Our little corner of the world

Mar 16, 2024

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by

Karla Gurr

Birmingham England Mission

I am late to the party but trying to catch up with our escapades as new MRM (Military Relations Missionaries) serving here in the Lakenheath area of the Birmingham England Mission. We cover RAF Lakenheath, Mildenhall, and Feltwell Airbases for the US Air Force. We have the opportunity to support and serve the members and families of the Air Force and members of our church – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the area. We have 4 wards we are involved in. Thetford, Mildenhall, St. Bury Edmunds and Cambridge. We have been here for 3 weeks now and have met so many lovely members from the area and have been blessed to enjoy dinners with several ward members.

This is our home – it has a name “Cherry Tree House” –no cherry tree around. But we have found that so many homes have names. I am taking pictures and will make a post just about that coming soon.

We live in a little village called Feltwell, a small part of Thetford. I am sure there is some term I am not using —-newbie here. It has some history being so close to the Airbase that was once British but now an American facility.

It has taken me longer than I thought to adjust to our new “schedule” because we have to make our own schedule, and no one is telling us what we should be doing…..where is the check-list of “things you should be doing”? So, this week we did an orientation at the USO on the Lakenheath Airbase. It is a new and very nice facility. There are a lot of financial donors that provide the USO with money to help the military community and it is a comfortable place for family and airman to do activities, gather and relax. So, we are going to volunteer one or twice a week on a 2 hour shift. We also meet with the base Chaplain. We have to go through a back-ground check, but we hope to find ways to volunteer there also supporting activities for the community. We also have to support our young sister and elder missionaries at Zone Conferences. We get to help make, prepare and serve them a lunch. These are some amazing young missionaries. We actually met a young sister who asked if we knew a JJ or a Jadelyn Ravsten (now married and a Gale)…..well it took me a minute and I finally remembered she was Chris and Jamie’s daughter –(Lory is Jamie’s Uncle on the Gurr side) She said she was Jadelyn’s best friend…..it was great and it felt like a little bit of home to give her a hug.

Pres. West and His wife are such wonderful leadership for the mission. This zone conference was for just half of the mission. We have approx. 170 missionaries in the Birmingham mission. It is quite a distance to travel for zone conferences and the church buildings are smaller also, so it is easier to split the mission into 2 areas. We drive about 1 hr and 20 minutes to the Peterbourgh Chapel for Zone conferences. We drive EVERYWHERE….to put it into a little easier context, we started out with a brand-new car and it had 6 miles on it. It has now been 3 1/2 weeks and it now has about 850 miles. Think of the Johnny Cash song…. https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxmj9y0fi5WZIAm-np9hkL5iwG8Ir8OgSq?si=OKkpGW-D05b7n8_U

So grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As we read in 2 Nephi 31-32..for this is the Doctrine of Christ: Faith, Baptism, Repentance and enduring to the end, being obedient and willing to do His will… it is the only way we can return and live with our families, our Savior and our Father in Heaven.

As Pres. Russell M Nelson stated: The pure doctrine of Christ is powerful. It changes the life of everyone who understands it and seeks to implement it in his or her life. The doctrine of Christ helps us find and stay on the covenant path. Staying on that narrow but well-defined path will ultimately qualify us to receive all that God has. Nothing could be worth more than all the Father has.” Nov. Ensign 2021

Stay tuned….working on my next publication – signs.