Getting Established

These first two weeks have been given us great cause to thank Heavenly Father for his tender mercies in making it this far.  We have learned to drive on the other side of the road, we have only been honked at 3 times so far!  We have learned where to find groceries and needed items to cheer up our flat (apartment).  We found IKEA and COSTCO both within 30 minutes of our flat.  Our favorite all around grocery store is Sainsbury's.  We also have found the Boots pharmacy to help us combat Mont's cold which is thankfully now in the rearview mirror.  

Entrance into our little community.

  

Our building; our flat is up on the third floor -- getting good exercise.

Our car parked outside of our apartment building. 

District Council meetings have been awesome.  This is where we meet with three pairs of Elders and one pair of sister missionaries and talk about Friends the missionaries are teaching and how to improve our mission efforts.  The sisters serve in Europe's only Mandarin Branch here in Newcastle. 

We attended the Newcastle ward on January 8th.  We were invited to give on-the-spot talks because the speakers had fallen through.  Today, January 15th, we attended Sunderland ward at the stake center about 45 minutes away and when we arrived were also asked to speak.  Thank goodness we love to speak and share our testimonies of Jesus Christ and His restored gospel.   

Newcastle Chapel

Drive back from Sunderland Chapel

Last week we met with the the stake president, President Gill.  He is anxious to get us involved in various endeavors but is still considering some of the details.  He definitely want us to work with the Young Adults and invited us to attend the Stake Young Single Adult Committee meeting via Zoom and to teach institute for a few weeks.  So we taught institute on Thursday night the 12th and loved meeting 10 young adults from our stake, who are led by Beth and Matthew, the stake YA reps, who run the YA program in the stake.  We taught Rejoicing in the Divine Birth of Jesus Christ from the institute course: Jesus Christ and His Everlasting Gospel. We were thrilled to testify of this truth:  Because of His unique parentage, Jesus Christ had power to atone for our sins and lay down His life and take it up again.  

Each Thursday evening at 9:00 pm President and Sister Clare (our mission leaders) do a 30 minute inspired message for the missionaries.  We look forward to these short inspired messages.  Recently the focus has been on increasing our faith, and we have studied so far lectures 1 and 7 of the Lectures on Faith.  They counseled us this last week to: "let His love, help us love everyone around us."  Also, they taught us to seek His errand and to be grateful for the progress we have made,  to be mindful that whatever 'offering' we feel we can give, then it is 'enough' and to remember that our strivings are beautiful to the Lord. 

President and Sister Clare

We had the wonderful opportunity to listen to Elder and Sister Holland when they spoke to the Young Adults of the church last Sunday eve (we listened to it the next day).  We were impressed with their message and the Apostolic Blessing Elder Holland pronounced on all the YA of the church.  Sister Holland said if she could go back and do anything differently in her life she would change one thing: to simplify more.  She counseled us to be hopeful and humble, to rest in the Lord, to simply believe and believe simply.  She said hope is trusting that He will help us, faith is the conviction there is a God and Charity is His love working through us.  She continued, the world needs the Light of Jesus Christ and the world needs your beautiful light.  She encouraged us to be quiet, be still, simplify, slow down, calm down and kneel down.  What a wonderful message from the Hollands!

We felt impressed to do something for our Mandarin sister missionaries and so took them over a meal; Chicken Italiano, green beans and chocolate oatmeal cookies.  They were so grateful for food!

Last night, we visited an elderly sister, considering coming back to church after a 5 year absence.  She is 76 and when she was 39, she lost her husband to a heart attack and for almost 40 years has been a widow.  She has two children who are grown, live close by,  and have blessed her with 2 beloved grandchildren.  She became a member of the church about 28 years ago and has been to the temple and had her husband sealed to her.  She wants to come back to church, so we will keep working with her and see what we can do to help.