England, London Mission: Tender Mercies

Dear family and friends,

Happy Day!!!

As I write a few words about our past week, it makes me pause and think about you all as I write! I try to imagine myself sitting down with you and sharing my thoughts! We have had some sweet experiences this week. It’s amazing as we look forward to each new week, often we have some empty days, but as the week goes on, the days fill up with things that we had no idea would happen, and we recognize that the Lord is in charge of our schedule. I can’t describe how tender and miraculous that has been to us!

It was transfer week, and as you know that is really hard on us! We served our traditional waffle breakfast to say good-bye to those who are leaving us. This time around, Elder Walker and Sister Becker were being transferred and Elder Chew was going home. Although we only knew him for one transfer, we will miss him. He was an incredible missionary! And of course, we will miss Elder Walker and Sister Becker, but we will get to run in to them as we go to zone meetings. Our new missionaries are Sister Cobabe from Sacramento. She is the granddaughter of some very dear friends of Todd and Sue. It continually amazes us how small the world has gotten for us here!!! We have Elder Chong a fabulous greenie from Viet Nam, and Elder Zollinger from Millville, Utah, a great missionary who’s been here for about 6 months. We had our first district meeting with our new district and both Brad and I were amazed at the spirit we felt in the meeting. These missionaries in our district are devoted and on fire to share the gospel. We feel so blessed!

We had an issue with one of our YSA’s and the Methodist car park across the street, so we went over to the Methodist church to put things straight and apologize to Mike, the one we pay for the use of the building. Well, Mike wasn’t there, but Alison Walker (the Methodist minister) and her husband, Robyn were there. We had an incredible visit with them and helped them take some items to a charity shop in city centre. We love these two! We invited them to come to FHE with us and made an appointment for dinner with them in two weeks. (They were really excited to come to FHE, but they didn’t make it this week). We’re really looking forward to dinner with them!

We got to go to the temple this week and had called people to go with us, but for one reason or another, they couldn’t go. We were able to meet with Elder and Sister Record, friends from my parent’s ward in Ogden and had a lovely visit. The hour and a half drive home turned into 4 hours as we met up with horrendous traffic, so it was good we didn’t have anyone with us as we were meeting up with friends, the Budds for dinner. There I had some of the best barbecued ribs I’ve ever had, even better then Texas!!!! And Mike ordered a 15 inch hot dog! And I thought everything was only big in Texas!!!

Saturday morning we went with our YSA’s and missionaries to the Ascension cemetery for our monthly service project. We are becoming family and we get so excited to see our friends! We headed to London Saturday afternoon to meet up with Elder and Sister Gale to see Aladdin! It was magnificent! We were in the theatre district and surrounded by mobs of people. They were around to attend the premier showing of the new Harry Potter play, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”. This is the newest book by JK Rowling and they made it into a play to be shown in one theatre in the world. We were there, not to see the play, but to mingle with the zillions of people who paid a king’s ransom for a ticket to see the play!

The highlight of our week happened on Sunday! We were greeting at the door when who should walk in but our dear friends, Terry and Yvonne Ebbs! This is the couple Brad grew to love while in South End on his first mission. They have been inactive for about 30 years. We had no idea they were coming. Brad became very emotional. We were absolutely thrilled they were there. They drove about 2 hours to come, and I hadn’t planned anything for dinner. The tender mercy came when we introduced them to our dear friends, John and Vivienne Cook. John pulled me aside and told me they had a great dinner at home and the people who invited to come weren’t able to make it and wondered if we would bring Terry and Yvonne with us to dinner. You talk about the miracle of the loaves and fishes! This was a miracle. We spent the whole day together! Another amazing thing was that the Ebbs knew the Cooks and their children knew each other over 30 years ago. The Ebbs just returned from a 5 week road trip to the USA, and prior to that, Terry called Brad and told him that when they got back, they want to come back to church. It was such a tender day for both of us. We brought them to our home and Brad called his parents so they could say hello to the Ebbs. The tears just rolled down Brad’s cheeks and Terry and Yvonne were incredibly touched to speak to Dad and Mom.

Brad and I were talking about when we get to the other side, how interesting it will be to see how the Lord had put things into place to make things work out the way they did!!! We know that the Lord is in the details of His work upon the earth. We feel it! We know it and we love it!

Our newest missionary, Elder Chong bore his testimony in our district meeting this week and it touched me so very much. He said, “I know the gospel is true, because I have lived it!” I testify with all of my heart that if we live the gospel, we too will know will our whole souls, that it is true! I can’t describe adequately enough how much I love this gospel and what it does to and for people who live it! It is true!

We love you all! Happy Birthday this week to Grandpa Glauser on August 6! We love you so very much!

Love,

Dad and Mom
Papa and Grandma
Brad and Vicki