These are some candid shots of our group at District meeting in Blackpool. Barbara is speaking with one of our zone leaders, Elder Hvistendahl. He is the first and only elder to leave from the nation of Greenland. That is pretty cool. :)
The second picture is of the future general authorities for our church although the third picture shows they are not quite ready for prime time.
The last picture is the group, never to be united again as transfers are sure to change them this week. From left: Elder Fielding, Elder Cullen (Zone Leader), Elder Fisher, Elder Johnson (District Leader), Elder Colton, Elder Hvistendahl (Zone Leader), Elder Weber, and Elder Morin. These fine young men have been a great example to us, I don't think they realize how much we learn from them. We wish them well as they go to different areas of the Mission and we look forward to seeing them again.

Friends in the ward took us for a back lane trip to the Dales, a national park near Lancaster. Dales means small valleys and there are villages sprinkled throughout the park area. What a feast for the eyes to see miles of rolling hills and valleys filled with animals and quaint, very old villages. It is a popular pastime to hike in the Dales and people come from all over the world to enjoy this area. The church and village green are in Langcliffe, the village in the center of the first picture. In Settle you see the Olde Naked Man Cafe with the man on the wall above and to the left of the door with the people waiting. It has been there for centuries. There is a Naked Lady on a wall in Langcliffe. They have been a pair since the 1500's. It was a wonderful day.

Interview Day

Our district decided to do a day at the temple. We took the four elders to lunch with us afterwards. They are from left: Elders Colton, Johnson, Fisher, and Fielding. The other pictures of elders were from our interview day where we are interviewed by Pres. Jacobsen and taught by the Assistants. It is so good to be together for these spiritual feasts. We like to post the pictures of these great Elders so their families may see them and know that they are well. The last picture is one of the beautiful sunsets we get often looking over Morecambe Bay from Heysham toward Barrow in Furness. We will move to Barrow at the end of this month then we will be looking from Barrow toward Heysham. Many of the elders will change also since transfers will happen next week. We will miss them, but we will stay close through the Mission grapevine and e-mails.

These are pictures from the ward walk in the lake district (Ullswater Lake). It was well attended as you can see and loads of fun. Is missionary work supposed to be this much fun? The walk was for 7 miles beside a beautiful lake. We experienced sun, hail, cold, rain and everything in between but it was so lovely and fun that no one noticed. Why don't we have this scenery in Simi Valley?

Some photos of Heysham

These are some pictures from around Heysham where we live. The church is ancient and sits close to the sea. The stone graves were from possibly Viking graves. The cross was in the church grave yard. The stone fence is characteristic of the walls in the area.

Greetings from Wray and the Scare Crow Festival. Here are the school children doing their annual play about the river covering the whole town. You'll notice how gorgeous Marilyn Moncrow looks. Larry doesn't quite measure up to this guy. Here are our favorite Missionaries, Elder Fisher and Elder Colton posing with Silence of the Lambs. It was worth a trip just to see this ancient Hamlet.

We visited a small village by the name of Wray, that has a lovely stream running through the town (except when it flooded the whole place a few years back). They have an annual festival the first week of May where everyone in the town and the surrounding villages make scarecrows and compete for prizes. We must have seen at least a hundred and fifty scarecrows. Many were very imaginative, like the spiderman, motorcyclist and yellow brick road shown here. It was very entertaining for a p-day outing.