Why we’re here…

 

Dear Family and Friends,

A word about why we’re doing family history work on our mission. There are 2  beautiful messages hanging in the entrance of our centre. One is from President Gordon B Hinckley. He said, “One of the distinguishing features of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a belief in the divine nature of the family as an institution ordained of God. Here centers the most sacred of all human relationships. Life is eternal. Love is eternal. And God our Eternal Father designed and has made it possible that our families may be eternal.” The other message is from Alex Haley. “In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep to know our heritage- to know who we are and where we have come from.”  I often have watched the patrons who come to do family history work, most of whom are of other faiths, stand and read those words and then spend hours looking for their family members who are dead. We are here in London to help them in their search.

For Christmas our children gave us a wicker box filled with messages that we open each day. All our children and grandchildren wrote messages. There are enough to carry us through our mission- one each, for every day. Here are some of the messages we have opened so far: Sending you sunshine. Every day and every way, a little bit better. Your house is burning down. Your service is a great example. Mind the gap. Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it. You rarely succeed unless you have fun doing it. Knock, knock. Who’s there? (Answer on another sheet.) I love you and I love BYU. These sweet messages are something we look forward to opening each day!

The family history missionaries are preparing to help with the hosting of the FamilySearch booth at the genealogical convention, “ Who Do You Think You Are?”, sponsored by Ancestry on 25-27 February at the Olympia Exhibition  Centre. WDYTYA is like a giant family history trade fair, where all the organizations, both commercial and charitable (like family history societies) set out their stalls. It will be exciting to be there and help.

We work at the Family History Monday – Friday. On Sunday we travel to the North London Ward where we are assigned for our mission.

Saturday is usually our preparation day and since we are in an amazing city we plan to see as much as we can. This past Saturday we went to the Science Museum which is directly across Exhibition Road from our Hyde Park building where the chapel, England London Mission offices and Family History Centre are located. After we spent a couple of hours seeing the museum, we went to the IMAX theater and watched a 3D presentation on the Hubble Space Telescope. Very interesting. I wish my Earth Systems students could have seen this video when I was teaching them astronomy about a year ago!

We send our love to all of you and have so enjoyed the messages sent to us!

Love, Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom  and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)