One month down !

 We have offically been "out" on our mission for 6 weeks but 1 full month in England ! 

We are getting better at roundabouts- 5 total honks in 4 weeks -we are taking as a huge win! Even though 2 of those were pretty agressive because, over here, you cannot just hang out in the "middle" lane of the freeway like we do at home!  Those 2 drivers let us know, as they madly were waving us to move over to the far left lane. We later learned the middle lane is simply for "overtaking" or passing a car only! 

first drive on our own, such concentration to stay on the left !!

                                                      haha -  any guesses what this road sign means? 

We are settling in to English life - people walk every where over here, thus there are public footpaths to get you anywhere you want or need to go! 

One of our resposibilities is going around our Taunton Zone and doing flat inspecations on the 11 flats in our zone. We get to make sure they have everything the need and of course, check on the cleanliness of their flat!  hahaha - what a difference between the Elders & the Sisters! The sisters always have these cute picture murals on their walls and cute marker board drawings for their goals..the elders, well, we will just leave it at that. It has been so fun to get to know all these young missionaries more personally thru these flat inspections! We love these young missionaries! 

          while doing flat inspections up towards Bristol, we passed this random cemetery and jumped out for a few pictures.

here is our awesome Taunton District !
E. Bateman, E Lee, E DeGuzman, E Horton, Sis Afualo, & Sis Lagilagi

Zone conference with 3 zones: Bristol, Cheltenham & Plymouth zones

Our second repsonsibility is to work with all the departing missionaries with the church's My Plan program. It is a goal setting program that we start with the about 7 weeks before they go home. It helps them reflect on spiritual expereinces from their mission and to start pondering on the ways they can transition from missionary life to post missionary life with a solid foundation to stay a continued disciple for the rest of their life. During those 7 weeks, we do 2 video presentations with their group and a personal check in to see how they are progressing. This has also been such an amazing gift to get to know these young missionaries and help them with their transition worries, schooling questions, budgeting and job questions, or anything else they want to talk about.

This past week, we were able to join the neighboring branch with their service project at the rented "church hall" they use as their church building. We are certianly blessed in the western states to have the size wards we do !  I have certianly taken it for grated the blessing it is to have 'ward' numbers anything above 20 to 50 attending people. 

For Pday, after we checked on a broken oven at a missionary flat, we were close enough to Dunster castle to spend the rest of our day there. With an English Heritage Pass (like our National Parks Pass) now in our pocket, we feel like a true Brit!  (I also posted this on FB so some of you have seen these pictures) 

This is Dunster village "main street" - called High Street over here.

The octagonal building in the forefront is the "Yarn Market" where they used to sell their wool and cloth goods starting in 1609. The weathervane is dated 1647. Dunster castle is on the hill in the background.

                             looking from the opposite end of High street, the castle is now behind us

Entering in thru the gatehouse built between 1419 -1424

the only thing that remains of the original castle is this 13th century gatehouse and a bastion tower hiding in the trees in the background. 

The panels have hunting scenes carved into them to demonstrate the wealth & power of the Luttrell family who owned the castle. 

Just your typical looking out your castle window onto the lush english country side.

                          this picture does not do the room justice- a true englishmans library and study 

We will have to go back another day to just walk the gardens ! The hydrengas over here have been incredible!

Tony has Hanks ancestery up the road in Gloucestershire, so we have amazing people here who love to work on geneology. Sis. Wright, from our ward is going to help him see if he can make any progress on the Hanks line past 1707! 

Have a greet week!