It looks like a monthly entry to our blog is the best that we will be able to do for the rest of our mission. There just doesn’t seem to be time to post things more frequently.

We have had a pretty steady month just focusing on our missionary work and incorporating the expansion of our visitors’ center staff. We were scheduled to go from eight sisters in the VC to ten at tranfers on August 2^nd. Unfortunately, our new sister coming from the MTC in Provo was delayed because of her visa not arriving in time. But on Saturday, August 5^th, Sister Brown from Highland, Utah joined our VC family. She has jumped right in and is doing a great job. We have had two weeks now with five companionships in the VC. Things have gone reasonably well and we definitely feel that more missionary work is being done with our expanded staff. However, we still are working out the logistics and flows of having three companionships on shift for a good chunk of the day.

We ended the month of July with over 4,500 visitors to the Hyde Park Chapel VC. Of those, almost 1,400 took tours. Our sisters sent over 1,200 referrals to local missionaries and we learned of 29 more people who were baptized who our sisters have been involved with. We have been particularly pleased that some of those baptisms have been in our sisters’ local proselyting areas and are people that we have gotten to know personally. It is so rewarding to see the happiness that results from embracing the gospel and following Jesus Christ.

So far in August we have had a significant drop off in visitors to the VC but those taking tours have remained quite high. We also see our sisters sending lots of referrals to local missionaries and we are once again seeing double digit baptisms for the month. The drop-off in the number of visitors is largely due to local members going on “holiday” (vacation) and many of the Young Single Adults leaving the area for the summer. BYU-Idaho Pathway is over for the school year and the Self-Reliance Center in the building has closed for a few weeks (the self-reliance missionary couple concluded their mission and their replacement isn’t due to arrive until late September). So August ends up being a very different month than June or July but the tourists are still here and that helps the number of tours remain high.

We haven’t stayed at the chapel the entire time of this last month. We got out to see a few more sites of London. We went to the Painted Hall at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich. It is a beautiful large hall that has paintings from floor to ceiling and on all of the ceiling. It is undergoing renovation though and so the building is filled with scaffolding. They don’t want to deter the tourists (or lose the revenue) so they are giving guided tours of the hall and take you up on the scaffolding where you can examine the paintings up close. It was actually pretty neat.

We went to a couple of different shows. We have heard about “Promming” at Royal Albert Hall but hadn’t experienced it. So we decided we should. Proms are only offered in the summer time and they are classical music performances by a wide array of artists and composers. We decided to go to a performance of Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma.” The full musical was presented at Royal Albert Hall with costumes and props but no sets or backgrounds. The background was the Jim Wilson Symphony Orchestra. So the musical includes not just a few instruments being played in the “Orchestra Pit” at a theater but a full live orchestra. It was a very good show. We also went to see the oldest running theater presentation in the world. It is called “Mousetrap” and is a murder/mystery stage show that is quite entertaining.

We have had only a few visitors coming to see us the past month. Connie’s uncle and aunt, Larry and Betsy West, from Utah stopped in for a visit. We had a visit from Dale, Velma and Valerie Pedroche and from Jeff and Jackie Lloyd from our ward back in California. And we have had a couple of our former VC sisters (Sister Croft and Sister Griffeth) come visit with some of their family members.

We also had a visit to the Hyde Park Chapel from one of our leaders from the Missionary Department. Brother Mark Lusvardi who is the Director of Public Programs came for a Friday, Saturday and Sunday visit. He came to England with Elder Ballard and attended the British Pageant up in Preston. Brother Lusvardi is responsible for all pageants, open houses, visitors’ centers and historic sites for the Church. We enjoyed an evening out with him and his wife on Friday and then he did some training with the entire VC staff on Saturday. He and his wife attended church at the chapel on Sunday before heading to Rome Sunday afternoon. That same Sunday we also enjoyed a visit from Elder Kevin Hamilton and his wife. Elder Hamilton is a General Authority Seventy currently serving as Africa Southeast Area President. Elder Hamilton and Rod served together in Public Affairs back in California a few years ago before his call as a General Authority.