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Sunday, March 29, 2009

The crocus' are croaking, the snowdrops are dropping, but the daffodils are happily daffing!

Primrose in front of the visitor's centre

Fields of daffodils

Roma, Carol, Barbara, Lacy, Alli, Brian, Judy, & Donald
All of the cousins at Donald & Roma's home in Herefordshire

We think that spring has arrived here. We have had a wonderful month. The days are now longer, the sun shines more frequently, and the flowers are blooming brightly, the trees are even bravely displaying the new little leaves. We have had lots of visitors from home this month and we have spent many happy hours visiting and traveling with them. The London Temple was closed for the first two weeks of March so we had limited hours at the Visitors' Centre during those two weeks.

First, my two sisters, Sheila and Carol, and their husbands arrived and Sheila spent a week traveling and visiting with cousins and seeing beautiful places here in Southern England. Carol and Quay are staying now until July so that is fun for them and also for us. They are working at the London Temple and seem to be having a great time. Then on March 20, Brian and Lacy with new baby Alli J. arrived. It was so much fun to see our newest
grandchild. She is, of course, very beautiful and we had a wonderful time getting to know her. The week that Brian, Lacy, and Alli were here was very memorable and we absolutely loved seeing all of them.

Now, we are back to work on a regular basis and the Visitors' Centre is very busy. We have had some amazing experiences the last couple of days with nonmembers visiting here that have been very interesting. Friday morning we had a nice clean-cut man come into the Centre. I played the message that goes with the Christus for him and he seemed to be very touched by it. He then asked how many people we have visit here monthly. I told him that in February we had 2100 visitors, with 100 of those being investigators. He then asked what an investigator was. It was then that I knew that he was not a member of the Church. He then explained that he worked for Marriott Hotels and Bill Marriott is coming to England next week. He wanted to find out about the religion that Mr. Marriott belongs to before he meets him. He then asked me,"Do you remember me?" I realized then who he was. Kenneth and I had been taking a bunch of the new temple workers from Idaho and Canada to London one day for a tour of all of the beautiful sites of uptown London. We were waiting at the train station in Lingfield when this man showed up to catch the train. A couple of the old cowboys from Idaho started talking to him and gave him an invitation to visit the temple site here. He explained that he had always thought that this site was a secret spot and only members could visit here, so when he realized that Bill Marriott was coming to town and he received an invitation he decided to stop by. He spent over an hour here asking questions and said that he would return later with his family to view one of our films. We shall see!!!

We had another very handsome man come into the Centre on Saturday. He was very friendly and after visiting with him for awhile, he told us his story. He said that he had lived in Eastborne, near here, his whole life and had always thought that this place was off limits to anyone but members. A few months ago he moved to Walnut Creek, California and he was contacted by the missionaries there and was baptized just last Saturday in California. He flies Corporate jets for large firms and he flew into London on Friday and he decided that now he is a real member he could come in here. He was overjoyed to find out that it is not a secret place at all, but instead is a sacred place. He is now preparing to go to the temple himself in a year. Life is good. Hope all is well with all of you.

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