It has been a while since we posted anything on our blog. We don’t have any good excuses for being delinquent but life has been busy the past couple of months. Those months were highlighted by a visit to London by Rod’s mom, the departure of three of our VC sisters and the arrival of three new VC sisters, and the arrival of the Christmas Season.

Rod’s mom arrived on Wednesday, November 9^th and stayed with us until Tuesday, November 22^nd. During her stay we enjoyed seeing many of the sites of London while also fulfilling our responsibilities at the VC. We started her visit with a nighttime walk along the Thames River (nighttime is very long here in London this time of the year as the sun rises after 8:00 a.m. and sets before 4:00 p.m.) where we saw the Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Shakespeare’s Globe, the London Eye, Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. On other days we walked through Hyde Park, Green Park, St. James’s Park, and Holland Park. We were fortunate to have rented a wheelchair for Mom and so she didn’t have to walk all that way but was able to enjoy the sites and the scenery as we walked. One evening we took in a Broadway show (Wicked) and another night we attend the Classical Spectacular at Royal Albert Hall. We spent a day touring the Tower of London and another day touring Windsor Castle. We squeezed in a few other things like visiting Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace and, of course, the Hyde Park Chapel Visitors’ Centre. We had a great couple of weeks with Mom but wore her out and us too.

Big Ben

Outside Royal Albert Hall

Inside Royal Albert Hall

Changing of the Guard at Windsor Castle

Buckingham Palace

At the end of November two of our outstanding young sisters returned home, followed by the arrival of three new sisters. Our new sisters are Sister Gregson from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Sister Wallace from Maui, Hawaii; and Sister Koiv from Estonia. We then said goodbye to another great VC sister whose parents came to pick her up on Friday, December 9^th. It is difficult to see these sisters leave us and return home but it is exciting to welcome these new sisters and see their great talents. This transition puts a bit of a strain on our work as we have to help our staff with the learning curve that exists for all of us as we take on new things. But the work has still been going forward and great things are happening at the Hyde Park Chapel Visitors’ Centre.

Church Visitors’ Centres throughout the world have been at the forefront of the release of the Christmas Initiative “#Light the World.” Preparation began early in November with banners and training and anticipation for this great resource in sharing the gospel with others. If you haven’t seen the video or learned about “Lighting the World” we invite you to check it out at www.Mormon.org.  We have shown the video in our cinema many times and many guests have come into the VC to watch the short video. We also have had a live nativity in front of the Hyde Park Chapel. This is the 2^nd year for this resource and it too has brought in many people. A stable was built over a raised planter box in front and we have bales of straw and a manger. We have missionaries or local members dress up as Mary and Joseph and pose for pictures in the stable. We started the live nativity on Sunday, November 27^th and have had it every evening since then. We will continue through December 21^st after which the stable will come down. In the meantime it takes a lot of time to schedule people to be Joseph and Mary and then to dress them and oversee the nativity. But it has been well worth it.

VC Decorated for Christmas

Live Nativity

Decorating the VC and preparing for the Christmas events has been time consuming. We are also planning a Christmas Eve VC family celebration and other Christmas events which have taken a lot of time.  We love Christmas though and are enjoying the season. We look forward to video chatting with many of our family members on Christmas. Our VC sisters are also looking forward to their family calls on Christmas Day. We have eight sisters and their homes are in time zones ranging from 8 hours ahead of us to 11 hours later than us. That makes scheduling those calls a real challenge.

The work at the VC continues to go forward. We have seen many more baptisms in the past month and we have welcomed many guests. The first 11 days of this month we had over 2,000 visitors to the VC. Our sisters continue to do work online while on shift and respond to requests from people who go onto Mormon.org to learn more about the gospel. They have sent over 600 referrals to local missionaries each of the past three months. In the first two weeks of this month they have sent almost 500 referrals. It is exciting to see the interest in the church and the work moving forward.

We hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas. We wished we could give you our greetings personally but time and distance won’t allow that. We recognize that our priority is here in London in the full-time service of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He is the reason for the season and He is why we are here on a mission. God bless you all and Merry Christmas!