This New Year has started fast. It seems like we just welcomed 2017 and now we are about to welcome February 2017. The number of tourists in London slow down tremendously in January and February and consequently the number of visitors to the Hyde Park Chapel VC also slow down. However, we’ve still had some great visitors to the chapel and had some great experiences teaching people more about Jesus Christ.

On Wednesday, January 11^th, Exhibition Road in front of the chapel filled with people more than its usual number of people and we soon learned that the Science Museum across the street had been evacuated. Many of those standing in the cold were school children who had been in the museum on a field trip. Soon a worker for the museum came into the VC and asked if we could have some of the children come inside. After some quick evaluation we said, “Yes,” and in they came---almost 400 in all. We had them sit on the floor in the cultural hall and some went into the building’s Institute of Religion room. We even had some who (their teacher requested it) asked to learn more about our church. So we even got to teach the gospel to some.

On Saturday, January 21^st, we had The Organ Club come to the Hyde Park Chapel for their monthly meeting. This club consists of organists from all over the United Kingdom and some additional guests with the club were from other parts of Europe. Some were given the opportunity to play the pipe organ in the Hyde Park Chapel. One of the original designers of the organ spoke to the group about the organ and how it came to be. The organ was built in 1960 so you may guess that this designer is not a young man today.

We had another fun group of visitors on Thursday, January 26^th. One of our bishops’ daughters talked to her teacher about bringing their class to the Hyde Park Chapel for a field trip. They are studying world religions and visited a Jewish synagogue, a Hindu Temple, an Islamic mosque, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. So the teacher was willing to add the Hyde Park Chapel to their tour. We had 28 4^th grade children and 2 teachers and 2 chaperones. We had all of our VC sisters come to help with the tours so we divided the class into four groups and had our sisters show them all of our exhibits. It went really well and it was amazing to see all of these people being taught so much about the Restored Gospel.

We enjoyed a visit from our son, Todd, and his friend Rick, from January 18^th until January 22^nd. We were able to attend a British musical called “Half a Sixpence” and toured the Tower of London. We also went on a Thames Riverboat cruise and visited Kew Gardens. We walked through St. James’s Park, Green Park, and Hyde Park seeing Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Horse Guards Parade, Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace. We had an enjoyable time and love showing our family around London.