September is passing quickly here in England. A new school year has now begun in Manchester. The University of Manchester began school activities the week of September 15 while Manchester Metropolitan begins on September 22. Here in England they call this "Fresher's Week". Oxford Road is crowded with students and buses. This means a nice group of new student members moving in, including two from America working on master's degrees. The institute class schedule has been set with Luke Kerr asking us to teach 3 classes - we jointly teach the "Gospel Path" class on Tuesday evenings, Sister Pew teaches the "Gospel and the Productive Life" on Wednesdays as a "Lunch and Learn" (and brings soup and rolls for them to eat during class) and Elder Pew teaches Book of Mormon 122 on Thursday evenings. We taught our first two this week and begin Book of Mormon classes next week.
On September 18, the Institute held an introduction night with activities that included pizza making, ping pong and everyone painting a handprint onto a poster. See the photo below of the group. We picked up 19 Large Dominoes Pizzas for the Institute kids.
On Friday, September 12, we took 3 YSA with us to the temple for endowment work. Two of them were new to Manchester, having arrived just the day before, so it was nice to meet them and attend the temple with them.
We met a nice Muslim couple on the street a couple weeks ago and taught them one lesson and took them to church on September 14. We then took them to lunch where we discussed their situation in their homeland of Kurdistan (northern Iraq) and how joining our Church might be a serious problem for them upon return home. Given that, we agreed to stop the lessons but hope we see them again soon.
On September 16, we decided we needed some exercise so we took a walk into town in the morning to get breakfast at Home Sweet Home. Breakfast was good and the 3 mile walk was good for us too. Sister Pew had waffles and Elder Pew had eggs benedict. We also got a nice package from Ali this week with a couple of her Instyle magazines where she had marked for us all her featured fashion pages. It was fun to see what Ali is doing. We also heard that we will see Ali and Clark at Thanksgiving so that is something to look forward to.
A YSA Dance was held on Friday September 19 and the 4th floor was packed with YSA from the surrounding areas. The music was loud, the strobe lights flashed and they all had a good night. We had to shepherd them out by midnight.
Other than that, we've done the usual things - trips to Costco for Institute and Munch/Mingle food. We are making deli sandwiches this week for Munch/Mingle so we purchased a lot of turkey, ham and pastrami. We'll spend a couple hours Saturday making the sandwiches. Reed also began his driving lessons leading up to his September 29 driving test, which he is quite nervous about. There are so many differences in the driving rules here that we don't think about in America. You also have to back up around a corner staying as close to the curb as possible but not touching it. You also have to demonstrate parallel parking and trying to parallel park with the steering wheel on the other side of the car on the other side of the road is quite challenging. More lessons next week to come. We will keep our fingers crossed.
There was an "All Elders" meeting at the Manchester Stake Center at 10am on September 17th. We weren't planning to attend but about 75 minutes prior to the meeting an email went out inviting all the senior couples. Even though Julie had to teach her "Lunch and Learn" Institute class at 12:30 that day, we were able to adjust our schedule and quickly drive the 20 minutes to the Stake Center. We heard a wonderful presentation from President Ulrich about the atonement and why it should be all-encompassing in our lives.
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| Group Photo of Manchester Institute on September 18, 2014 |
Elder and Sister Pew with Rachel Mayall on her baptism, Sept 14, 2014 at the Oldham Chapel
We love Sunday Night visitors and these YSA's decided they were bored and came over to see us. Good thing because we were home and bored as well. That's Rhianne Hoyle on left, with Joe Walsh, then Anatole and Leon Aldred. All great people.
We took a drive to see another Welsh castle, this time to Caernarfon. It is a big castle but not much to it other than it's big. It was built in the 13th century as a defense for England. It was here in 1969 that Charles was named the Prince of Wales.
The flags fly at Caernafon Castle
a small market street in Caernarfon
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| Some great missionaries are headed home and we will miss them..Top left Sister Taukei from Fiji, Top right Sister Sun from Salt Lake, bottom right Sister Clawson from Florida (but her mom Amy Graham grew up in Farmington) Bottom Left Sister Nemec from Austria, Left middle Elder Greenland from Arizona and China. |
This brought back old memories! Extra Missionaries were here for "Fresher's Week" and Elder Christian Johnson from Last Vegas came to Central Manchester for the day. Elder Johnson had served for about 3 months in YSA ward before finally transferring out. He is a very good missionary.
A new sister missionary to the YSA ward, from Australia. Sister Riley. She will be a great addition to the work in central Manchester.
On Tuesday evenings, after our Gospel Path class, the missionaries host a ping pong tournament. This is to last for 14 weeks and points for winning matches and coming to the Gospel Path can be accumulated. (Does this sound like bribery?) These are the prizes which Sister Pew volunterred we donate: £40 gift card to Nando's restaurant for 1st place, £30 for 2nd, £20 for 3rd and £10 for 4th place.
Our mission car with the weird "suicide doors". Don't know where the name comes from and don't understand why any car would be made like this. We assume the Church got a great deal on them.
If this looks like a Vauxhall Convention, it isn't. You can always tell where missionaries are congregating because of the cars....Here they all are. All silver, all the same make and model, all with suicide doors.
Our Power Walk Through Manchester...to eat Breakfast!
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| When we walk through Central Manchester we can see some very old and beautiful architecture. |
Manchester Cathedral in central Manchester. (This is where Julie's Great Grandfather, George Hyde was christened)
Begonias in garden outside the Manchester Cathedral
Stained glass window in Manchester Cathedral
This St Ann's Cathedral at St Ann's Square
Jack Wills is a store that the British love. It is a fun and trendy place and on our walk
we popped in to look around.
we popped in to look around.
Saw this roasting on a street vendor's grill. Pig, head and all. yum, yum. We passed it by.
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| The beautiful flowers around the city will soon be gone. It's getting chilly outside. |
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| Breakfast at Home Sweet Home. |
Opening Institute Night
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| Katie and Rachel making their pizza |
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| Joe Walsh, who served a mission in Italy, demonstrates the art of Pizza Making at Institute. |
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Dominoes Pizza, just two doors away, loves us because our YSA order so much pizza here. This Dominoes is the highest grossing franchise in Europe. YSA DanceYSA Dances are held each month and we chaperone. The strobe lights on the 4th floor and the music blasting make people curious as to what goes on in that church.  At the end of the evening, they don't want to leave so they just hang out at the front of the building.  Sister Pew always loves it when Tatiana is back in town.  Honestly...we parked next to a Zombie Response Vehicle... ??? Other Bits and Bobs
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| Fast cookie making from a Cake Mix...Not too bad. |
New Words
Thin on the Ground- Lack of people
English to the MAX- Very British
1 comment:
Love that you get to walk by the church where your great grandfather was christened. That's amazing. Glad you guys are so ridiculously busy.
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