Time keeps marching on. We have enjoyed visits from two of our kids and their families since our last entry. Brent, Chelsy, Clara, Greyson and Haven came from Kingwood, Texas for a week the end of May. What an undertaking by Brent and Chelsy to make the long plane trip with a 4-year-old and twenty-month old twins. But they did it! And we are so grateful for them. Their visit was amazing. We were on the go every day almost all day. We visited the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Leadenhall Market, Kensington Palace, Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, St. James’s Park, Green Park, the Banqueting House, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Natural History Museum, Hampton Court Palace and the Hyde Park Chapel Visitors’ Centre. We rode trains, tubes (subways), and double decker busses. Although the kids tagged along to most all of those sites they clearly preferred the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, the Princess Diana Memorial Playground, and the Magic Garden at Hampton Court Palace. We were on the go a lot but were also able to just be together and play. It was a lot of fun!

Haven, Greyson & Clara at the VC

Gramma, Greyson & Haven at the Fountain

Haven & Greyson in the Fountain

The Brent Hulet Family waiting for the Tube

We had a week to “rest” and do laundry before our next visitors came. Julie, Josh and their family arrived on June 6^th from West Jordan, Utah. We have had a wonderful week with them visiting many of the same places that we took Brent and his family. Their kids also love the Princess Diana Memorial Playground (it is just a short walk from our flat) and the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. But their highlight seems to be feeding the wild parakeets in Kensington Gardens. They have been three different times to feed them and want to go some more. They are currently in France touring around Paris and Versaille. They left London on Tuesday and will return tomorrow night (Friday). They will then spend another ten days with us before returning to Utah. So we are planning a lot more fun.

The Josh Brunner Family at Hampton Court Palace

Madelyn & Elliza feeding the parakeets

Lest you think that we have suddenly gone on vacation instead of being on a mission, we have also had plenty of missionary work to do. Salt Lake has directed that our small office be “remodeled” and turned into a “teaching centre.” This is to help accommodate our sisters spending more time online responding to requests through Mormon.org and teaching people interested in the church. The goal is to eventually refer these interested people to missionaries in their local area where they can be taught more and, ideally, be baptised. The remodel consisted of relocating our cupboards from one wall to another, installing an air conditioner, and building a desktop for our computers to sit on and our sisters to work at. The office is only 2.5 metres by 3 metres but the work our sisters are doing there is amazing. Last month they taught over 1,000 people, sent over 1,200 referrals to local missionaries, and rejoiced with 30 of their online friends who got baptised (note that the baptisms still have to take place in person so our sisters can’t baptise them over the internet;>).

It is definitely tourist season in London. This is great for the visitors’ centre as the number of visitors increases substantially. We have a lot of American tourists who come to the chapel but we also have a significant number of people from other countries. This past week we have had visitors from Spain, Portugal, Poland, Bulgaria, France, Italy and Thailand. These visitors make it very exciting to serve in the visitors’ centre. Some are only curious, some have a mild interest, and a few are very interested to learn about our church and what we believe.