We can’t believe how the time is flying by. July is almost over. What a month July has been for us at the Hyde Park Chapel Visitors’ Centre. We have welcomed many guests to the centre, have had a good number of people interested in learning more about our church, had some incredible visitors to the Hyde Park Chapel, and we’ve had a small hand in a record number of baptisms. What a blessing it is to serve here in London at this particular time.

We are on pace to have over 4,000 visitors to the VC for the month. This is by far the most visitors we have had in a month since we have been here. And based on reports of months prior to our arrival it is probably the most that have ever visited in a single month. I’m not sure that this is anything that we are doing as it is summer vacation time and the Lord is just prompting many people to come into the VC. Getting people in the door is one thing but helping them to come closer to Christ is what our work is all about. That’s why when we have guests who are interested in learning more and we can send a referral for missionaries to teach them then we have a great feeling of success. In the month of July our sisters have sent over 250 referrals to local missionaries. That means that there are likely over 250 sets of missionaries who are going to have someone to teach without knocking on a door or talking to them on the street. They have requested missionaries to come and teach them.

We have seen the fruits of having many visitors come into the VC and sending many referrals all over the world. We have already learned of 12 baptisms in July where our sisters have had some role in the convert’s progression. We have had baptisms in Canada, Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin, Utah, Madagascar, Australia, Malawi, Taiwan, and London. There are even some more scheduled for this week.

We’ve had a number of prominent visitors to the Hyde Park Chapel recently. Yesterday President Clark Gilbert of BYU-Idaho came to church at the Hyde Park Chapel with his family. The previous Sunday Neill F. Marriott, 2^nd Counselor in the Young Women’s General Presidency of the Church, came to the Hyde Park Chapel with her husband (you will know Sister Marriott when you hear her strong Southern accent). She and her husband spoke at a fireside here in the chapel that evening. We also have had numerous visits from Brother Marvin Gardner, a former member of the Church Music Committee responsible for our current hymnbook, and his wife. Brother Gardner is teaching a BYU Study Abroad class here at the chapel so he comes in several times a week. It has been a great blessing to be able to visit privately and casually with these great church leaders.

Although we have been busy, we haven’t just worked the past few weeks. We went to the musical entitled “Beautiful” which is a Broadway show about the life and music of Carole King. The show was great and the music even better. We visited the Tower of London for a third time and continue to find very interesting and historical things to see there (like the Bloody Tower where two child princes are alleged to have been killed and the White Tower where the history goes back over 1,000 years). We also continue to enjoy walks in the parks. On one of our recent walks we stopped to look at the wild parakeets that live in Hyde Park. Rod held out his hand and you can see the result in the pictures below. 

We had another busy two weeks since we last posted. We had shifts at the VC for eight straight days as we filled in for some sisters who went on exchanges with their Sister Training Leaders (STLs). We're not complaining about serving everyday but it gets difficult to do some of the other things (like interviews and planning meetings) that we need to do at the VC if we are on shift every day.

Last week we were privileged to have Elder Patrick Kearon, General Authority Seventy and Europe Area President, with us at the Hyde Park Chapel for three days along with his wife, Karen. They did a mission tour which amounted to all of the missionaries in our mission coming to the chapel. It was great to hear them teach and interact with the missionaries and leaders. Last Friday we were able to attend a meeting with President & Sister Stevens, the Assistants to the President, the zone leaders of our mission, and STLs of our mission where Elder & Sister Kearon instructed us. It was a remarkable morning as they shared some very personal and powerful things. In an intimate setting like that you get to experience the human side of these leaders.

The month of June ended with some great results at the Hyde Park Chapel Visitors' Centre. We had 8 baptisms for the month of June and welcomed over 3,500 visitors to the chapel (we don't count members who live here and come to the chapel for church or other regular meetings nor do we count full-time missionaries. If we counted those we'd have reported over 5,000 coming to the chapel). Our sisters sent out over 200 referrals as a result of guests coming to the VC and wanting to know more or interactions they have online with people wanting to be taught the gospel. The worldwide nature of the work here in London continues to amaze me. We have visitors from all over the world come into the VC and our sisters teach people all over the world online.

As you might guess from our schedule of the past two weeks we didn't get many chances to go sightseeing or exploring. We did go on a few walks, however, and the parks and gardens are still beautiful. We have been told that summer does come in London but so far it has only been winter- and spring-like. Our high temperatures have only been in the low 70's and we find that we are wearing coats or jackets most of the time. So while many of you in the U.S. are sweltering in heat we are wondering if we'll ever be able to put our coats and jackets away. Again, we're not complaining because it really is very nice but it is a bit strange to see that it is the 4th of July and we are still donning our jackets. And speaking of the 4th of July, this is just a regular day here. There doesn't seem to be any celebrating going on. Go figure;>).

We have enjoyed a memorable couple of weeks. We were told before we came to London and the Hyde Park Chapel that a lot of the leaders of the church came to the Hyde Park Chapel. It seems this month that has been the case. The last Sunday of May we were surprised to see Elder Douglas Callister (emeritus General Authority) and his wife walk in the door to go to church on Sunday. It was fun to chat with him about his visits to the Upland Stake and the Rancho Cucamonga Mission. On Tuesday, June 7th, Elder Dallin H. Oaks, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and his wife; Elder Patrick Kearon, Europe Area President, and his wife; and Elder Clifford Herbertsen, Area Seventy, and his wife came to the chapel and spoke to over 400 missionaries. We were asked to be in charge of ushering for the event so we had a chance to be heavily involved. We organized all of the missionaries to walk by and shake the hand of these brothers and sisters. Elder Oaks spoke about teaching repentance and shared the impressions he had received on the subject the night before. It was very powerful. Yesterday Elder Robert C. Gay, General Authority Seventy, attended the sacrament meeting of the Hyde Park 1st Ward. It was an honor to have Elder Gay, who presided at stake conference where Rod was released as stake president last year, come over to Rod in the chaos of the VC after sacrament meeting got out and give him a hug and chat for a few minutes.

As nice as it was to have these great church leaders visit the Hyde Park Chapel, a true highlight has been the past four days as Brother Mark Lusvardi, Director of Public Programs for the Church, came to do some training for us in the VC. He is in charge of all visitors' centres and historic sites for the Church. But he also does much, much more. He shared with us many of the exciting things that the church is doing or working on in the area of missionary work. He is not a General Authority but he is the trainer of General Authorities. He interacts with the First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles weekly. His involvement at the highest levels of this Church is remarkable. While the other Church leaders who came visited the "multitudes," Mark visited our VC family and the two of us. On Thursday night he took us and the Stevens (mission president and wife) out to dinner. Friday morning we met in our 20-seat cinema and he taught the 16 VC family members along with the Stevens for over three hours. We (Connie and Rod) then went to lunch with him by ourselves and spent over two hours receiving more instruction and training. Then Saturday morning we met in the cinema again and had two more hours of instruction. Yesterday he attended church at the Hyde Park Chapel. What a thrilling and humbling experience it has been to be taught by him. We now have a lot of work to do to live up to what the Lord has given us.

We continue to have remarkable experiences with missionary work at the Hyde Park Chapel VC. We had another convert baptism yesterday at the chapel and had two more the week before. Our VC sisters have had six baptisms so far in the month of June and we hope to see many more. Yesterday just before the baptismal service a young lady walked into the VC and said that she had been "wandering" around Hyde Park for the last three hours wondering what she is supposed to do with her life. She came here and was introduced to the gospel and invited to witness the baptism, which she did, and is meeting with missionaries this Thursday. These kind of miracles just seem to keep happening.

We also welcomed another new VC sister to our family. Sister Fuhriman from Wisconsin came in on Wednesday. She is a beautiful, talented sister and we look forward to her great service. She is an excellent singer and fits right in with the talented sisters that we already have. After we sang the opening hymn for our meeting Friday morning with Brother Lusvardi he exclaimed, "Wow!" as our sisters had sung beautifully.

Once again there hasn't been a lot of time for sight-seeing but we did make it on a couple of nice walks. We walked through Regent's Park to see the roses and other flowers. They are beautiful. Another day we walked to Green Park to see the festivities celebrating the Queen's 90th birthday (her birthday was in April but this was her "official" birthday celebration). We saw lots and lots of uniformed soldiers, a military band, and a 41-cannon salute. Another day we went to the John Wesley Chapel where the founder of the Methodist Church lived and preached nearly 300 years ago. There is so much history and beauty to see here. It is a great blessing to be able to have two years to explore.

Roses in Regent's Park

Queen's Birthday Celebration

Time is flying by too fast to keep up sometimes. We have intended to post more often than every three weeks but it seems that is becoming the norm. A lot has gone on in the past three weeks. We had an incredible month at the Hyde Park Chapel Visitors' Centre in May. We ended the month with 10 baptisms, 136 referrals sent, and over 3,000 visitors. Four of the baptisms took place at the Hyde Park Chapel and the others took place in Poland, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, two in Canada, and one in Middlesbrough, England. The six baptisms outside of the Hyde Park Chapel were of people that our sisters taught online. The way the gospel is being preached to all the world is absolutely amazing.

We had a man come into the VC yesterday who said, "I have been living with an LDS family in San Francisco and would like to get baptized. I got married a week ago and I'd like you to teach me and my new wife so that we can get baptized before we return to our home in China." He came in later in the day with his wife and a business colleague who also wanted to be taught. We had our two Mandarin-speaking sisters arrange to teach them at the chapel. They went to church today and will be back to be taught more this week.

Today, amidst the chaos that occurs every Sunday when two wards are getting out of church and another ward is arriving for church which included over 250 visitors from out of town, we had a family of four come into the VC from Romania who are in London on holiday. They wanted to see our exhibits but it was too noisy to even talk in the VC so our missionaries took them into our cinema and showed a video. They had lots of questions and came out wanting to be taught by missionaries in their home country when they return. These kind of experiences seem to be happening nearly every day.

A huge highlight of the past three weeks was the visit of Matt & Kylie and Addison. They arrived from Virginia on Saturday night, May 28th at Heathrow Airport. We took the tube out to meet them and accompany them to our flat. We worked at the VC from 8:00 until 3:00 on Sunday where they joined us for sacrament meeting. Then they went sightseeing and we joined up with them at St. Paul's Cathedral for Evensong and then we all went to Westminster Abbey for a Sunday organ concert. We covered our church bases with the Hyde Park Chapel (LDS), St. Paul's (Catholic), and Westminster (Anglican) all in the same day. Monday Matt rented a car and he, Kylie and Addison took a couple of days exploring some of the country part of England (Bath, Stonehenge, Oxford, Highclere Castle). We worked at the VC on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We joined together again Wednesday evening and went to Abbey Road Studios, Camden Town Market, and Platform 9 3/4 (Harry Potter). We spent all day Thursday and Friday together and went to the Tower of London, Shakespeare's Globe, the Museum of London, Borough Market, the British Museum, and Hamley's (toy store), the London Eye, Big Ben, Parliament, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace for the Changing of the Guard, Green Park, Harrod's (store), Hyde Park and Kensington Palace to name a few. It was an exhausting couple of days but was great fun and we made some great memories. Addison was such a trooper and she is so cute. We appreciated tremendously their visit. It came to an end all too quickly. Saturday morning we accompanied them back to Heathrow and said our goodbyes. We love them sooooooo much and look forward to other family members coming to visit us.

Gramma Hulet & Papa Hulet with Addison in front of Queen Victoria Statue by Kensington Palace

Matt, Kylie & Addison with Big Ben

The London Eye from St. James Park

Now it is back to work. We are looking forward to a visit this Tuesday by Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to the Hyde Park Chapel. He will be meeting with all the missionaries from our mission and the England London South Mission. Over 400 missionaries are expected to come to the chapel for this special visit. We also are looking forward to a visit to the Hyde Park Chapel Visitors' Centre by the head of all the VCs and historic sites in the church. He will be coming to do some specific training with us as well as our VC staff. And then the month will be completed by a mission tour by Elder Patrick Kearon, Europe Area President. All told we will have church leaders at the chapel 7 days of the next month. It's time to polish our shoes and comb our hair. It is an honor to be in the full-time service of the Lord.

After 19 straight days covering at least one shift at the VC each day we finally sort of got a day off. As indicated in our last blog entry, we sent one of our senior couples home three weeks ago. That means that we have covered the VC from 9 am to 9 pm with just two senior couples. We have given the other couple a couple of days off which meant that we had to do double shifts a couple of times as well as attend to leadership responsibilities (like meeting with the mission president several times to discuss transfers and missionary issues, attending mission leadership meetings, preparing reports for Salt Lake, etc.). Now we're not complaining. We love this work and we did sign up for a full-time mission but our schedule lately has made it difficult to do laundry or clean our flat, let alone write a blog entry or do any sightseeing. But our new couple has arrived! The Mullen's from Granite Bay, California (near Sacramento) arrived last Thursday. They are still learning the ropes but they are fast learners and are doing great. So some relief for us is at hand.

We also sent home Sister Heather Moody who completed her mission last Tuesday, and on Wednesday we welcomed our first new sister since we came out, Sister Ashley VonNiederhausern from Woods Cross, Utah. We are no longer the "greenies" in the VC! But we still have a lot to learn. Here's a picture of our new VC family.

The work continues to move on here in London. We had another convert baptism last night and another convert baptism took place last week. The baptismal service last night was remarkable. Another young student attending Imperial College across the street from the chapel got baptized. A talk on baptism was given by a young man who joined the church in December. A talk on the Holy Ghost was given by Yuxin whom we wrote about last entry being baptized on April 16th. A talk on Following Christ was given by Arteh who was baptized on April 10th. Then the new convert concluded the meeting by sharing his testimony. Several of these new converts are graduate students who will be returning to China with doctoral degrees and will be incredible leaders and missionaries in their homeland. If any of you think that the Lord is waiting until the Chinese government allows proselyting in their country before His gospel goes forth they should come to England and see what is happening here.

We had stake conference last Sunday and a new stake presidency was called and sustained. The Hyde Park Chapel is our stake center but only seats about 500 with chairs set up in the cultural hall. We had over 800 in attendance at the chapel (the conference was also broadcast to a ward building in our stake). Elder Timothy Dyches, General Authority Seventy, presided and he was assisted by Elder Robert Dryden, Area Seventy. Our stake president was released as he was called and sustained as an Area Seventy at last General Conference. Being in charge of a visitors' centre that is essentially a foyer of a stake centre when there are 800 people in the building that seats 500 creates some real challenges. To top it off last Sunday was the warmest day since we've been in London hitting 81 degrees Fahrenheit. The VC is air conditioned but the chapel and cultural hall are not. So you may be able to picture a little of how chaotic the VC was for a few hours on Sunday. We did not hear much of stake conference but it was an exciting day greeting guests and feeling the excitement of a new stake president.

We learned from our mission president last week that Elder Dallin Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will be coming to the Hyde Park Chapel on June 7th and will be speaking to all of the missionaries from the England London Mission and the England London South Mission. We are expecting 400-500 full-time missionaries at the chapel on that day. It should be another exciting day at the Hyde Park Chapel.

We have been delinquent in posting anything for awhile. We have no good excuses. we just haven't done it. So we'll try and catch up. Work at the Visitors' Centre continues to be busy. We sent our first senior couple home this past Monday and we are now operating with just two senior couples (ourselves being one of those couples). Our new couple is not scheduled to arrive until May 12th. So we will operate short handed for awhile. We are required to have a priesthood holder at the VC in order to be open. So that means that Elder Hulet or Elder Neeley has to be there from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. No days off, no time to be ill. But we should be fine with that. We also have a young sister completing her mission in two weeks but her replacement will come out the day that she goes home.

Wehave seen some exciting results from our VC work the past couple of weeks. We had a baptism at the VC on April 16th. Yuxin Zhang, a college student from China, was baptized. The change in her in just the past six weeks since she came into the VC is amazing. She said that she had not experienced much happiness in her life prior to coming into the VC. Now she feels happy all of the time. She has been taught the missionary lessons at the Hyde Park Chapel so we have seen her often. When she first started coming in she would keep her head down and never make eye contact or smile. Now she greets everyone, looking into their eyes, and smiling brilliantly. While this great experience was taking place another Chinese girl who came into the VC more than a year ago also got baptized--in China. She came back to London in January just for a short visit and we met her then (just after we arrived here). She wanted to get baptized here but things did not work out for her to do that. But our sisters received an email from her this week announcing that she had gotten baptized last week in China. We also had a young man in Hawaii, who came to our VC sisters via Mormon.org (online), get baptized last week. He was taught initially by our VC sisters online and then was taught further by missionaries in Hawaii where he was baptized. What an incredible experience to be here and see peoples' lives changing all over the world.

We have had many guests come into the VC the past couple of weeks as well. We never know who might be impacted by a simple visit or a serious investigation. As indicated by the baptism stories above, great things can happen. We have a man being taught who is from Lybia, another man reading the Book of Mormon who is from Croatia, and several more students from China being taught. All are frequent visitors to the VC.

We enjoyed a visit from Richard and Linda Eyre, authors of many best-selling books and prominent motivational speakers, a week ago last Sunday. They spoke and taught for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon at the Hyde Park Chapel. We look forward to our stake conference on May 7th & 8th. Elder Timothy J. Dyches, a General Authority Seventy and a member of the European Area Presidency, will be in attendance and a new stake presidency will be called.

We have continued to exercise a lot by going on walks. There is so much to see here that we find new and exciting things most every time we go out. We've been to "Little Venice" and Abbey Road Studios (of Beatles' fame). We were able to attend the "Key Ceremony" at the Tower of London. This is a nightly ritual that has been done for centuries where the British military lock up the keys to the castle for the night. It takes place at 10:00 every night and only around 25 tickets are available per night. We went to "The Monument" which is a tall tower with 311 steps where you can overlook all of London. We also visited the Shakespeare's Globe Theater and attended Evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral. We went to the National Archives where our Family History missionaries work and we have visited the London Eye (one of the world's largest Ferris wheels) and the Tate Britain Art Museum. Our love for this city and the people here continues to grow.

We continue to see miracles and have great experiences here at the visitors' centre in London. This past week we had two young adult girls come into the VC from Greece. They were on Spring Break and didn't speak much English. They had been to the museums next door to us and just decided to come in and see what exhibits we had. We struggled to share much with them because we didn't have anyone who could speak Greek this time. We showed them the chapel and they went in and sat down. They seemed to be praying so we left them alone. We looked in a few minutes later and they were gone. Next thing we knew they were at the "I'm a Mormon" exhibit watching a video. So we went over and asked if they'd like to watch the 2-minute Easter video and they said yes. They watched that and afterward said that this was the best place they had visited. We asked if they'd like copies of the Book of Mormon and to have missionaries teach them more when they get home to Greece. They gladly accepted both.

A couple of days later we had a lady come into the VC and asked to use the toilet (this is the term that is used here for rest room). She had just got off a plane from Romania and was to meet someone at the Science Museum but it was closed. On her way out our sisters talked to her a bit. That conversation resulted in her accepting a Romanian Book of Mormon and wanting missionaries to teach her in Romania.

A day later a man walked into the VC and asked if he could worship here. Of course we said yes and showed him the chapel. He sat down and Rod sat down beside him to explain a little about who we are. Rod learned that he is a university professor from Nigeria who was here for a week-long conference at Imperial College (across the street from the VC). As Rod explained about the restoration and living prophets he became very interested. Rod told him that we have missionaries in Nigeria who could teach him more about living prophets when he returns home. He was very desirous to learn more and left us with his home address and phone number so that missionaries can contact him there.

These types of experiences seem to be happening almost daily. We also have many members of the church from all over the world who are on vacation (or holiday as they call it here) come to visit. Missionaries here also bring in people they are teaching or just invite people from Exhibition Road to come in. Last month we had nearly 3,000 visitors to our VC.

We have managed to fit a few "touristy" things in our schedule the past couple of weeks. We visited the National Gallery where there are thousands of artworks. We found a couple of unique "unfinished" paintings by Michaelangelo. We were able to get tickets for front row seats for Lion King at a local theater. To see the costumes and the facial expressions up close was a great treat. We walked down Portabello Road of "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" fame. We have been on several walks through parks and continue to enjoy the spring flowers and greenery here. We found one park (Holland Park) not far from our flat with wild peacocks in it.

We greatly enjoyed General Conference although the experience here was different. Not having conference sessions start until 5:00 p.m. seemed very strange. But we managed to watch all sessions of conference (not all were live though). We particularly enjoyed hearing from Elder Mervyn Arnold who called us as Visitors' Centre Director, Elder Paul Johnson who called Rod to be stake president, and Elder Jeffery Holland who is just our favorite speaker.