Distant relatives, Yorkshire pudding, and church!

Sorry I didn't write in here yesterday - all we did was drive back to Waldron for the family reunion, hang out there with them, and drive back. There wasn't anything much to write about, so I decided to put it all together in today's entry. It was a very small reunion, but it was very significant for them, because many of them hadn't seen each other for many years. Those that showed up were all from the Woodgate side of the family - none of the them even know much about the Hopes. One very interesting old gentleman named Godfrey King, who is the grandson of Fannie Hope, remembered his grandfather as being the called "the poet" - he didn't remember his name. He also remembered seeing the picture of James Eli Hope, who served a mission in England and went to meet family members. They have the picture of him with 2 Woodgate sisters he made contact with, and Godfrey told us he was a preacher who came from America to visit family. Godfrey was really interesting - he kissed both Mom and I on both cheeks as he left.

What we gathered from what they all said was that when the Hopes left for America, the rest of the family just lost touch - they didn't really even remember that they were related to Hopes. So there wasn't even any relations with the other Hopes who didn't go to America. Mom said she just knew her Grandma must be so excited to have 2 parts of her family meeting again and becoming acquainted. It was great fun to sit and listen to their stories, but they weren't really about our part of the family, but Sue and Pam got a lot out of it. One of the really fun things to watch happen was when Sue laid out a picture in hopes of getting the people identified. It was a picture of about a dozen people that Mom and found in Grandma Clays genealogy, and all she knew was that it was Fanny Hope and her family, so she sent the picture to Sue and Pam. Sue had 1 lady identified. Soon as the older people got there, they started naming the people in the picture, and by the end of the afternoon they had everyone identified!

When we got back to Sue's house, we just relaxed and ate supper and watched Pirates of the Carribean. Mom hadn't ever seen it, so I told her she had to see it. Don't think she was that impressed. Which brings me to my next interesting bit of trivia - Jessica, pay attention. While we were watching, Sue told me that Orlando Bloom came from Royal Tunbridge Wells! That's the place where we had lunch the other day when Pam & Roger drove us to Sue's. Now, wasn't that an interesting thing! I've eaten lunch in the town where Orlando Bloom grew up. yay.

This morning, Mom and I went to church. Sue had found the address and the time for us on the internet, and Pam, who was still in town for the reunion and to take us back to her house today, very kindly offered to drive us to church, since Sue now has no car. She was quite taken aback when we told her we wanted to stay for the full 3 hour block. 3 hours at church seems like an awful lot to someone who only goes to church for weddings and funerals, I guess. We tried to explain that it was broken up into 3 separate things, but she still didn't understand. I could tell that they were really hoping we would just go for the first hour, because we were all going out to lunch after we got out of church - they were just waiting for us, and then after lunch we were supposed to leave for Pam's house. But, we REALLY wanted to stay the whole time, so we carefully chose to do what we wanted this time. Church was wonderful! It was like a little bit of home. This is a picture of the chapel, and it's very old, of course, with beautiful arched doorways and ceiling. One of the guys pointed up to the ceiling and the way the beams came to a point, and told us it was Noah's Ark. He said everyone else is wondering where it is, and us Mormons found it! We didn't get to ask how long that particular building has been the LDS church, but it used to be part of a school, as another sign outside says. I was very grateful to be there. As I sat there in sacrament meeting I realized that our family alone could have filled up that chapel as full as it was today. I felt very grateful to those ancestors who left England so they could worship as they wanted. It was very interesting to hear the comments of the people in Sunday School. In one of the prayers they thanked Heavenly Father for the missionaries who left their homes to come teach them about the Gospel. You know, kind of like we quickly ask for blessings on the missionaries? All of a sudden, it meant so much more hearing it from their perspective. In class their comments were about how they are all just learning all these things, about their experiences as new members of the church. And yet, they are all so well grounded - I could tell by their comments they have a good, strong, knowledge and testimony of the gospel. The opening song in Sacrament Meeting was Onward Christian Soldiers, which I know isn't exclusively an LDS song, but there's a line about walking where saints have trod, or something like that, and it brought tears to my eyes, because that's what I feel like I've been doing all week. I know our family is VERY imperfect, but the ones who left knew they had something, and it was so important that they left their home for it, and I'm the beneficiary of their efforts. I'm not really saying this right - it FELT better during the meeting but the words aren't coming out the right way. It was great, anyway.

After church we were taken out to a carvery for lunch (I know, it was Sunday, but we're traveling on the kindness and hospitality of strangers who are not members, and we felt like we were pushing it to ask to go to church). A carvery is basically a buffet to us at home. Only you can only go back for seconds on vegetables, and they don't have quite as much stuff to choose from as we do. It was wonderful. I had Yorkshire Pudding, which is not a pudding to us Americans, but was a type of pastry like a popover. It's sometimes eaten as a dessert, but usually is used to sop up the gravy that goes over the whole plate of meat, roasted potatoes and vegetables, etc. I had a great big one. Doug keeps telling me what I should eat. He told Mom and I to be sure to try these meatballs that were sausage and other seasonings, etc. We're still full!

Then Pam & Roger drove us back to their house here in Woken, where we are doing laundry and getting ready to repack tomorrow. Tomorrow we will leave for Staffordshire, where the Clays and Adams came from. We have a cottage rented for the next 4 nights there, and we've got lots of plans for that area, then it will be up to Scotland from there! We have no idea what access we will have to the internet in the next couple of weeks. We are taking this laptop computer with us, but we just don't know what we'll have available to us. If I don't have internet, I will write my blog and then enter it all when I can. It didn't rain today or yesterday, so we figure we've about had our share of sunny days - looking for more rain as we travel up north. Love to all - we can't believe it's only been a week! Feels like a much longer time with all we've done!