If heaven is anything like today was, we can see what all the fuss is about.

As we near the end of this fabulous Sunday, we feel the need to put in writing how wonderful it was. Here's the basic rundown:

7:00 - Wake and get ready for church
8:12 - train to Staines
9:00 - baptism of Damon (Brent went with the missionaries to one of his teaches this week). This was only the second convert baptism I've ever been to. You can't really describe how wonderful and spiritual they are. It was beautiful to see Damon baptized by his father-in-law and see the tears of joy shed by his wife as she watched her dear husband make such a life changing commitment. His mother-in-law spoke during the service and she explained how the main point to his conversion was that he wants a "forever family". He and his wife and their baby are already making their preparations to be sealed in the temple next year.
10:00 - Church. Sacrament meeting talks were fabulous, very spiritual and educational. The High Counselors spoke and the topic was the Aaronic Priesthood which we found fitting since Damon had just been baptized and will be receiving the priesthood soon. Plus, it was a nice little reminder to the rest of us. The Stake presidency was there and at the end of the meeting the Stake President stood and bore one of the most powerful testimonies we have ever heard about how he felt the Spirit and if we all had felt anything during the meeting, that was the Spirit. There were about 10 investigators in attendance so it was very cool to have him point out what that feeling, he was sure they felt, was. Brent said Sunday School and Priesthood were on par with the earlier meetings and my Primary class (p.s. that class I "subbed" for last week was just a trial run for my new calling) paid attention, hardly wiggled or talked out of turn and were very interested in the topic, The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon. They found the story of how the Golden Plates were made, handed down from generations and then to Joseph Smith very interesting. I was very pleasantly surprised. Oh, and the hymns we sang during the different meetings were great. We sang several that are in my top 10 list.
1:16 - train home, lunch, etc.
3:30 - missionaries arrive and use our phone to call their moms one at a time whilst the other chatted with us. It was fun to hear laughter and joy coming from the livingroom as the missionaries talked with their families. It was also great to get to know them a little better as they awaited their turn with the phone.
5:30 - dinner. Yum. No leftovers.
6:30 - spiritual message. They taught us out of the Preach My Gospel manual and committed us to 1) invite Damon and his family over for dinner in the next 2 weeks (Brent will be his home teaching companion so it's a perfect excuse) as a warm-up for our "member missionary" work and 2) find and help teach & prepare for baptism, one person before we leave England. The first one I'm more than ready to do, the second? That's going to take some work.
7:00 - blessings. We asked them to give Brent a blessing in preparation for his exam tomorrow. I must say how grateful I am for the priesthood and priesthood blessings. Elder Richards said some things in that blessing that there was no way he could have known about. We know it was straight from Heavenly Father, there is no other explanation. Afterwards, Brent asked them to give me a blessing of peace and comfort. I am trying a new doctor on Tuesday and Brent thought it appropriate that I should have a blessing. I am thankful for his prompting to suggest that because, again, there were things that were said in my blessing that Elder Martin would have never known to say without prompting from the Spirit. I feel the need to clarify that Brent can give me a blessing any time we want, but we both felt that the missionaries should do it. We're glad we did.

We both had one of the best days ever and it was so needed.

Date Night

On Friday, we had our first official Date Night since moving into our new house. It was a nice diversion from all of the studying.

We took the bus over to Richmond and walked across the bridge. The scenery was so pretty.

We ate at Nando's, a super yummy Portuguese restaurant. Then we walked back over the bridge and took the bus home.

Nothing fancy, just dinner and a walk. It was lovely.

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Here's where we will be today.

In fact, it's so great, we go here pretty much every Sunday. Except for when we are out of town, in which case we find the closest meetinghouse and attend there. We once attended a single adult ward because that was the only meeting nearby. That sure was funny.

Today I am substitute teaching the 8 year old Primary class. We will be learning about the Word of Wisdom.

We will pay our tithing and fast offering since it is Fast Sunday.

Sundays remind us about this little nugget.

We love Sundays. They are a fabulous break from the world. Especially at this time of the year when it seems like everything revolves around studying. We do things a bit differently on Sundays. One of our favorite Sabbath activities is talking to our family. Don't know how we would survive the week without a day of peace and rest.

The sky was beautiful on our way home last week, we had to document it.

Our First Visitor!

One of our nieces, Calli, mailed us Flat Stanley as part of her 1st grade class project. Each student is given a Stanley to mail to someone they know. The person who receives Stanley is then supposed to take him out and show him around where they live, documenting his experience with pictures and a letter, then return him. As the students get their Stanley's back, the teacher takes a little time out of class to teach them about where he has visited.

A couple of my siblings got a chance to do this when we were younger, but my class did not. I was always jealous and wanted to mail a Stanley to someone. Well, now, being on the receiving end, I feel validated. It was fun to think of somewhere cool to take Stan and what pictures we could get with him. The letter asked for A picture. As in one. Have you met me? I fully inherited the compulsive family gene that causes us to go overboard, I mean "go the extra mile", with projects. As my sister, Terra (Calli's mom), pointed out to me, knowing the people in our family, we could create a whole scrapbook of Stanley's adventures and turn it into a massive project. I really had to restrain myself from doing just that. In the end, I only sent 3 pictures and a short-ish note. (I know! I'm totally surprised too!) Oh, and I let Stanley pick up a few souvenirs to take home, since according to Calli's teacher, this is the furthest he's gone from their class.

The text for his note went something like this:

We had a fabulous time with Flat Stanley whilst he was here in London. We went on an outing to the city. He got to ride the tube for the first time. We saw loads of fun things but his favourites were Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abby and Big Ben at the Parliament Building.

Also on our outing, Flat Stanley stopped to make a phone call to his mum from a red phone booth and waved at the passengers on a double decker bus. He ate fish & chips by the Thames River and bought a few souvenirs, a traditional bowler hat and a "Union Jack" (the British Flag).

Thanks for sending Flat Stanley on his first trip across the pond. We very much enjoyed showing him around London.

Cheers!
Emily & Brent Gray

Here are the pictures from our trip and one of him before he got folded back up and stuffed into the envelope for his journey home.