600 Pictures!

Jul 21, 2025

Don’t worry, I’m not sharing 600 pictures (though you might feel like it by the end of this post). But that’s the number of pictures on my camera roll just since the last blog post. So….

I might have a problem. I take a lot of pictures…

But it’s not a problem because I don’t want to forget a single memory that comes from each one of those 600 pictures. There’s a song that is often used on social media reels that, while a little overused, has a beautiful message that describes exactly what I’m feeling these days. Here are a few lines:

These are the days I will remember
These are the faces I need most
Everything changes, but I'll keep forever
These days I will remember
These are the days I will remember
These are the faces I want close
If everything changes and we're not together
These days I will remember
Sometimes you know it's time to go
But you just wanna hold on, hold on
Hold on

So, here we go, here’s another month of memories that I want to hold on to forever…

Over the past year and a half we’ve been so blessed to have all of our kids be able to come over and visit us here. Our youngest, Spencer, and his wife Laura, were the last of our kids to finally make it here after he graduated from BYU and finished his internship at DisneyWorld. It was so fun to have them here in June and we got to check off a few bucket list items with them.

Fresh off the plane, a quick stop at the London Temple, trying to keep them awake and moving. :)

While they were here, they spent numerous days in London on their own seeing the sights, and then I took them a few places. Elder VW’s responsibilities are usually M-F, 8-5, while mine are a little more flexible throughout the day, so I’m the designated tour guide.

As a graduate with a degree in “plant and landscape systems”, Spencer was in garden heaven here in England. How can you not be? We visited Kew Gardens (world-class), the Oxford Botanic Garden (oldest in the UK), Burnham Beeches (ancient woodland), the Chelsea Physic Garden (hidden gem in London), and any other green space or garden he could make a detour into!

Walking around Kew Gardens, we saw a fox! Elder VW, whose favorite movie is Fantastic Mr. Fox, has been dying to see a fox in the wild. Unfortunately, he wasn’t with us, and this is the third fox I’ve seen (and gotten pictures to prove it). He’s still hoping for his Fantastic Mr. Fox!

Just a little more of the beauty of England’s summer gardens:

And here are a few of my favorite places in Oxford. The hydrangeas in the courtyard at Magdalen College literally took our breath away!

The Radcliffe Camera (In Latin, camera primarily means room, and often specifically a vaulted or arched room. The word has roots in the Greek word "kamara," which also meant vaulted chamber.)

Christ Church College - one of the most beautiful views in Oxford in my opinion

We took a short trip with them on my birthday weekend to northern Wales to go to the highest peak in all of England and Wales, Mount Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa in Welsh). The original plan—a strenuous, heroic hike to the top. The reality—a weather forecast that promised only rain and wind. Apparently, Mount Snowdon has its own personal weather tantrums at the summit, and there was going to be a full meltdown that day. So we did what any civilized Brit would do—we took a charming little steam train to the top! As much as I wanted the triumphant feeling of hiking to the summit, being pelted by sideways rain didn’t sound like much fun. When we stepped out of the train at the top, we were drenched and frozen in about 5 minutes. We snapped a few quick photos to prove we were there, grabbed a hot chocolate from the summit cafe, and then made our way back down to find drier trails and better weather at the base. Best decision ever. But it means Snowdon is still on my list of summits to climb!

Proof that it was crazy weather:

We squeezed every drop out of the weekend, packing in as much as we could. On the drive up to Wales, we stopped in Birmingham to see the neighborhood and forest where J.R.R. Tolkien grew up and played as a boy. It was easy to see how the trees and winding paths could have sparked the imagination that gave us Middle-Earth. All of our boys are big Lord of the Rings fans, so this was a magical place for Spencer to see.

Then we made a quick stop at Liverpool to pay homage to the Beatles at the museum there.

I didn’t even need to tell Laura how to pose, she nailed it!

More importantly for me was visiting the dock in Liverpool where many of our ancestors from Denmark and Sweden and Holland started their voyage across the ocean to America after joining the Church. We found this beautiful statue on the wharf commemorating their faith and sacrifice.

It was so humbling to stand in this place where our ancestors, with hearts full of faith, boarded ships to take them to a place they had never been, knowing they would never return to their homelands. I hope they can feel our gratitude for their sacrifice. We wouldn’t be who we are and where we are today without them.

Here are a few highlights of the other beautiful places we saw in Wales—it’s hard to even describe the pastoral beauty without sounding like I’m just making up poetic superlatives, but to say that it is glorious and stunning really is almost an understatement. Like this…

And this…

And how about this…

And this!!

And these…

And can we talk about the sheep? Oh, how I love the sheep!

Silly sheep, just walking down the road…

Or at a playground haha!

Are you convinced yet that northern Wales is heavenly?

Finally, we made our way back home with a few quick stops at some Cotswold towns and a church from Laura’s ancestry along the way.

While Laura was here, I took advantage of her artistic talent for a watercolor activity at a ward bridal shower I was helping with (for the Bishop’s daughter). It turned out so great—we had each of the guests watercolor a flower (that Laura helped draw) and then write a date night idea on the back, then gathered them in a bouquet to give to the bride.

We loved having Spencer & Laura here!

And just as they were leaving, we had our last set of visitors—Holly and her family. It seemed fitting that they were our first visitors a year and a half ago and then they were our last.

They had seen most of the big London sights, so they had a little more relaxed visit this time. Which was good because unbeknownst to Holly I had roped her into helping with wedding flowers for the bride. Fair warning: visit me and you’ll most likely be put to work! (but for a good cause!)

While Holly was wrangling the flowers, I also played the piano for the three musical numbers at the wedding with these two amazingly talented women. Whew, it was a busy week, but couldn't have made it through without Holly's help (and Jon and Dave behind the scenes). And it was a lovely wedding for a darling couple!

In between all the wedding fun, we went on a few little outings so they could see Stonehenge, Avebury Henges (a totally underrated place near Stonehenge that I think is actually more interesting), and a few Cotswold villages. By now, I think I could either write an England travel blog or lead my own private tours after our mission. Sign me up, I’m in love with England!

I’m sure this is the reason Stonehenge was built haha!

Another outing was a visit to Cambridge, where we got to meet up with Ariel, the FamilySearch manager I’ve been doing projects for this past year. She lives near Cambridge so we’ve been planning one last meet-up before we left. She is seriously the coolest and I’m going to miss working with her! She’s also officially part of our family now so I figured it would be fun for her to meet Holly and family.

Finally, we got to see “The Play That Goes Wrong” together before they headed home. Our grandson has seen it before and loves it, so it was fun to get to watch it with him. It was hilarious!

Okay, if you’ve made it this far, wow, you are a true friend! Just a few more miscellaneous things to share…

In June we went on an OGC field trip before our dear friends, the McMurrays, returned home. We chose to go to Salisbury Cathedral, the home of the Magna Carta.

For a quick history refresher, the Magna Carta was signed in the year 1215 at a location not too far from us, Runnymede along the River Thames. It is considered a foundational document for individual rights, and a precursor to many legal and political systems like our constitutional government. Salisbury Cathedral’s Magna Carta is one of only four surviving original documents.

It’s amazing to see so many things and places that are so rich in history and significance all in one small country.

This cathedral is particularly beautiful and grand. And this modern baptismal font was especially striking. Such a beautiful message taken from Isaiah 43:1-2 inscribed around the edge of the font.

They also had a display focusing on refugees and the rights of all people to have safety and peace. This struck me deeply in light of all of the divisive rhetoric about immigrants and refugees happening in our world right now.

On the way back from Salisbury, we took a little detour down to the Dorset coast, which is one of the loveliest areas! (Okay, we’ve yet to see a non-lovely area of England!)

Last week I taught a watercolor class for the Relief Society ladies and young women in our ward. It was so fun! But you might be asking: Sister VW, I didn’t know you knew how to watercolor? And you are absolutely correct! I don’t! But what I do know how to do is scroll Pinterest like a pro, pull together a fun and colorful painting activity (with the help of lovely Olga and Nata who did the decorating), and be a cheerleader for everyone who came ready to laugh, relax and be creative!

Another Church responsibility we have loved and are sad to leave has been the joy of teaching the Sunday School class for all the youth in our ward. It has been a little daunting at times to teach all the ages from 12-17, but this is a stellar group of young people (from at least 5 different countries) who have inspired us and have taught us more than we have ever taught them. We can’t wait to see where life takes them!

(blurred faces of kids for privacy, but take our word for it that they’re all adorable!)

And finally, some fun news for those who haven’t heard—we’ve officially welcomed our replacements, the Harrises, who also happen to be dear friends from our longtime Roseville ward! No coincidences! This picture was taken back in 2022 when we moved out of the ward. They threw a going-away party for us.

And here we are welcoming them to England, not with a party, but by taking them to a beautiful palace. They’re going to love it here and they’re going to be such a blessing to the OGC and to everyone they interact with! We have a few weeks of overlap so we’re trying to help them get adjusted and trained in all the things we’ve been doing.

We promise there is lots of actual missionary work happening that you don’t see reflected in all the weekend pictures! :) And speaking of work, it’s been a strange last month for us—the Area Office was closed on somewhat short notice for the month of July and August for HVAC renovations so everyone has been working from home. We love not having to make the commute every day, but we really miss seeing everyone, especially not being able to say goodbye and give hugs in person. Thankfully, about a fourth of our ward is made up of office employees, so we’ll at least be able to see some people before we go.

I’ll end with just a random smattering of pictures of some of the people we love.