Bring your Kilt, Scarborough Affair, Donkey Beach, 1 Year Old Plays Piano w/ Feet

District Trip to Scotland

One of the joys of serving a senior mission is to spend time with these fun, enthusiastic, dedicated young Elders and Sisters.  We occasionally will go on a preparation day activity with them so they can get a break from missionary work and enjoy the local culture.  Because we are the furthest north mission in England, and the furtherest north zone of missionaries in our mission.  Our area covers all the way up to the Scottish border.  They were anxious to see Scotland (from the England side) and get "the picture" to send home.  It was a wet and windy day, but they got KFC, which made them very happy!

Transfer Day 

Missionaries typically can get transferred to a new area within the mission on a 6 week schedule.  Because we have a car, we get assigned to take the missionaries to their new area.  We did this on Tuesday of this last week, transporting Elders between Sunderland, Hartlepool, Leeds, Hartlepool again, and then to Billingham.  We left at 8:00 AM, were hit with a 2-hour flat tire repair, and then returned back to our apartment around 8:00 PM that night.  It was an exhausting day for us but it gave us a chance to get to know several Elders as we traveled in the car together.  We also saw beautiful images of the countryside. 

Institute

This week was one of our favorite institute lessons. We discussed receiving the Savior's divine gift of Grace.  We covered what it is, identifying in our lives where we need it, and understanding the balance between it being a gift to us versus us doing something to merit its reception from the Savior.   In the end, it will always be a gift we receive from Him.   We loved this quote from Elder Holland, one of the 12 Apostles:

"Some gifts coming from the Atonement are universal, infinite, and unconditional. These include His ransom for Adam’s original transgression … [and] the Resurrection. …Other aspects of Christ’s atoning gift are conditional. They depend on one’s diligence in keeping God’s commandments. For example, while all members of the human family are freely given a reprieve from Adam’s sin through no effort of their own, they are not given a reprieve from their own sins unless they pledge faith in Christ [and] repent of those sins. …Obviously the unconditional blessings of the Atonement are unearned, but the conditional ones are not fully merited either. By living faithfully and keeping the commandments of God, one can receive additional privileges; but they are still given freely, not technically earned. (“The Atonement of Jesus Christ,” Ensign, Mar. 2008, 36–37)"

We also liked this quote from Elder Christofferson, also one of the 12 Apostles:

"We do not need to achieve some minimum level of capacity or goodness before God will help-- divine aid can be ours every hour of every day, no matter where we are in the path of obedience... My plea is simply to take responsibility and go to work so that there is something for God to help us with.  (D. Todd Christofferson, "Free Forever, to Act for Themselves,"  Ensign, Nov. 2014, 19)"

Family History Trip

Thank you for the many birthday wishes to Elder Betteridge.  As a birthday gift to Elder Betteridge, Sister Betteridge took him to the birth spot of his grandmother Emily Ness.  Emily was born in the resort town of Scarborough.  It is a beautiful spot on the eastern shore of England.  We visited the home where Emily was born-- she lived just 50 yards from the south beach. We stayed in the Crown Spa Hotel which was built in 1844, 36 years before Emily was born.  This hotel and several others including the one time largest hotel in Europe, The Grand Hotel, hover on the cliffs above the beach as if to say, 'we were here before Emily was born, she is like us now a guardian angel hovering over you as we hovered over her when she lived here'.... something like that.  It was a meaningful moment in my life.  Emily died just 1 year before I was born, so I never had the privilege of meeting her, but I do have a profound appreciation for her, after walking in her shoes in this beautiful town and on her beach.  She helped her uncle manage a string of donkeys on the beach, giving rides to the children at the beach.  She earned money doing this and certainly helped her mother who had recently been widowed when Benjamin Ness, her father, died at the young age of 43.  Emily was just 5 years old at this time. 

Elder Betteridge can be seen simulating a donkey ride on the beach.

Mothering Sunday

We gave talks in the Alnwick Branch on "Mothering Sunday".  President Perry, one of the editors of the Saints Volume 3 book and the Branch President, started using this term instead of "Mother's Day".  We actually like it better too, because it includes all women who 'mother' not just those who have born children.  Her is a quote from Heather's talk.  President Nelson said in October 2018:

"My dear sisters, you have special spiritual gifts and propensities.  Tonight I urge you, with all the hope of my heart, to pray to understand your spiritual gifts--to cultivate, use, and expand them, even more than you ever have.  You will change the world as you do so."

The branch president's wife is the Sacrament Meeting organist-- she has 3 young children, the youngest assists her on the keyboard with his feet.  Very talented young man!