There is SUNSHINE in my soul today

Oh what a beautiful week we have had with plenty of sunshine and very little rain.  It feels wonderful!









  Jairon "22" Today the 9th - his first birthday as a married man.

  Lauren "9" Tuesday the 11th
  Madi "18" Wednesday the 12th-
 Lauren and Madi are celebrating their birthday's on a family vacation.
Wishing each of you a wonderful day


ARRIVALS - April 4th, 2017
On Tuesday we received our new missionaries from both the England and Provo MTC.  They arrived in the morning and left early afternoon.  Another group of missionaries have come and gone - how time flies.




                               

SENIOR COUPLES ACTIVITY
This Wednesday, April 5th, we had a Senior Couple Activity and went to the Berkeley Castle and also to Tyndale Monument.  Berkeley Castle was beautiful, especially outside in the gardens

Berkeley Castle with our Senior Couples of the England Birmingham Mission
and the Mission Presidency

Berkeley Castle

Tyndale Monument

Tyndale Monument was built to honor  William Tyndale (1494-1536) who was the man who translated the Bible into English.  It was illegal to do this and he could not get permission.  He had a burning desire to do so, he did what he was inspired to do and was burned at the stake for it.  He told a priest, "If God spare my life, ere many years pass, I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scriptures than thou dost."
Tyndale's knowledge of Hebrew, if he had any, was of the most rudimentary nature; and yet he mastered that difficult tongue most so as to produce from the original an admirable translation of the entire Pentateuch, the Books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First and Second Kings, First Chronicles, contained in Matthew's Bible of 1537, and of the Book of John, so excellent that those portions of the Authorized King James Version of 1611 constitutes nine-tenths of that translation and very largely that of the English Revised Version of 1885.


Any doubt??? - He was inspired to prepare the way for the Restoration of the Gospel.

At the top of the Tyndale Monument

View from on top of the hill

Sister Blumell, Sister Willmore, Sister Veater

Beautiful English Countryside

Main Room

DOWNTOWN BIRMINGHAM
Back-to-Back Houses

Bedroom - each bed would hold 3-5 people

Back to Back Houses

The Courtyard shared by around 70 people

Saturday, our adventure was to go to downtown Birmingham where we visited the Back to Back Houses.  This is the only one left in Birmingham.  Houses like this are where Elder Willmore's Great Grandfather lived as a young boy - he came to America when he twelve years  old.
When we went on our tour, we found out a man by the name of John Willmore and his two sons, John and Joseph were the first to build the back to back houses.  They were a cheap way to build housing for all the people moving into Birmingham with the industrial revolution.  The courtyard was shared by around 70 people, with two outhouses and one laundry room.  The houses had a small room with a table, a closet to store food, steep stairs that went up to stories with one bedroom on each floor.  Each house usually had about 10 people in them.  Elder Willmore's family had 12 people in their tiny little home.  Sanitation was terrible and living conditions had a lot be desired.  They would bath in the River Rae nearby.

What a great experience to see where our ancestors lived.

Goodbye to Elder Cohen

Hello to Elder Bardsley
On Monday, we welcomed our new office Elder - Elder Bardsley.

Elder Bardsley, Elder Cohen, Elder Ashwell

Our departing missionaries with President and Sister Leppard
March 29, 2017

Transfers and Departures
This week we had transfers and departures on Tuesday and Wednesday.  We said farewell to twenty missionaries (including Elder Bonelo who left last Sunday).  They flew home Wednesday to all parts of the world.  Elder Wagner served in the office with us as an Assistant to the President.  Our testimony meeting and dinner was so much fun with these awesome young missionaries.  They have such strong testimonies and will be great leaders in the church.


On Wednesday we also were able to meet five of the parents of the missionaries who came to the office to pick them up.  Sweet Reunions!

Sister Gjevik with her family from Norway

Transfers were very quiet because we did not have missionaries come into the office - they took trains and buses to their next areas.  This is a first for our mission.



Farewell to Elder Cohen
On Friday we said farewell to our dear Elder Cohen.  Elder Cohen has been in the office since we came and has been such a great help in training and teaching us.  We will truly miss him.

Elder Cohen as the desk

Elder Willmore, Elder Cohen and Sister Willmore
We have spent a lot of time together

Breakfast Conference Sunday with President and Sister Leppard. 
We were invited to have breakfast and watch Conference.  Sister Leppard and I watched Womens Conference while President and Elder Willmore went to Priesthood meeting 10:00-11:30 am

A New Missionary in the Family

Happy Birthday to SAMI - "12" years tomorrow - She spent Spring Break with brothers and sisters and cousins.

Officially going into Young Womens!!!
Brandee made her nutello with peanut butter cupcakes - YUM

Receiving a mission call -
Our grandson, Ryan, opened his mission call on Saturday (Sunday for us)


He is going to Santa Cruz, Bolivia and will leave July 4th, 2017. He will go to the Mexico MTC. Congratulations Ryan!
From the time we last saw Ryan until he returns will be three years.

Our Plumbers (and gardeners and auto mechanics)  - Thank you for all your work and long hours.  They only had to make two trips to Home Depot - which is pretty good for a plumbing job.

At least they are still SMILING

First they replaced the faucet and then found out the disposal had a "DRIP" - Jamie even caught the drip on her photo.

 Nothing like "plumbing 101" on spring break

THE DRIP




Kinver Edge and the Rock Houses

I think we found Bilbo Baggins house!

The Kinver Rock Houses are built in sandstone caves.  They were inhabited until the 1950's

The art of Glass Blowing -
A young lady who makes beautiful glass vases in the Old Richardson Glass Cones in Strourbridge - it was so fun to watch her make beautiful glass pieces.  She earned her masters degree in glass blowing.  
Glassware for the Titanic was made here.

Saturday night we were invited to President and Sister Leppard's home for a delicious traditional English dinner that they prepared for us and the assistant's and Elder Bonelo who is leaving a few days before the other departing missionaries.  A wonderful night!

Today (Sunday) started out our daylight savings time with a conference call with Ryan to open his Mission call, then went to the mission office to pick up Elder Bonelo who is flying home today and took him to church with us, I talked in church, taught primary, taught nursery, attended the munch and mingle and then drove to the Birmingham Bus Station to drop off Elder Bonelo.  

We walked a few blocks around the Bus Station to see the area where Elder Willmore's Great Great Grandparents lived.

The Willmore family belonged to
the St. Martin's Parrish

Rea Street (The River Rea is where the Willmore
 children would take baths)

This week will be transfers and departures - We are ready for the week.  Also it is our last week with our amazing Elder Cohen.  Makes us sad.

Ordinary People doing extra-ordinary things

Happy Birthday to Tyler today

Also known as "Kilroy" in his school play.  He played the lead part and sang a solo.  

Happy Birthday to Kaeli on the 25th of March
She will be "20" - officially not a teenager anymore.
Our fun-loving sweet granddaughter at USU.

Two ordinary People doing un-ordinary Things in an Extra-Ordinary Place

Elder and Siter Willmore
by Charlecote Manor House

This week at the office was quiet. We are paying council taxes for all the flats and writing letters to the councils to get a tax reduction.   In the UK, if you rent a flat you pay for the rent, utilities and taxes. We did not have many missionaries in the office this week.  Things are definitely going to change because we are not going to have the missionaries come to the mission office for transfers anymore - they will go directly to their new assignment.

On Saturday we took a few hours and went for a drive to Charlecote Manor House which is about a 45 minute drive.  It is a Manor House that was built in the 1600's and owned by the same family all these years.  The family still live in part of the house, but they turned it over to the National Trust.

Elder Willmore on bridge over River Avon

Charlecote Manor House

Charlecote Manor House Estate

Of course, Elder Willmore wanted pictures of the deer on the Estate

We love getting pictures from these EXTRA-Ordinary people in our lives doing ordinary things in their lives:

Eric, Payton, Brandee and Brynlee at Disney on Ice

Brynlee, Payton, Lauren on Trax

Hannan and her friend

Caden in his snow fort

Scott, Alli & Melissa enjoying time with their family

Jaxon and his friend sledding

Weidauers at Star Wars Movie

The "Beasts"

Jamie and her family in Idaho together - Going to Beauty and the Beast Movie