Smith's England Mission Minutes

Hello Everyone!

I still can't figure out how to finagle these pictures, so they are going to be weird...again. Sorry!

We had an exciting week. Monday-Friday, Sister Gabel gives us the work schedule. We meet either at our apartment or the Gabel's upstairs and start with a devotional. Each person takes turns and the spouse says the prayer.

Work is generally, going to the shop and picking up the tractor-mowers, strimmers (weed wackers), and anything else we might need. Then we head out to one of 8 different locations to mow, hedge, strim, collect garbage etc, to clean up the area. It's on a rotation and we haven't gotten to all of the properties yet. Each location will have multiple grounds, lawns, hedges, etc to take care of. We also do minor repair, paint, etc for the 40 or so different rentals.

After work and weekends are ours to do what we want. The Gabels haven't really wanted to do anything together in the evenings but on Saturday, we've gone to some castles, museums and visited Cambridge! (Wow! Cambridge was awesome! Loads of vendors and things to see and history.)

The other day, we were working and got a flat on one of the mowers. The guys fixed it and as we were heading home and we got a flat on the trailer too! The tire store guys came out and put on brand new tires!

This morning we got to the shop bright and early and found that someone had stolen our trailer and 2 of our tractor-lawnmowers! Fortunately we still had one more mower and strimmers to finish the jobs today, but it took a long time! We went into our weekly meeting and poor Elder Gabel looked like he was going to throw up. We were waiting for Ben to come in and talked to an employee in the parking lot by his trailer. We felt like kids getting ready for the punishment. Ben walked by us and the employee and said, "Don't let them borrow the trailer whatever you do!" It was a bit of comic relief. Ben said that there were a lot of robberies in the area. Apparently there are gypsies (yup, GYPSIES! here. They vandalize and rob and murder :0 Now we are on the lookout for new-to-us equipment.

I started taking some Glucosamine and chondroitin and for the first time completely out of pain! It's such a relief to not hurt! I'm so grateful for the relief.

Well, this is long enough. So much going on, but I hope you are all doing well and know that we love you so much!

Love,

Elder and Sister Smith

Joe and Gloria

Dad and Mom

Grandpa and Grandma

This is at a Harry Potter store in Cambridge. I really wanted a picture of Joe taking off on a Nimbus 2000! Oh well!

When we went to Cambridge, there were loads (and English word for lots) of venders in the market. I picked an egg plant sandwich and potato chunks with some yummy white mystery cheese and not hot- hot sauce!