#39 Yes, Our 39th Week

Just when we thought that we'd said it all, another week comes and goes and we look back and think of all our blessings.

Perhaps our first blessing is our love for each other.  What would this time be like if we didn't have each other?  We have learned to rely on each other and every week that goes by we learn to rely more and more on one another as we observe each other's strengths.
 

Chipotle @ Wimbledon

This last week we celebrated our third anniversary as husband and wife.  Doesn't seem like two old people like us should only be married for three years.  We constantly tell our friends here that we are newly weds -- and maybe we are.  We didn't do a lot for our anniversary, but we did do a little.  We managed to change our bank account over here to a bank that we think really wants to serve us.  Following that we went out to dinner -- Mexican.  One of the people that we work with told us the best Mexican food around was Chipotle's.  We found out there was one near us and so we took about an hour's train ride to it and really enjoyed the food.  It reminded us of Cafe Rio.  We both had big burritos and we mean big.  We were able to finish them a couple of days later for lunch.

Anniversary Dinner

We took a train ride home thinking it might be a bit faster than the underground.  Wrong!  There was an emergency on the way home and the train stopped for an ambulance.  It was so delayed that after it started again, it decided to skip our station so it could make it to its final destination quicker.  Anyway it was a bit of a challenge to get home.

Frozen Yogurt

We thought we'd finish off the night by getting some gellato on the way home, but the place we wanted to go was closed.  So we found a frozen yogurt place and tried it out.  It was really good.  The two that were running it were from Los Angeles and Oregon.  Good yogurt!

Anniversary Dessert

Nice anniversary!






















On Tuesday, we finished reading the Book of Mormon.  Every morning we read together.  We love the Book of Mormon and its fantastic messages.  We were so excited that we started the very next day on reading it again.  We remarked specifically about how marvelous Moroni was as he continued to write not for anyone else but us.  Although he was completely alone and must have been quite down in his demeanor, he continued to add his marvelous thoughts for us.

Anyway, as we continued through the week, our digitizing continued to go slower and slower.  The end of another project will take place this coming week.  The conservation of the last few boxes of documents slowed down.  I don't think that there was a full days work for any of us on Thursday or Friday and there certainly won't be a full days work on Monday.  We'll have to see what comes with this new week.

We keep thinking that we ought to bite the bullet and make a trip to the Isle of Wight.  One of Paul's goals is to get back there and see if he can extend his mother's family.  The Isle of Wight is in  our mission!  It will take a day to get there and a couple of days to try to do the things we want to do..  We just need to decide if we can really get away that long and pay the price of making the trip.

Once again we enjoyed our Church experience today, at least most of it.  Had an interesting happening in the Gospel Essentials class today.  There was a discussion about temple and the marvelous experience to be had there.  One of the newer converts who had visited the temple but not actually been in it mentioned that he had a bad feeling when he went there.  He then began to belittle the experience and mentioned that he couldn't understand how all the good things that had been said about it could be true.  He ended up saying he was going back to his Catholicism and forget this Mormon stuff.  He go up and walked out of SS class.  There were some tense moments during this.  Paul did have a chance to shake his hand as he walked out of class.  We try to befriend all the investigators and new members.

Nevertheless, our Sabbath day general regenerates us and helps us to get ready for another week at the Archives.

Thanks for your prayers in our behalf.  Thanks for the love that we feel from all of you.  Thanks to Heavenly Father for having us be here and further His work.  The gospel is true and we love it as well as all of you.

Sincerely,

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

Swans Changing Color

American Tourists on Thames River Cruise