Milestones and Opportunities

The school year is winding down and we will soon lose many of our students and friends to the summer vacation.  Most of the Uni students are going home to work for the summer. For those who live in Swansea and other places fairly close by we will hold summer Institute having the students themselves teach from the most recent Conference talks.  They have already signed up for every lesson.  We will hold them in various places in the Cardiff and Merthyr Tydfil Stakes, i.e., part of the time around Cardiff and part of the time in Swansea on the beach.  Our first evening will be at Castle Coch. The setting there is so beautiful and it fires the imagination with thoughts of knights and Robin Hood and damsels in distress.  

What an amazing opportunity we had of attending the Institute graduation in Bristol which went very well.  Elder Cable's Institute Choir sang, "If the Savior Stood Beside Me", and Luc did a fine job of conducting the ceremonies for the Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil, Bristol and Cheltenham Institutes, all under the direction of David Beale and the Stake Presidents. 

The YSA Convention was held at the same time and there were about 300 YSA attending from all over England and Wales and Scotland.  It was well organized and service projects and the activities for the four-day event were really good. It surprised us that more YSA came to the Relief Society, Priesthood  and Sacrament meetings than the dance, especially as the dance was well attended and great, with a live band and several specialty numbers. We are glad they chose the spiritual. 

We feel very fortunate that our assignment at the YSA convention was to accompany a group of them to Bath, England to do street contacting under the direction of the full-time missionaries there. They gave us some materials, told is briefly what to do, and let us go. We had a street display, they sang hymns, and so many of them were very good at stopping and talking to people. We placed a few Books of Mormon and a lot of Pass Along Cards. In addition to those from England, we met people from Notre Dame, Montana, Las Vegas, and St. George. Small world. The best though were the long conversations they had with people. One young man wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon in French and was very interested in getting the Restoration and other pamphlets in French. The sweet girls I talked to from Notre Dame were happy to remain Catholic.  

While they went paint balling, had salsa dance lessons, etc. we stayed in Bath a couple of hours and looked at the wonders there. I have always wanted to see Bath and it was amazing.