What a wonderful week!

 Dear Family and Friends,

Our mission had zone conferences with President and Sister Patch, the senior couples and young missionary Elders and Sisters. Our mission has about 150 young missionaries in the counties west from Buckinghamshire, north and west to Norfolk and Suffolk and south to Kent. The conferences were divided into 3 days, so ours on Wednesday, had about 50 of the missionaries and several of the couples. The assistants to the president (AP’s) pretty much planned the classes and meetings that we were involved in. I continue to be amazed at the maturity and effort of these young people! Elders Sikahema and Jacob are the AP’s. During lunch one of the Elders came up to me and said, “You taught at my school! His name is Thayne Thompson and he is in Dover. I didn’t teach him but did teach his sister. It was fun to talk about Timberline and those in his class who are now serving missions.

We are learning to be more comfortable with our work the family history centre. We now know how to open and close the centre, retrieve microfilms and scan to print the images and are learning enough about British research to be able to some what intelligently answer the questions of our patrons. Ken has been given the responsibility of doing the scheduling for the couples and volunteers who work and I am learning how to schedule the groups who hold their meetings in the church building or our centre. This is all done in Excel so some of the computer use has been challenging for us. We quite often wish we had Andrew with us on the mission. Thank goodness for SKYPE!

Last night was very fun. The Prices had a dinner for all the senior couples and the 6 Elders and 2 Sisters who are in London. Prices made sloppy Joes, frog eye salad and brownies which were a hit with the missionaries. We played a version of Pictionary where they had to draw a picture of a Primary song and after we all sang the song.

 

(Back: John and Marilyn Crandall. Barbara and John Robertson, Cheryl and Ken Fugal, Front: Gerry and Jim Price, Elders Sikahema, Schow, Resolve, Avanesyan, Felix, Jacob and Zarian.)

The sisters left early as they had to teach a class but before leaving, the Elders sang "Heavenly Father, are you really there? and do you hear and answer every child's prayer?" It was very touching. They sang it in 3 Languages- English, Armenian and Portuguese.

 

Today Ken and I took the red double decker bus number 11 and rode it down King’s Road,Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria Street, Whitehall and the Strand until we got to Saint Paul’s Cathedral. We took a tour and learned enormous amounts of English history. What a fascinating place! The story of how St Paul’s survived the Blitz during World War II is amazing. The memorial to the American solders who served in the war reminded me of my Dad who served in the American army in Europe.

Our best to all of you!
Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom  and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)