stoddard and Elder Taylor, were with us also. They have worked with Yali and her family a lot. They are great missionaries. Yali had Chinese food for us and then we taught them a lesson on baptism because Ethan will be 8 years old soon and desires to be baptized. Yali is a member who the elders have helped return to church and she is on fire with the gospel and wants everything the church has to offers for her two children. She is planning on attending the temple for the first time before we return home and we pray we can go with her. This is an amazing family and we love them!!!

Saying Goodbye to Dear Friends

We had Zone Conference this week and missionaries leaving in the next few weeks shared their departing testimonies and said their goodbyes. In the upper left hand picture is Elder Williams (our dear friend and Zone Leader), Elder Davies (our great leader and AP), and Sister Layton ( another dear friend and district member). In the upper right hand picture are Sister Layton and Sister Strein, both who are leaving next week and have been in our Zone for several months. Sister Morgan is with Sister Strein in the lower left hand picture and leaves in May. In the lower right hand picture is our district leader, Elder Sinclair with his companion Elder Roberts. Elder Sinclair leaves the end of March. It is amazing to see the growth in these choice young servants of the Lord as they dedicate their lives to His service for 18 months to 2 years. We love them and will truly miss them. At the next Zone conference in May we will be sharing our departing testimonies. Where has the time gone??????????????

Other Missionaries We Love

In the upper left hand side of the pictures are a group of missionaries who came out together and the two sisters, Sister Layton and Sister Strein are going home this next week. The Elders in the same picture will go home in another 6 months. In the upper right hand picture, I am with Elder Williams who is going home in April. He has become a very dear friend to us and is our Zone Leader. How we will miss him. Sister Odgen is with Sister Strein and Sister Morgan who are also going home. In the last picture is Elder Stoddard ( our buddy in Llanelli) and Elder Leyba his good friend from Idaho. They are in the same home town and were best friends there.

An Institute Lesson Visual Aid

Thursday night we gave an institute lesson on the priesthood and we asked 5 of the students to be our 5 children and we used the umbrella to exemplify how the priesthood in the home protects the entire family and how we can all benefit from this great blessing. Some of our adopted children were having TOO much fun but how we love meeting with them every Thursday evening. It is the frosting on the cake of our mission.

Our Fun Branch Activity

Friday night we had our Branch Activity at our home and had a lounge full of wonderful Carmarthen Saints. We had a jacket potato bar with a variety of toppings and some goodies and then we learned all about the many church web sites that offer us great opportunities to be missionaries and to communicate with other saints and friends not of our faith. It was just fun to be together and enjoy each other's company. We will miss these great people!!!

True Brothers in Christ

Here we are with our fabulous zone leaders, Elder Williams from Utah and Elder Brokatzky from Germany. They simply are amazing leaders. We have had the privilege of working with Elder Williams our entire mission and he is very special to us. I know we will see each other when we all return to the states. We love Elder Brokatzky also. He is so fun to be around. We were just leaving a restaurant that was advertizing a Valentine's Dinner. NOT THIS YEAR ELDERS!!!

Institute Class at our Home

Our great Institute class comes to our home in Carmarthen the second Thursday of every month in order to give the Milford Haven and Carmarthen students a break from driving clear to Swansea. We always have snacks for them which they devour!! They really make our home their home which we love as shown by Ben taking a nap and Kevin and Jack having so much fun!! Teaching this class has put the icing on the cake so to speak for us here on our mission. We love these Young Adults--they are God's secret weapon!!!!!!!!!!!

Great Friends Visited Again

We were in Bridgend with Elder Ruesch and Elder Balla on Friday and enjoyed our flat inspection very much because of their great spirits. Elder Ruesch will probably be transferred in two weeks and so he wanted a picture with Elder Crandall and myself. If he goes to England we will really miss him. He is a great Elder as is Elder Balla. We also went to Cardiff and did the flat inspection of Elder Wang and Elder Guo's flat. They are our wonderful Chinese friends and dedicated missionaries. Elder Wang wants to study Nutrition and become a dietitian and expand our business to China!! He plans on first attending BYU in Hawaii. I just know that our future paths in life will cross the paths of some of these great elders.

Dedicated Flats and Cars

Here in a flat is a license plate indicating that this flat was dedicated. The church requests that we dedicate our church cars and flats to the work of the Lord so the spirit of the Lord can prevail there. We love this idea and it works.

The Brotherhood of the Traveling Tie

At one of our flat inspections this week we met a new Elder from SLC, Utah He has just been out for a month and is awesome. His name is Elder Fairbourn. In his family are 5 boys, all who have served missions. They all have taken this one particular tie with them on their missions--so that tie has been in Argentina, Arizona, France, Brazil and now England!!! Isn't that amazing. Those wonderful parents need to frame that tie when this son returns from his mission. With him in the second picture is Elder Bussell from Maine. He is quite a hockey player and a great missionary! They took us to this little restaurant that served breakfast all day long for a very reasonable price and the food was delicious.

Relief Society Visiting Teaching Training

We had a Visiting Teaching Training session at our home this morning. We prepared American Pancakes and bacon with fresh fruits. It was very tasty and the training put on by the Relief Society Presidency was excellent, well prepared and motivating. I have attended many a Visiting Teaching Convention and this was the BEST ONE yet!! Check out that "cute" face Dianne is pulling. She is so much fun. We all just love her!!! I love the picture of our RS Presidency. They are amazing women who I love dearly. How I will miss them all!!!

Dedicated Elder Stoddard

Here is Elder Stoddard with his companion and us at Don Steel's home. We have had the privilege of working with him for several months in the Llanelli area and he has been instrumental in touching and changing many lives. He is an eternal friend in the gospel and we will never forget our time serving with him. He will probably we transferred this next transfer and we may not see him again on our mission. We love him and will miss him very much.

Scenes from a cold, windy day in Wales

Today, Friday we traveled to Cardigan and Aberystwyth to do our flat inspections and here are scenes from Cardigan on the river and Aberystwyth on the Irish Sea. It was cold, overcast and very windy but still both areas were beautiful and unique. How we have come to love Wales and the beauty found around every corner.

Sweet Eira

We frequently visit Eira Morris with Elder Stoddard and Elder Taylor in Llanelli. Today the elders taught her about counting our many blessings and we sang to Eira the song, "Count Your Many Blessings". Eira seems to enjoy our visits and we keep encouraging her to attend church. One day she will!! We love you Eira!!!

More Fun Flat Inspections with the Best of the Best!!!

This week we did four flat inspections in Swansea, Llanelli, Cardigan and Aberystwyth. Pictured in the upper left are Elder Knecht and Elder Pulsifer both from Utah. What great and fun elders they are. On the right are the sisters, Sister Layton from Alaska, Sister Babbage from England, and Sister Perera from Sri Lanka. There are 5 or 6 missionaries in the entire church from Sri Lanka and our mission has two of them!! The sisters' flat was so beautiful and homey--one day their husbands will be lucky guys!!! They are amazing missionaries also! In the bottom left are Elder Stoddard from Idaho and Elder Taylor from Utah. They are our working buddies one day a week in Llanelli and they simply are the BEST. We have become like family working so closely together to activate our less actives in that area. In the lower right are Elder Dudley from Canada and Elder Mecham from Utah. We ate at a restaurant on the pier out in the Irish sea and the wind was blowing so much the waves were really white capping. These are two dedicated, devoted elders!! We love these days with these special servants of the Lord!!!