Parkinson's in the United Kingdom serving in the London LDS Temple: Lessons from the Brits Week 21 September 28th to October 4th

Another month has arrived and it is turning into a British fall. September was the hottest and driest on record for Britain. The carpet layers will tell you why. Now the rains are starting, the winds are blowing and the leaves are falling.

Words:

Humming                    Singing without saying the words
Humming                    Being very busy, working at a steady clip
Humming                    Stinky, having body odor

1. Shortbread Heaven
Seriously! Is it morning already? Okay so we made it up and out to church. The van wasn’t full so we caught a ride. I showed Sister Davis how to play games on my ipad. We had forgotten they were having Fast Sunday which was a nice meeting. Sunday School had a nice lesson on Isaiah but they sure pronounce it differently. Relief Society had Sister Sweetman teach and I really get a kick out of her. Brother Rubin Farhall had been at the baptistery during the week and I told him how much I loved his shortbread cookies so he brought us a bag. Heaven! We had one when we got home, one for dessert and one at the end of the day. Other than that, it was just calm Sunday with a little walk and we got most of the family on facetime.

I have never shown a picture of the east entrance and the beautiful flowers there.

The moon was huge so we ran to get a picture and by the time

you get the Angel Moroni in it - the moon is tiny.

We also tried to get a nighttime reflective picture. Close.

2. Richmond Park and Ham House
We were up pretty early to make the van to Richmond Park and Ham House. Brian was driving and LeeAnn ended up in the backseat with us. Brian was not having a very good time as he lost the lead car and his navigator had different ideas than the Sat Nav but we finally made it.
Richmond Park is really very close to the center of London but it is a rather larger open park with lots of dear and paths for biking, hiking, riding horses and of course walking. We drove all around the park and saw lots of deer. We found a place to park and got out our lunch which we just finished before the rain started. We went into the café’ and looked out over the view which was rather foggy but nice. They had a little gift shop and Brad picked up a couple of bird guides and I got a little wooden puzzle for the grandkids but then they wouldn’t take a credit card so we put them back. We got out to the van and Whitehouse’s handed us a bag with what they hoped we wanted to buy. It wasn’t quite right so we ran back in to exchange and then Brad paid them back as we really had money but would have rather used the card. We thought it was a very cute gesture though. They had also bought me a cute little green woodpecker pin as Brad had just found one here at the lodge and in that park as well. It fell out of the bag and we about turned the van upside down but I finally found it. It is now on my coat forever.
Next we headed to Ham House. Ham House was a gift to King Charles I whipping boy - Richard Murray. When Cromwell overtook Charles I Richard Murray also went into exile but his daughter took over the house. Ham house is about 400 years old and is very nice and claims to have the first operating toilet/bath room in Britain. But it was the gardens that were wonderful. Of course they told us to come back in May when there were flowers in bloom but we still had a great time wandering through the acres of lush green flowers, trees, and scrubs.
We also walked down to the Thames River bank and sat to watch the activity there. They have a ‘shout boat’ that if you yell will come and pick you up and take you where you want to go.
Home again, home again.

The only picture we got of the deer was in the car as the rain started.

All these pictures are at Richmond Park.

3. Humbleness vs Humiliation
The temple is divided into different areas and each area has specific duties that are to be performed there. As with anything else, there is a lot that happens to make it look like it is running smoothly. Each couple is trained in all the different areas and then they are assigned to be the coordinator of a certain area every week or two. They have a couple assigned to do the training for the new couples.
Okay, if you are reading this then you know us and our personality so this should not come as a shock to you. We have been trained in every area but one and they kept saying they were going to get around to us but something always came up. An English couple that came about 6 weeks after us was trained in everything first. Well, you guessed it. They assigned this new couple to train us instead of the trainer or even someone who has been here for a while with lots of experience. That really didn’t set well with us and we felt like there was more than one couple being insulted. The man training us had insulted us on several occasions and we were not sure we wanted this piece of humble pie. It took a bit, but we finally resolved that we were going to give this our best try and hope that it didn’t turn ugly. We realized this was our problem and we needed to deal with it correctly.
By the way, our last training is in greeting people for an instruction session, making sure the session runs smoothly and then getting them into the Celestial Room. We have looked forward to this for quite some time.
We showed up right on time but our trainers didn’t. The Callaghan’s started teaching us and then the trainers showed up. It went quite well and we learned much and got along fine.
Betty Crocker said she wanted to learn the exercise equipment so we met and I demonstrated all the machines and weights. I may be sore. We had a great time.
After supper we went Home Teacher and finally made it home to collapse.

Our little group in front of the home. Me in white top, brown pants.

The Richard Murray Home (lots of history)

Each circle has a statue.

4. Conkers and Crocker’s
Yesterday was rather respectful (in amount of people attending the temple) but today seemed so slow. Our training went well but I hope it didn’t show when they said they were training us next week as well.
After our shift we came home and got ready and met for exercise. Betty Crocker came so early she came and got me from my room. We headed out and did the perimeter walk which takes us past some horse chestnut trees. She grabbed one of the horse chestnut seeds and said, “Oh conkers. We play a game with them. On my last mission we taught the Americans how to play it and then the British played the Americans and the Americans won.” We were filling our pockets with conkers and President Johnson walked up and accused us of stealing his conkers. He also said that spiders hate the smell of them. Then I was really picking them up. We finished our walk and did a few weights as well.
I rushed home and checked the email and had one from Janet so I had to call her. Then I saw I was late for my haircut so I rushed there only to find out that she had called twice to cancel but since I was there she would just cut it. We had talked about how I liked the length and maybe it would be good to be longer in winter and all and just trim up the top and sides.
I came home and walked in and Brad took a look at me and asked how I liked my hair. I told him I didn’t look but it felt short. He said it was fine. I saw he was worried. I asked him if I was going to cry. He just looked at me and said it was short but fine. I jumped up and headed for the kitchen. I pulled about 2 pans out and realized I was shedding everywhere. I went and washed my hair twice (without looking) and came back and mixed bread.
Okay, I will explain. We were out of bread the other day and I asked if I should try to make bread. Brad said no as he couldn’t take the tears if it didn’t turn out. Well, if I was going to cry over my hair, I might as well cry over two things at once.
The bread was a success and Brad was very pleased. I took a bath and washed my hair one more time (I cannot get rid of little cut hairs after a haircut) and blew it dry. IT IS SHORT! I have no idea what happened to the talk about keeping it longer.

The garden to the side of the house.

All the above pictures were of the side garden and this is the back wall.

5. New Stores and old lists
We got up and made our early shift just fine. It was a very slow day and we survived the training very well. Brad talked to Callaghan’s about how busy East Grinstread is and they said they go to Tesco in Crawley. We followed them over and had a fun time figuring out a new store. It took forever so we didn’t make it home to exercise. We had left over spaghetti and fresh bread and just enjoyed the night.

A darling French family. They just finished at the temple and their

daughter is running to them. Love mom's hair!

Betty Crocker and me exercising.

We have a great time. And guess what Betty's real name is? -- Janet!

Two fold picture.

1st - Cheerios for Neal Ricks -- Nestlé's not General Mills

2nd - Conckers in the window sill to keep the spiders away.

6. Fighting words time 2
It was a busier day today and we seemed to have a lot of people around us. During the course of the day I took a couple of pretty good jabs from the brother training us. Brad asked if he wanted to take this conversation out behind the temple. I was so shocked and yes, rather flattered as well. Brad really stood up for me and it felt great.
Mulholland’s asked us over to dinner with their friend from Whales – Brother Dickey. She fixed roast chicken that was so good. Then Brother Dickey would tell us story after story. Brad mentioned that someone he knew had problems as he had killed himself. Brother Dickey then said that some could take offense at that since his wife and about 4 others in his family had committed suicide. Brad said his foot tasted just fine and it ended up being rather funny. Then Brother Dickey said that Americans were “Over Sexed, Over Paid and Over Here.” I replied with “Where we are from there are 2 temples within 30 miles of each other and both of them are completely manned by local volunteers to the tune of about 1500 to 2000 a week.” That changed the conversation a bit.

The back of the house.

The huge backyard. A great display of wealth as you had 3 grounds man

mowing grass with sickles all week.

Looking Back

The maze trails.

7. Conference in England
Okay, so I realized we probably wouldn’t get the 4^th of July off but I had no idea we would be working on conference day. I should have realized that we wouldn’t get it until 7 hours later so we were up and at it early. We only worked one shift till 2 and it really was a very nice day.
One funny thing was that when we walked out the front door our 2 ducks from the pond were at the door just a quacking at us. They didn’t stop till we pulled out our sandwiches and fed them the bread crust. Then the waddled behind us to say thanks.
We came home and rested a bit and then got ready to go to the visitor’s center for conference. As we were walking out we saw BYU TV was on in the lounge so we went in and sure enough – conference started. There were only 2 couples in there so we had a great time. I loved the talks. Good conference.
We had talked about going out between sessions but decided to just have taco salad here. We watched the afternoon session which ended at 11:00 PM. Great session! We were a bit excited and Brad thought he could make the Priesthood session which would be from 1 AM to 3 AM. He made it through the first speaker and came to bed.