The American Potato Salad Lives On

16 July 2017

Dear Family and Friends,

Another busy and full week has flown by. I’m sure you feel the same way also! We leave for our two-week stay at the Pageant two weeks from tomorrow. It’s getting very close, and the time is going by so fast. So much to do . . . so little time. Happy Birthday on Thursday to my brother, Rex, whom many of you know and love as much as I do. And, Happy Birthday to my oldest nephew, Bret, who you can’t help but love. He’s just a nice guy.

We have had full days and a lot going on in the evenings this week, making for some pretty long days. Monday night we were invited to dinner and Family Home Evening with a cute family in the ward, the Fergusons. Now we have the Fergusons from Milford (), the Ferguson cousins, and now our British friends. Jamie and Emma have three girls; Bethany who just turned 7, and Rachael and Abby who are 4-year-old twins, but are as different as night and day, everything from their looks and hair colour to their personalities. We will gladly adopt them as our grandchildren for the next year. They are a bit of a handful for their parents, so they are the children that the ward raises too, flitting about during Sacrament Meeting to anyone who will colour with them or play stickers with them. They are simply adorable. And, we were introduced to the British way of doing the Hokie-Pokie . . .’cause that’s what it’s all about!

Tuesday after work I had my first Physio appointment. It sadly wasn’t a massage, but more a first visit chat about my history and a few exercises to help my neck and shoulders. It did help, and I’m going back Tuesday. But I still miss Sara.

Wednesday after work we went to Coventry and met Sister Romero and Sister Crandall for dinner! Sister Crandall lives in our ward in Kaysville. It was so great to be with them both, and I am able to assure Sister Crandall’s parents that all is well in Coventry and their missionary is doing great. It was so good to be with them both. After dinner we did our monthly Costco run. . . .I’ll tell you what we bought and why in a bit!

Thursday we had a meeting in Leicester (about 1-1/2 hours from the office) with the Mission Presidency, Zone Leaders, and the Leicester Stake’s Public Affairs team, promoting the “I’m a Missionary” programme on social media we are working on. If you happened to see on Facebook the video “What Missionaries Do” about two sister missionaries serving in Germany, it was done by our intern, Amanda, and it went viral. It has been awesome. We are going around the mission, visiting different Stakes, trying to get more of this going. Social media is such a great way to share the good news of the gospel!

So Friday . . . let me tell you about what we did Friday after work. Going back to last Sunday, at the Munch and Mingle I told you about last week . . . Preface: A family in our ward had a daughter get married yesterday. The mum, Sue, is also a cast member in the Pageant, so very busy with that. They also have a son leaving on a mission the week after the Pageant. It is fair to say Sue is swamped right now. At the Munch and Mingle, of which you remember I took potato salad, Sue invited us to attend the wedding. Although we don’t really know the daughter, Beth, very well, because she has been in Manchester going to school, Sue thought it would be nice for us to see an English wedding. We were so happy that she would be thoughtful enough to invite us, and the next words out of my mouth, of course, were “what can I do to help?” (because that’s what we do!) Long story short, Friday night after work Ron and I made three large bowls of potato salad for their wedding dinner, using about 20 lbs. of potatoes, 4 dozen eggs, and a whole lot of mayo. I never ever thought I would purchase mayo in bulk, as I hardly ever use it, but the picture proves it. Good ol’ Costco. And the American potato salad lives on in Solihull.

One thing that is different about Mormon weddings here than in the USA is that by law you must be married civilly BEFORE going to the Temple to be sealed. So they get married in a Mormon church, usually have a luncheon, then make the two hour trek to either the Preston or the London Temple to be sealed. And according to Church policy, the sealing must be done within 24 hours of the wedding, or the couple must wait a year to go to the temple. In a lot of ways, it is very nice, because so many families have extended family and friends that cannot go to the temple, so this way they don’t miss out. At the wedding, there was the traditional bridal march into the chapel with flower girls, bridesmaids, groomsmen, then father of the bride and bride; Opening Song (For the Beauty of the Earth), Opening Prayer, two talks on marriage by a friend and a sister, the ceremony, a signing of the register by two officials (who happened to be in our ward), a closing song (Jerusalem, the traditional English song), a closing prayer, and the procession out. It was all very beautiful (and I’ll just say that someone worked very hard to clean the church because it hasn’t been that clean since we got here!) We were grateful to witness it.

At the meeting, we met Elder and Sister Kent Winder who serve as YSA missionaries in Manchester, the ward the bride and groom were in. We are very familiar with the Winder name it Utah! Winder Dairy is a wonderful supporter of Festival, and several years ago (I can’t remember, Shauna, Robyn, Sharon, who was Chair at the time?) we had Kent for lunch at the hospital. It was nice to make a connection with them and thank Ken one more time for supporting Festival of Trees and the children at Primary Children’s Hospital. I just smile when things like this happen . . . here in another country . . . it’s pretty amazing. One more thing about the wedding:

One of my friends at home asked me when we first arrived in England if the women wore hats to church. Sadly, no! Although in all the fine department stores here there is are beautiful women’s hats for sale. Well, they all come out at the weddings! Hats of every size, shape, colour, you name it. And they were beautiful. I love it that people dress to the ‘T’ here for a wedding. We’ve kind of lost that in the USA.

After the wedding, we grabbed a bite to eat, worked at the office for a couple of hours, and then on a whim went to see the new “Spiderman” movie. It was a nice break after a busy week.

Our week doesn’t stop there. We are home from church, grabbing a quick bite to eat, then on our way back up to Chorley for our last Pageant Board Meeting. We will stay in the Temple Accommodations tonight and come home in the morning. Malcolm is on holiday for the next two weeks, so our workload is heavy. The three Public Affairs senior missionary couples in Frankfurt and Solihull were all given an assignment last week by the Area Director to develop training materials for the Stake PA Directors, due July 31. Bless the rest of the missionaries for knowing how swamped I am with the Pageant and going easy on me. Ron has been busy picking up my slack and working hard on that project. Never a dull moment in Public Affairs. Never.

So while I can’t share a lot of spiritual experiences or miracles this week, I can tell you that it seems like a miracle that we are here in this country, feeling needed, feeling loved, feeling appreciated, and working hard for the Lord. The miracles are the blessings we are seeing here and at home. And when I actually stop and take a moment to reflect on all of this, it is very spiritual.

Each of you are our rocks, our compass, our mainstays. Thank you for your kind words to us continually. We love you all, miss you all, and appreciate you so much. May you have a wonderful week, doing all the fun summer things you enjoy with those you love. Many thanks for your prayers for the missionaries. Never before have they meant so much.

Our love to you,
Ron and Marie