Time flies!

Elder Houghton has ALWAYS loved playing in water and experimenting with waterways.
Here he is at about six, playing in the ditch in a rainstorm in front of our house,
with his cousin Mack, who is now also serving a mission!

Dear Everyone,

A few things from today:

 

1. We went to the Waterway museum at the Gloucester Docks. It hasn't been open on other Mondays when I've checked but it was pretty cool to see how the canals and rivers of England have played a crucial part in the economy of the country through the years. The best part (by far) was an interactive play canal system with locks and a mechanical lift and little boats to play with. It was fantasatic except for the fact that most of the toy boats were waterlogged and the locks had bad leaks. I ended up flooding both locks and then releasing them, causing a flood that the pump that made the thing work couldn't quite handle and there was a bit of overflow onto my shoes and trousers. But no one was looking and it dried off quickly enough. It was pretty cool. We also got to go inside a canal boat that was modeled as if it had been used in the late 1800s. It was pretty epic. There is a picture of Elder Jones sitting inside attached-along with a picture of the mini canal system.

 

2. We ran into the Sisters in City Centre randomly (it happens on Preparation days because we all go to the same places). We didn't talk long and then they headed off in down one direction and shortly thereafter we heard some shouting/chanting from that direction. I was worried for the sisters and called them but the chanting was approaching us and it was too loud to speak to them. Turns out it was a protest against the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. The protestors ended up coming to near where we were getting our bikes unlocked and making a bit of a speach there so we left with no issues. I mentioned to Elder Jones as we left that it probably wouldn't have been the best time to start singing "Ye Elders of Israel."

 

 

This week has been pretty good. There have been challenges and we are still trying to get our feet under ourselves for the new transfer that is now almost one third over but it's ok. Time flies! There's nothing specific I'd like to share from the investigators that we have at the moment. Many of them are a bit flakey so we don't know what this week will end up looking like but we shall see. On Friday, I got to ride in a car for 2.5 hours. That's pretty remarkable. The longest I've been in a car on my mission other than that was probably about 45 minutes. Funny how that works. There was a District Leader Training Meeting at the mission office so to save money (£30 per person to train to B'ham), they had four District Leaders from our zone take the car from the Forest of Dean together. It was really weird but good to be in the car for so long with the other District Leaders and to just talk about things with them totally openly. It was odd because there was me, another District Leader from my group, and two who are younger (one by quite a bit) so I was like one of the old fogies. We had some really good discussions and then the training we got from President Rasmussen was great and then we had some more good discussions in the car on the way back including being stuck in traffic. It's funny because an hour in a car is a long time for an English person and I've adjusted to that expectation (brought snacks for the ride etc-The English low salt ritz aren't very good).

 

Out of time. Love you lots!

 

Elder Houghton