England, London Mission: Loving the People in Cambridge

Dear family and friends,

Cheers!!!! I hope your week has been a happy one! We had a great week! Missionary work is really a lot of fun for us! I know much of what I write about may sound really boring and mundane, but you must know that we love these people so much that we see every day, that the time we spend with them is very precious and dear to us! So just bear with me as I write down some things we did that made our week so wonderful!

Monday, the 29 of August was a bank holiday in the UK! So the city was like a ghost town. Our dear friends the Haskins wanted us to come for lunch because they had cabin fever so badly.(Jim was still recovering from partial knee replacement surgery). So we took over some pizza, root beer, and tossed salad and had a party! Then later as we were doing some shopping for FHE in city centre, we ran into the missionaries and treated them to a milkshake. (It is the mission P-day) We always love to do anything with the missionaries! We had a great FHE. We didn’t have a lot attend, but the three that were there had a great discussion! The ones there were some of the more reserved ones, so this gave them an opportunity to talk. I was amazed at how much they had to say, and how profound their comments were.

One of our dear YSA’s has started to attend when he can. Rob is a hard working young man. School wasn’t a real high point in his life, but he is an outstanding chef, and is now working at a construction company. He has great integrity, and works hard. He has been trying to give up smoking. He is very nice looking, and clean cut, but with his many tattoos, one wouldn’t guess that he is a member of the church. He also loves football! (soccer), and is involved with a couple of leagues. He is a very good offensive player. We told him we would love to come to some of his games if we can get there. He is very good to let us know when they are. Well we went to one a couple of weeks ago, and we took a few YSA’s and went to see another one this week. They have played 5 games and the three games they lost were the ones that we didn’t attend. So, he told us that the manager has asked him to make sure we will come. They love our bombastic American cheering section! The whole team keeps asking Rob to make sure we come. We love this young man! He loves my desserts! At one FHE, with his permission, we asked the group to pray for Rob in his desire to quick smoking. I have been so impressed with the love and compassion shown by our group. We feel no judgement on the part of any of these young people. It is really inspiring to me!

Because there is a break in institute until the end of September, we are hosting activities on Thursday nights. This week Brad and I took a couple of days and went into London to celebrate our 40^th Wedding Anniversary. We were able to see Les Miserables! (Nate we thought of you!) It was absolutely incredible. In fact, we saw it on the anniversary of Jeanette’s death. That was particularly tender for us as our last outing with Jeanette was to see Les Mis in Cedar City. She loved the play!

The next day we went to the Shard, the tallest building in the western UK, a building made of glass with the undergirding of concrete and steel. It was magnificent. We also went to Windsor Castle. This is the oldest castle still in use by royalty in Europe. A lot of the past English royalty were buried here, like Henry VIII. It was really fun to see some glorious sites really close to us.

We got back and were able to have a wonderful evening with Tony and Christine Halls, a dear friend who owns a men’s clothing store in Cambridge. Several weeks ago, he had a flat tire on his car and Brad was able to help him fix it. They became instant friends because they both like nice clothes and Tony has 18 cars. We were anxious to meet his wife, (and Brad wanted to see his cars! I wanted to see where he stored them all!) Tony was so kind to invite us to their home for dinner. Christine was quite nervous as she had never fed Mormons before. We hit it off! As the guys looked at the cars, I admired her beautiful garden, her lovely home and heard all about her family. We were able to tell them about what we do as missionaries. We hope to spend more time with them.

We also had the chance to help clean up a sweet sister’s garden with the young missionaries, teach a new member lesson to Lucy, meet with some YSA’s for dinner, have a struggling YSA over for lunch, and meet with a young family who is struggling with their testimonies and activity in the church.

The Lord has been very good to us and we feel so blessed to be serving in the England London Mission. We feel that our family has been blessed while we have been gone. Our grandchildren are getting cuter by the day! It is fun to see the pictures, and the videos, and see them growing up. We are so proud of Heather Brown for completing her first marathon race!!! Wow! We are so impressed. We were able to see her finish on facetime!

We love you all! The Gospel is true! We love it and we love you with all our hearts!

Love,

Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Elder and Sister Jackman