Week 26 ( New Babies at the Archives)

We are happy and enjoying our mission.  We enjoy Sundays and time with our ward so very much.  Our temple prep class is such a wonderful experience each week.  We are hoping to attend the temple with some or all of our class soon.

Paul's had struggles getting around this week.  He's struggled with gout, but it  is nearly gone.

It looks like we will be spending a full day and a part day in the London Family History Centre each week.  All day each Tuesday and 4 hours on Friday where we will exchange places with the couples from the other London mission who run the family history centre.  Paul's expertise will be of such great value to the patrons of the centre (British spelling) and Annie will learn a lot while we serve there.  We should enjoy the change, but are glad to be still digitizing as well.

You all can be proud of this "oldy moldy" (as Spencer would say) couple that has really learned how to get to places via the bus and underground and train system. We took the overground train to attend a baptism this week.  Which was a great experience.  Mohamad a former Muslim joined the church and promises to be a very strong member.  We took the buses to a hospital for Paul to get a chest x-ray (check up order of our Doctor).  We took the buses to grocery store and back with lots of sacks full of groceries as we do each week.  We also take the underground every time we go to downtown London area. Each week we find ourselves learning about new bus or train routes and charting our course. It is an experience we will always remember.

This week was the 24th celebration in Utah and not a celebration at all in the UK, but we celebrated anyway.  Paul was able to get the parade live on the internet and we hooked it up to the TV.  We worked all day but were still able to watch half of the parade just like we were back home in Utah.

24th parade on TV

Paul watching the parade

Picnic on the deck

We also had a picnic with Elder and Sister Powell on our deck.  We enjoyed fried chicken, potato salad, baked beans, fruit salad, and rhubarb crisp.  An all American meal, minus the home made ice cream.

Mom and 3 of 4 cygnets

Dad swan taking it easy

The swans and cygnets are growing rapidly. They are two months old and almost as big as their parents, but they do not look as white as mom and dad, yet.

Mom and two ducklings

More ducks

We were surprised this week to find one of the ducks with 4 ducklings.  I was only able to get two at a time in the pictures.




Happy birthday to Jessilyn!

Love you guys so much!!!!!!!!!

Grandma and Grandpa, Mom and Dad, Paul and Annie, Elder and Sister Smart

We are proud of all of you and your efforts.  This week we particularly want to mention Andrew and his schooling.  He announced that he had been accepted to both BYU and Utah, to finish his law schooling.

cute kids

Keslee and CJ

Sarah

We sure enjoy pictures from home.
Here are a few that were sent this week.

Becky Aaron and Cadillac

25 Weeks (1/3 the Way Home)

Hope the title of this blog doesn't sound like we're "trunky".  Today is exactly 6 months from the time we went into the mission home.  It also means that it should be one year until we head out to return home.

We love our mission and we love what we are doing.  We love going to Church in Staines.  We love the members there and we love our Church calling. It's an absolute pleasure teaching people about the temple.  We are teaching seven great people and hope to see all seven get to the temple.

About once a week we get an evaluation of the images that we have taken here in London.  It comes from the Church Offices in Salt Lake City.  It says whether or not our images have passed the blur, focus and other tests that they put them through.  In most cases they pass.  Once in a while we get something that needs to be corrected.  We are really pleased that most of images pass.

This week we spent a little more time diverting ourselves upstairs in the record office.  There is a Family History Centre up there where we have been pressed into service to help others with their family history.  Usually we trade off with a couple already assigned to work in the FHC.  They come down and do our digitizing and we go up and take their place at helping people trace their family history.

Some of our extra curricular activities have been curtailed this week.  Seems that Paul has had his once every two years bout with the rich man's disease -- yup, gout.  Hopefully it will only be a few more days of painful walking.

This one will be short and sweet, but before signing off, we want to pay special tribute to our birthdays of this coming week -  Matt Cherrington (Tuesday), Connor (Wednesday) and Harlie (Saturday).

We love you all,

Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Annie and Paul, Sister and Elder Smart

Sister Missionaries - Pink & Boman

John Major - Fire Insurance 1772

 

Week 24( Long Enough for England to Feel Like a 2nd Home)

We are becoming quite accomplished at digitizing records now.  The weeks of taking pictures, fixing focus, making crops, finding correct exposure and shooting are becoming something we are comfortable with.  We spend Monday through Friday serving as digitizers. We know that what we are doing is important and the Spirit of Elijah is working with us to accomplish the Lord's plan for bringing families together.  They still want us to spend more time upstairs doing more helping in the Family History Centre, so this week a second couple will begin to trade off with us and do some of our digitizing.

The weekends are so very full for us also.  We left the Archives early on Friday to attend the temple for baptisms with with our dear friend from the Staines Ward.  Helen Baden made her first trip to the temple and did baptisms for her deceased grand parents and great grand parents.  We were privileged to go with her.  Annie also took some of her family names.  She has been working for weeks on the Windows line that was so messed up by everyone that had posted this family in FamilySearch. There were lots of twists that could have anyone putting the wrong names in. She researched and corrected and found new ancestors and she was baptized for her own.  Paul did the baptizing for both Helen and Annie.  Afterwards, he was baptized for the males for both Helen's and Annie's ancestors.  It was a wonderful experience for all 3 of us.

London temple

flowers on the temple grounds

Helen and Annie

After the baptisims

Saturday was spent doing more genealogy.  We took the underground to the London City Archives and set ourselves to finding John Major ( Paul's ggg grandfather) in the Sun Fire Insurance records.  The records are not indexed and we had to search books and books of the insurance records.  We found it to be very time consuming.  We just about finished the 1771 records.  No luck yet.  We will make more trips there as we can.  We have many more years to check.  Wish us luck!

a budding genealogist

a seasoned genealogist

Sunday is still a joy for us.  We love mingling with the people of our ward and feeling the spirit of Christ at church.  Teaching the temple prep class is a "brilliant" experience.  Notice the British adjective.

We love the Lord and are so blessed.  We pray for all of our family and friends. We sure do miss you all.

HAPPY HAPPY Birthday to Velynn this week and to Keslee and Lilian who have their birthdays on Sunday one week from today.

Love,

Grandma and Grandpa Smart, Mom and Dad, Paul and Annie, Elder and Sister Smart 

Here are pictures of those we Skyped this week.  We love to skype!!!!  (hint, hint)

The Eli Staggs

The Spencer Staggs

 

The Cherringtons

The AndrewStaggs

We continue to watch the swans and cygnets outside our place of work.  Notice how they have grown.

Almost as big as Mom

Parents and babies

Five Months (week 23)

We arrived in England on February 5th and since July 5th just passed, we figure that we've been serving in the country for five months.  It really has been a fast five months and we are really enjoying the service.

We often feel like we're back at work, getting up at an early hour and arriving at work at 8 and leaving about 4:30 or 5.  Annie says that we are not on the clock so it really doesn't matter when we leave.  As we've mentioned in the past, we sometimes stay on Tuesdays and Thursdays until 7 pm.  However, we are not digitizing.  We are working on family history at the family history center doing research.  That's the late night opening and the time for us to do a little genealogy.

Concert with the Badens

This week's other activities have included a Friday evening dinner and Jazz Concert.  We had dinner with the Baden's and then went to a band concert with them.  It was a great night and they are becoming good friends. 





On Saturday we were invited to a genealogy conference in Reading, Berkshire.  Since Paul's brother Alan had served in the Reading area and since it was a family history event we thought we would venture out.  It's about 50 miles from where we live to Reading.  Took some pictures of the chapel (mostly for Alan).  It was a good experience and we really enjoyed seeing a little more of the countryside from the perspective of being train riders.

Reading Chapel -again (good picture)

Reading Chapel



Reading Chapel Commemoration Display
 

July 4th Celebration!  (Check out hot dog)

Did we forget to mention our fourth of July celebration (or lack thereof)?  We went to work as usual.  On the way home, we stopped at a grocery store and found some German frankfurters.  We bought some buns and some Pringles chips (crisps in the Queen's language).  We opened a can of A&W Rootbeer (made in Indonesia and actually called Sarsaparilla) and then we stuck our miniature American flag in the paper towels.  We also bought a rhubarb cobbler for desert with some ice cream.  About 10 pm that night we heard two or three minute fireworks.  We suspect that we have some Americans that live nearby but by the time we got out of our chairs, it was over and we could not tell where it actually came from.

We continue to enjoy our Sunday meetings.  It is such a great time to recharge our spiritual batteries.  Seems like the gospel has never meant more to us than it does now.  We love our temple preparation class that we teach and particularly love and appreciate the members of the class.  They are all pretty special. 


Speaking of special Church blessings -- we are particularly happy to recognize our grandson, Bryton, on his being baptized this past Saturday.  Of course we missed being there, but we are so proud of Bryton and his family.

Love you all so much,

Grandma and grandpa, Mom & Dad, Elder and Sister Smart, Annie & Paul










ps  Wanted to give you an idea of what we see on our way home from where we work. Pictures are somewhat in order.  We hope that you all enjoy your walk home with us.