Every needful thing...and more.
What a wonderful General Conference weekend we had recently. Saturdays are our P-days so we generally spend our time cleaning and washing. We are so grateful for both a washer and a dryer. A load of whites in the washer takes 2 hours 15 min to complete a cycle, and then about 70 minutes to dry, so you can imagine we are doing laundry all day long. We have discovered we need to wash our sheets on Fridays or we run out of time to get everything washed, dried, and put away--oh the challenges. By 5:00 pm we were ready to sit and watch the first session of GC. We were surprised to see snow on the ground when they turned the camera on outside the Tabernacle. We stayed up and watched both sessions. Elder Holland was delightful and I loved his message about prayer --what did He experience that was so sacred and yet so important? I felt his need to express the admonition to return to his ministry with more urgency, more consecration, more focus on the Savior, and more faith in His word. This was part of an answer for me. Our Mission Pres. had asked each of us to come to the Conference with a question. I also got my answer from Elder Renlund. In his talk, he quoted President Nelson -"Spiritual Momentum is created "over a lifetime as we repeatedly embrace the doctrine of Christ". I was letting myself form bad habits, and this talk jump-started me to improve. I hope you all enjoyed the spirit and what an announcement of 15 more temples and a temple in Lehi!!! I love our Prophet.
This past week we did flat inspections on the Elders and Sisters apartments. We have 6 flats to inspect and they are quite a distance apart....more driving. Our first flat was pretty clean...the Elders did a good job and I only had to suggest a few items that needed attention. I kept saying, "Think what your mom would say" After we inspected that flat, we had another appointment 40 min. away, but had to wait a few hours so we did a little sightseeing....exploring the town of Dereham.
Dereham is likely to be an old English name meaning 'Enclosure of the deer' A nunnery was built in 654 --that is old--Legend has it that the Virgin Mary sent two female deer to the Nunnery for her nuns to milk to provide food for the workman building the convent. Every day the two deer would come to the banks of the river at Washbridge to be milked. When a huntsman killed the deer he was struck down and killed along with his horse. The symbol of the golden deer can be seen on the town crest and on the Church's weathervane. Don't you just love the history and the folklore....I do.
The tulips are now blooming and they are so beautiful. They had these flower boxes around the town.
The best part of exploring was finding our first actual Bakery shop. Where we live there are no stand-alone bakeries like we were used to in Germany. We probably went just a little overboard, but we ordered two sausage rolls, two apple turnovers, and a cheese roll. All very yummy and we have flat inspections about every 6 weeks right before transfers ---we will be making our bakery run to the Flour and Bean.
The next stop was King's Lynn. The two Elders there have a very small flat. It is really cramped, so I told them it will be dirty when things are disorganized....I was trying to think of a way to say it was just dirty. These two were very sweet and after a lot of instruction, and discovering they had cleaning supplies, they have since sent us pictures of the cleaning they did on their flat. One elder is going home this week. He is from China. The other Elder is from Norway. Elder Juriks from Norway loves Rootbeer, so we brought him a 12-pack, and the minute we walked into the apartment he had one opened.
Kings Lynn has a large church called the Priory and Parish Church of St. Margaret of Antioch, St. Mary Magdalene, and all the Virgin Saints--later changed to King's Lynn Minster in 2011. It was founded as a Benedictine Priory in 1101. They had some beautiful stained glass, and most were centered around women and Christ.
The following 2 days were both flat inspections. We drove about 1 1/2 hours toward the English Channel to Gorelston and Lowestoft. They are about 30 min. apart but both are really close to the water. The air was clear and smelled a bit salty and seagulls were all over the place. When I said we were grateful for a dryer, most of the missionaries do not have a dryer, so they either have drying racks or a large rope running the length of their apartment to hang clothes out. I asked one Elder how often he washed his bedding...the look on his face was priceless...He hummed and hawed, but I told him I understood because it would take forever to wash and then hang it to dry, but it would be great if he could figure something out so he could clean his bedding
The following day we were off to Cambridge. The sister's apartment this time and it is a 4-some. These girls are just amazing and yes, their Flat was sparkling. We have a sister from Fiji, one from So. Korea and the other two are from the States. They are doing such good things.
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Cambridge is a beautiful City, but busy. Bikes and students and people everywhere. We did go downtown and walk around and in and out of several churches. We were able to listen to a student group singing in one of the churches. They had a small market with just food stalls-- the smells were wonderful. We bought a chicken and rice dish and also a fried potato dish. it was great fun. We also had a famous Fitzbillies bun.
Remember, as the prophet says, Spiritual momentum is created "over a lifetime as we repeatedly embrace the doctrine of Christ". I am grateful that we have the Atonement of Jesus Christ to help us start fresh and correct our direction to keep us focused on Him. We are being so blessed. Thank you for your prayers --they are working!
Elder and Sister Gurr
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