England, London Mission: A Beautiful Week!!!!

Dear family and friends,

Cheers!!!! We trust you are all enjoying this beautiful summer!

We had a fantastic week! We had a chance to travel a little throughout a bit of the northern part of our mission to install CO2 and fire alarms in all the missionary flats. The area was absolutely beautiful and it was delightful to meet a lot of missionaries we haven’t met before. They are all so kind and warm. We loved them all instantly. This is a church wide instruction apparently for all missionary flats (apartments).

Another highlight this week was participating in a BYU Ballroom Dance Exhibition in our neighborhood!!!! The event was hosted by our stake with our ward in charge of the organization. Many members in our ward hosted the dancers, we talked to many of our friends, inviting them to come. It was absolutely magnificent! As you know, Brad was on the dance team while at BYU, and the whole evening was a blast from the past for him. All who attended were mesmermized by the professionalism, and the high quality of the production. Brad was amazed at the work involved in performing the dances! He remembered the great amount of practice required!!!

We are still in the process of finding a new flat for a set of our missionaries. So we have been flat hunting! One flat we went to see was being rented by a cute little family from Greece who had two little girls. She had family pictures in her home and a frame about family. I felt impressed to go back into her kitchen when we were done and thank her for letting us come. We were dressed in our work clothes because we had just finished moving and cleaning the Tilbrooks. We finished just in time to meet up with an agent to look at the flat. We were embarrassed that we had grubbies on, but we did wear our name tags. When I went back into thank Marjorie, she asked about my name tag. I told her that we were missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (the Mormons). She had never heard of us. I told her we have a strong belief in the sanctity of families and would she like to hear more about our church. She said she would! We had transfers last week and we got a new sister missionary, who is incredible, so I gave her name to the sisters. They have taught her twice! I got to go with them the second time. She is very interested in God, and learning about Him. She has a lot of questions. The sisters have another appointment set up with her and she wants to come to church. So we are praying that the spirit will touch her!!! I love missionary work!!!

We are excited for next week as the BYU students are coming! This is a combined BYU/Cambridge program that occurs for eight weeks every summer. The students attend Cambridge University classes and live in various college housing units. They will attend the Cambridge ward and we encourage them to attend FHE and Institute each week. Our YSA numbers are shrinking as many have finished their studies and are leaving for the summer, or are going home. The ones staying are really excited to meet new young people, as are we. We’ve experienced a real miracle of sorts involving the planning of this event. I’ll tell you about it in my blog next week!!!

We are also really looking forward to this weekend as the Hardy family and Janet are coming to see us!!!!!! We LOVE visitors!!! We’ll tell you all about that next week as well!

We want you to know that the “stripling warrior” picture has gone gang busters in the UK. Our mission president’s wife, Sister Stevens was so very touched by the picture, she said you need to write an article for The Friend and/or The Ensign! (Sister Stevens served as a counselor in the General Primary Presidency and has a real soft spot for children!!!) So dear daughters, that is your challenge!!!!! Thank you for all of your pictures, your calls, your videos, and your love and support! We love you so very much! Have a wonderful week!

“No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every climb, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done!!!” Joseph Smith

We love you all!

Love,

Dad and Mom
Papa and Grandma
Brad and Vicki