The marvelous e-mails that we've enjoyed from Brother McBride and Elder Neeley have served notice that I should include our experiences here in London.
As temple ordinance missionaries here at the London Temple, we have a daily schedule that determines where we serve each day. This includes serving at the recommend desk, initiatory, sealings, baptistry, the veil, and officiating at endowment sessions. We may also be assigned as a shift leader, or a coordinator at the veil, initiatory, baptistry or name issue. The sisters may also be assigned in clothing, the chapel, or the celestial room. We have two shifts at the London Temple as opposed to three in the Salt Lake Temple. The morning shift starts with a preparation meeting at 8:10 a.m. and goes to 3:00. The afternoon shift starts with a preparation meeting at 2:10 and goes to closing around 9:30 p.m. If you are assigned to the recommend desk in the morning, you need to be dressed in your whites and be ready by 6:45 a.m. We alternate the morning and afternoon schedules every week. We serve Tuesday through Saturday as the temple is closed on Sunday and Monday. We have five American couples serving as temple ordinance workers, all the other ordinance workers are called from within the London Temple district. A lot of them serve for two weeks and then return home for eight weeks, so we see new faces in the Tuesday preparation meeting every week.
Just like the Salt Lake Temple, the London Temple is closed for two weeks of maintenance and cleaning every six months. The London Temple was closed on Monday, September 5th through Monday, September 19th. So, what did we do for two weeks? Since there is no bus service here at the London Temple, we are quite isolated from the train and nearby communities. Bonnie and I had the opportunity to buy a reasonably priced used car for the equivalent of what it would have cost to rent a car for two weeks. Car rental prices with the mandatory insurance have shot up from what we enjoyed in Ireland nearly fifty years ago. The first day we drove our car, we purchased a GPS. It has been the most appreciated item we've purchased here (other than the car). We drove up through the beautiful Cotswolds for two days, then north to Preston where I grew up as a newly baptized member of the LDS Church. We went into Ormskirk where I was christened in the Church of England as an infant. We went into Yorkshire where my great grandfather grew up before marrying and moving to Lancashire. We spent two days in the beautiful Lake District National Park and attended church at a branch in nearby Kendal. While there, a member of the church mentioned that the storminess that afternoon was caused by a hurricane coming off the coast of Florida and would impact northern England and Scotland that week. Since we were planning on going north to Hadrian's Wall and on to Edinburgh, we got on the Internet to get more info. Sure enough, a Florida hurricane will cross the Atlantic and hit the UK every few years. Scotland could expect to see a storm of this intensity once a year. So much for going north; we did a course correction and arrived back in less stormy London by 9:30 that night.
Just like our service as temple ordinance workers in the Salt Lake Temple, Bonnie and I have found joy and great satisfaction in serving as full-time temple ordinance workers here in London. I will always cherish the memories of having served here when we were missionaries in Ireland. We drove by Edenbrook (no longer owned by the church) just last week and the memories came flooding back. It is so special to be back in my native land and back here in London. Has it changed in nearly sixty years? Sure it has, even the money has changed. The roads are still narrow, but now they are choked with traffic and very aggressive drivers. Will I ever get my English accent back? Maybe if I was serving up in the Preston Temple. The English accents here in the south are so different. I was surprised how long it took me to understand the locals here. Kind of like our experience with the baffling Ulster accents when we first arrived in Ireland.
While serving at the recommend desk some weeks ago, a sister Ann Hagen from Dundalk presented her temple recommend; it was signed by her district president, Donald Tolman! Last week, I was baptizing a patron from Coleraine, a Bother Hayter. His parents were baptized in 1964 in Portadown by Elders Lowe and Ferguson; fruits of our missionary labors in Ireland!
We look forward to seeing many of you here in London in May, 2012.
Best wishes to you all,
John & Bonnie Fawcett
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