Busy, Busy, Busy...Week 32

Our life has been full this week.  We have tried to work a few more hours when we can to make up for all the time we keep needing off for temple trips, and visitors.  I guess in all honesty, Paul has tried to put in more time and Annie has worked hard but hasn't really wanted to spend extra hours. We have taken some pictures of some of the documents as they are found after a couple hundred years.  We then took pictures of what they look like after the the conservators prepare the papers for us to digitize.  It is quite a process for all of the old documents to go through before you see them on the internet.

Documents before conservation

one package of documents

 

Finished product ready to digitize

chapel of the Catford building

Catford chapel

We spent all day Saturday working in Blackheath  with the  Catford Ward in East London doing a Family History Open House.  The word is spreading that one of the Senior Missionaries is a professional genealogist.  Another Ward in southeastern London has recruited us to speak in their Ward on the last week of this month.  Sister Smart is learning enough to contribute some and is expected to add her part each time Elder Smart is recruited.  Here is a picture of the chapel we worked at Saturday.  This is posted especially for Paul's brother-in-law, Randy, who served in the Catford Ward on his mission. After the open house we went to dinner in Blackheath with Elder and Sister Bradford and then took the train back to our home in Kew.

We got home in time for Paul to attempt try to get some sleep before he got up to watch the BYU game on our computer which is hooked to Kathie and Matt's TV through a slingbox.

Try as we will.....the sleep never happened and he was ready and excited to watch the game scheduled to start at midnight our time.  I am sure you have all heard about the monsoon in Provo and the start of the game was postponed for two hour.  Annie woke up at 4:00 a.m. to find him glued to the computer screen with a big grin upon his face, enjoying the game.  It was 5:00 a.m before he got to bed and then had to get up at 7:45 a.m. to make it to church on time. As dedicated missionaries we were at church on time even with almost no sleep.

4:00 a.m.

Once again, we enjoyed having the sister missionaries over after church for dinner. The sisters have been going through some tough times.  Annie has been a great confident for them and Paul gave one of them a blessing.  They have a lot to learn to understand each others culture -- one of them being from Australia and the other from Uganda.

Just for the record (not sure what record) this is the third week that Annie has taught primary.  The regular teacher has had some surgery and Annie is a great teacher.  She is learning to love her 4-6 year olds and they definitely enjoy her.

We are excited about this next week.  Kathie is on the plane to London right now.  She will arrive at the Heathrow Airport at 6:25 a.m. Monday morning.  It takes us at least an hour to get there and so our night will be short again tonight.
 
Happy anniversary this week to Spencer and Cyntha.

We want you all to know that the church is true and the Lord loves you and so do we.

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

Baby duckling with mom.  Growing fast