A "Wonderfull Week"

Dear family and friends,

Cheers!  Y’alright?  It has been a "wonderfull" week here.  Summer is definitely a fabulous time to be in Cambridge.  We’ve been taking care of our neighbor’s garden while they have been on holiday.  They don’t have sprinkler systems here so when he gets hot as it has done (78-84 degrees) we need to hand water the gardens.  It does make me appreciate sprinkler systems!  Also, they don’t have air conditioning in the houses and most buildings.  They don’t typically have a lot of hot weather here, but when they do, we keep a fan running constantly.

It’s been a great week.  Most of the English people take the month of August off and head off on holiday, so the city has been really quiet.  So we try to get creative and fill our days with new opportunities.

We have a wonderful couple who are dear friends.  He is not a member and she is inactive in the  church, except for family history.  She is a family history expert, and the nicest woman you would ever want to meet.  We love them both.   They have both been so warm and inviting to us.   I have really been wanting to spend some quality family history time, so decided that meeting with her would give us an opportunity to meet in their home doing some very sacred work.  In working with her last week, I was able to get into my Grandpa Chester Taylor’s family, his siblings.  We were able to find out some information on my great uncle Reuel V. Taylor.  I was so excited and am anxious to go back.   She really is very good and definitely knows her stuff!

Although our numbers are few for YSA’s, we are enjoying the ones who are still around.  We went bowling this week for institute as there is no institute class until the end of September.  That is always a hoot!  We also made a quick trip to Watford to meet up with Clark and Joyce Baron, our dear friends who just got here to serve as a YSA couple.  They have been assigned to an area that has not had a YSA couple for a few years, so they get to start up a stake YSA program.  They will be great!    They are enthusiastic and raring to go!  We enjoyed a great visit with them and we are so grateful they are here!

We finished up missionary flat inspections, visited some members and nonmembers.  We do a lot of the same things each week, so I know it gets kind of monotonous for you to hear the same things over and over.  We are finding, however that as we visit, we become so close to these friends.  They become more precious to us!

Saturday, we were able to attend the baptism of a lovely Portuguese woman in Bury St. Edmunds.  This is in our district and as always, baptisms are so wonderful to witness!  The woman’s name is Zoella.  I had a real touching experience at this baptism.  We were sitting about half way back in the chapel and I had a clear eye view of Zoella and Elder Dalley, (the missionary who was baptizing her).  They were sitting on the front row and we were listening to the speakers.  As I looked at this wonderful missionary, I thought immediately of his mother and how proud she would be to see her son involved in this glorious sacred work.  (I just wish I would have taken a picture of them both sitting there!)  The tears flowed down my cheeks as I felt the spirit touch my heart!  So all you mothers with children serving missions, please know how wonderful they are and how very proud you should be of them and the magnificent work they are involved with.  I thought of Helaman’s stripling warriors and what a power for good they were, just as these latter day stripling warriors are.  I can’t express my love enough for those who leave hearth and home to serve the Lord.  I am truly inspired and pray for my 9 grandsons as well as granddaughters if it be right for them, to be filled with the desire to serve in God’s army!

Sunday, we had a wonderful surprise; to welcome Boyd and Michelle Craig, our dear friends from Orem, to our ward!  And what is even more wonderful, is that their niece, Sister Annie Daines, is serving here.  We knew they were coming, but she didn’t.  After getting approval from President Stevens, we arranged to have Boyd and Michelle surprise Sister Daines, and did they ever!  We got it all on video!  Lots of tears, hugs and expressions of love were shared!  We had them over for dinner and enjoyed every minute with them!  It made me realize how many wonderful mentors we have had in our lives!  We love the Craigs and have learned so much from their examples through the years we have been blessed to know them.

We want to wish our Chloe Madeline Nelson Happy Birthday today! (August 30)  How we love her!  She has completed her Young Womanhood requirements and set the goal to complete them by the time she was 14!  We are so proud of her!  She sent me a letter this past week with some temple names for Brad and I to do in the London Temple!  One of her value projects was to do family history.  She has 200 names ready for temple work to be done!  Truly, the young are leading the way!!!  We love you Chlois!!!!!

We love you all!  Thanks for your facebook and Instagram posts and emails!!!  We cherish those sweet pictures more than you’ll ever know!  You are truly the light of our lives!

Something we repeat at each missionary meeting is this: “ In the England London Mission Obedience is the price, Faith is the power, Love is the motive, The Spirit is the key, Christ is the reason.”  We love what we are doing because we know it is His work!

With all our love,

Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Elder and Sister Jackman