Brilliant Summer

 Rochester Cathedral



 Medway River and the City of Rochester as viewed from the
Castle



 Rochester Castle



Lauren's Baptism.  Elder Miller and Ho



 Lauren's Baptism. 



 Dover and English Channel as seen from Dover Castle.

 English Channel and the Dover Castle grounds.



 City of Dover as seen from Dover Castle.



 Top of Dover Castle.



 Top of Dover Castle.



 Draw Bridge to Dover Castle.

 City of Dover.



 Thapa's Endowment and Sealing London Temple.  Bishop Pemberton
Margaret Pemberton and Julia Scott.

Fatte and Mirinwon Thapa and Christine on their Temple Day.

 British Pageant Bus Stop on trip to Preston.  Shepherd Family.



 The Bus to Preston and British Pageant.

 Bus Stop with the Hayward's and Lauren.



 Lauren at the Preston Temple.

 Reflection Pool at the Preston Temple.

 Elder and Sister Meese from Layton serving in the Preston Mission.

Ben and Lauren with our Stake President Hunt.

 Elder and Sister Telford and Sister Sill speaking to
President and Sister Hunt.

 Elder and Sister Telford serving as Preston Temple Missionaries.

 Closing scene from British Pageant "Truth will Prevail". 



Katie, Nicky, Andy and Lucy Williams at Howlett's Wild Animal Park.



 Williams at Howlett's.



 Howlett's.



 Lucy and Katie.

 Gorilla at Howlett's.

 Black Rino. 

 European Bison.

 Bengal Tiger.

 Gardens at Howlett's.

 More Gardens at Howlett's.

Gardens at Howlett's. 

 Black Swan at Leeds Castle.

 Leeds Castle.  Surrounded by a moat.



Leeds Castle.

 Pear Tree growing up the side of the building.  Leeds Castle
grounds.



 Leeds Castle.  Lots of Butterfly bushes in England.

Leeds Castle garden.

 Leeds Castle garden.

 Many of the roads in England are covered by trees.  Gives a tunnel
effect.

 YSA Institute in Ashford at President and Sister Hunt's home.

 YSA in Ashford with Sister missionaries Hansen and Ernst.



 Dinner with Canterbury Elders (Ho and Miller) and Sisters
(Steward and Shalvis). 

Sister Stewart started her mission here first of March.  Elder Ho started his mission here the
end of May.  We have seen them grow to become good missionaries.  We will miss them.

Elder Ho (Hong Kong)  Elder Miller (Salem, Utah)
Sister Shalvis (Bountiful, Utah) Sister Stewart (Hong Kong)

Kitsell family Gravesend.

Elder Titus (South Africa) Zone Leader and Elder Miller District Leader.

FHE Mexican Night.

Old Church close to our flat in Canterbury.

Beautiful flowers in the park near our flat.

It has been really dry.  You can see the grass is turning brown.  In spite of
the drought these flowers are beautiful.  These were grown from seeds and
they were never watered.  It amazes me how things grow here.

Layton Sixth Ward sent us this.  It was
a wonderful surprise.  Thank you.

Elder Miller's birthday party.  We celebrated with American food.  Sloppy
Joes, jello salad, chips, carrot sticks and potato salad.



Happy Birthday.

We are having a very nice summer.  We understand why Kent is considered the garden of England.  It does not rain much during the summer so they can grow lots of vegetables and fruit.  With the long summer days (daylight at 4 am to 10 pm) everything grows.  Sister Sill is glad we have blackout drapes!!!  They grow a lot of wheat and the fields are beautiful.  We have been teaching Institute every Thursday in Gillingham which is our Stake Center.  We were able to put in a trip to Rochester and see the Castle and Cathedral.  Rochester is next to Gillingham and is on the Medway River.  There was nothing left on the inside of the Castle but it was interesting to climb the ancient stairs to the top and see the surrounding area.

Lauren Beaute was baptized on July 27.  She was contacted by the Elders the end of June.  She has a strong testimony and has been looking for the Church for  a long time.  She is from Amsterdam.  She can play the piano, sing and does beautiful sketches.  She has been a great addition to our YSA.

Since we have a car we have been asked to do Missionary Flat inspection every three months.  We have 9 flats to inspect.  On our inspection of the Dover missionaries we visited the Dover Castle which has a long history.  It has been maintained over the years and was a very nice Castle.  Beautiful views of the English Channel.  There are bunkers inside the hill that were used in World War II.  It was here they staged the rescue by private boats of Dunkirk which was one of the miracles that save the British Army from being captured by the Germans in 1940.  They had an exhibit at the Castle that showed all of the major battles that Britain has been involved in.  It is a long list.  I understand why the people are battle and war weary.

The Thapa's were sealed on August 7 in the London Temple.  Sister Sill and I were their escorts and it was a wonderful day.  They are originally from Nepal but most of their family lives in India. 

We got permission from our Area President to travel with our Stake on a chartered bus to see the British Pageant on Saturday August 10.  "Truth Will Prevail".  It was the first ever pageant for the British Isles.  It told the story of the early saints that joined the Church in the British Isles.  Most of our ancestors were these early pioneers.  Most of them immigrated to the Great Salt Lake Valley and literally saved the Church.  At one point in the Church's history there were more British saints than American saints. The pageant was indoors under at large tent structure.  It could seat 3,000 people.  We were able to visit with Gary and Jill Telford who are serving a temple mission and also visited with the Meese's who are from Layton and they are serving in the Preston area.  The Temple grounds were beautiful.  They get a lot of rain on the west coast so it was green in contrast to where we live in Kent.  It was a 5 hour bus ride and the air conditioning was not working so it was very uncomfortable.  We did not get back to Canterbury until 5 am Sunday morning.

On August 12 we had Elder David Evans of the Seventy visit our mission.  We had a mission wide conference with Elder Evans.  He taught us for 4 hours on how to find investigators.  It is always special to have general authorities teach you and give their witnesses of the gospel and Jesus Christ.

On August 13 Vorelle's cousin Nicky and her family came from the Bath area to visit us.  We spent the whole day at Howlett's Wild Animal Park which is really close to us.  It is a huge park with a lot of wild animals which are becoming extinct and they are working to breed and reintroduce them to the protected reserves in their habitat.  The gorilla exhibit was amazing.  We watched them for nearly an hour.  The best I have ever seen.  We had a great time with them.

We visited Leeds Castle which is really close to us.  It has a great history of Kings and famous people who owned it.  It is in good condition.  Our ticket entitles us to go back as many time as we want for the next 12 months.  The walk up to the castle follows a creek through the forest.  It will be great to see it during all the seasons.

We have been teaching the YSA in Ashford once a month.  We had a good turn out for our last meeting at President and Sister Hunt's home.  The youth here are great and fun to be around.  We love them.

We spoke at the Gravesend Ward and after had a great dinner with the Kitsell family. 

We are having great experiences with the missionaries.  These are exciting times.  We have a lot of new missionaries.  After 12 weeks the missionaries are training new missionaries to keep up with the growth.   Our Church is centrally located in the city so we will be using the church a lot more.  We will be working from the Church most of the time especially when the University starts.  We will be using the Church for the YSA to gather.  We will be expanding the Family History center and conducting tours so we will be really busy.

Sister Sill with the help of the Gleeds in our ward has been able to do a lot of family history for her mother's side of the family.  She has processed over 30 names of family members to the temple.