Anniversary

Happy one-month anniversary to us! A month ago on the 16th we arrived in England! And in honor of this anniversary, our apartment complex decided to surprise us with a brand new elevator design! Okay, just kidding, it wasn’t for us. But it was a crazy little surprise to leave our flat yesterday morning using a regular metal elevator and then return in the afternoon to an elevator that had been turned into what feels like a fluorescent disco space haha! Life is fun!

In other bright and happy news, England continues to show off her beautiful spring colors! The trade off for having a lot of rain and gray skies means we get to have beautiful green hills and blossoms everywhere.

Yesterday we went on another senior missionary outing to Kenwood House, a beautiful estate on 100+ acres in the Hampstead area of north London. This one was filled with art, including a Rembrandt and a Vermeer.

But really the star of the show was this beautiful magnolia tree.

It was refreshing to see everyone take their focus off the admittedly beautiful and grand manmade estate and be drawn to the beauty of this tree. God is truly the best designer!

I just listened to this General Conference talk by Bishop W. Christopher Waddell and this quote at the end jumped out at me as we’ve been enjoying the beautiful museums and mansions surrounding us:

No leader has ever shown more courage, no humanitarian has shown more kindness, no physician has cured more disease, and no artist has been more creative than Jesus Christ.

In a world of heroes, with monuments and museums devoted to the exploits of mortal men and women, there is One who stands above all others. I testify that Jesus Christ is not only our hero; He is our Lord and King, the Savior and Redeemer of mankind.

We saw another beautiful display this week while we went into London - a stained glass exhibit at the London Hyde Park Chapel. These panels were a duplicate of the panels displayed at the Rome Temple Visitor’s Center. They’re beautiful as a whole, but what I really loved was seeing the different people depicted from the New Testament stories and how the artist incorporated small objects and symbols embedded into the stained glass.

Look at the picture closer to see how many stories from the New Testament you can identify.

There are olive leaves from Jerusalem, shells from the Sea of Galilee and other meaningful items to give depth and symbolism to the art. It was really beautiful.

And finally, another little driving incident and an analogy. First, a map…

This is the gauntlet of roundabouts we have to navigate to get from our flat to the office. Five roundabouts! We have to drive through 3 of the 5, and for the first few days it was terrifying! This area is at the convergence of a mall, a hospital, a university and a private high school. So you can imagine the kind of traffic that goes through here. At one particular tricky spot of merging, we were so grateful to find that the drivers always let us in so that we could get across the lane to go through the next roundabout. We commented regularly about how polite and nice the British drivers have been.

Then just the other day, after having a few more weeks of experience and finally feeling a little more comfortable, we realized that they weren’t actually letting us go through—they had to yield (or give way as it’s called here). They were required to let us go first. We laughed about our ignorance, but it made me realize that it made a difference in our attitude as we drove. It helped us have a positive attitude and a good feeling about the people around us. We saw them as kind and friendly and it made our otherwise stressful drive much nicer. So even though we now know some of their kindness might be mandatory, we’re going to continue to view everyone around us as kind and helpful and courteous and I’m sure it will make a big difference in our interactions.

♥ Until next time, we love you! Cheerio! ♥

---

Words of the Week:

(Words or phrases we hear “on the street” that either delight, confuse or amuse us.)

Peckish - getting hungry, “I’m feeling a little peckish.”

Walk-about - an informal stroll, “Have they gone on walk-abouts round the building?”