Another month is almost completed and it seems like we just finished last month’s report. The last couple of weeks have been difficult but rewarding. We have spent a lot of time at the hospital with one of our sisters who has had some serious health problems. Our mission president and his wife have been incredible with their love and time devoted to this sister. We have shared the responsibility with them in visiting the hospital every day. The good news is that she is improving and we are optimistic that she will be released from the hospital soon. In the meantime, our visits to the hospital will continue to take up most of the time that we are not serving at the visitors’ centre.

The past couple of weeks have been rewarding as we have seen several more people enter the waters of baptism. Our sisters have had online baptisms in Washington, D.C. and Uganda. Another was scheduled to happen in Holland today (we hope it happened). The baptism in Uganda is an amazing story. One of our VC sisters is from Uganda (Sister Apiyo) and she chatted with a man online some time ago who lives in Uganda. He was interested in the church and she requested that local missionaries go teach him in Uganda. It turned out that he lives in her hometown of Gulu and is in her ward there. She taught him online until local missionaries finally met with him. She stayed in touch and learned that he had scheduled to be baptized. She was excited but then the baptism didn’t happen. He set another baptism date but that one didn’t happen either. Last month he told her that he was going to get baptized along with nine other people in her ward. Once again she was excited only to be informed that those baptisms didn’t take place either. Sister Apiyo will be completing her mission in less than two weeks and will be going home. Last Friday night she learned that her online friend got baptized with three others and that the other six people were being baptized this weekend. What a way for her to end her mission! She will be returning home to these new converts that she has never met but has played a role in their conversion and baptism.

We have also had baptisms at the Hyde Park Chapel. Yesterday an 11-year-old girl was baptized by her father who had just been baptized two weeks earlier. We also had a man from Jordan baptized last month and this past month his older brother got baptized here. Now our sisters are teaching the older brother’s 14-year-old daughter and she is set for baptism next Saturday. It is such a thrill to see our sisters having success as they welcome guests and teach the gospel.

Our sisters are also doing incredible things with their online work. Since the church changed the process this past February for handling Mormon.org requests for missionaries or for receiving copies of the Bible or the Book of Mormon, our sisters have continued to increase the number of referrals that they are sending to local missionaries. The first full month after this change they sent over 100 referrals to local missionaries (before they can send local missionaries to someone our sisters have to make contact with the requesting individual and make sure that they are willing to meet with missionaries). In June they sent over 200 referrals to local missionaries and last month they sent 298. This month they have already sent over 400 referrals. That’s 400 teaching opportunities that are just given to local missionaries somewhere in the world without them having to do any finding at all. What a great work this is and what an honor it is to be a participant in it.

We have continued to welcome many guests to the Hyde Park Chapel VC. Last week Sister Julie Beck, former Relief Society General President, and her daughter stopped by. We had some great friends stop and visit us here as well. Dianne (Munson) Knight and her husband Lyle stopped by. Dianne lived in our neighborhood in Upland before she got married and was our ward and stake Young Women’s President. Then Miles and Jann Peterson from the Upland Stake came by for a visit. And today Carole Olson who used to live in Upland many years ago came by with some friends. Carole’s husband, John, was our first bishop when we moved to Upland. What a treat to have all of these great people come visit us here in London.