Sunday

Sunday September 3rd we decided to drive 20 miles to the nearest church in St. Austell, Cornwall. Best decision ever!!!. 

Sometime during the night it had started to rain. It rained and rained and rained. When we pulled into the church the parking lot was flooded so we "followed" the crowd and parked on the lawn. It was great singing the familiar hymns, hearing the familiar scriptures and listening to the testimonies being born. The church is true in the UK too. 

During testimony meeting one of the locals got up and started talking about the new "tablet" he was given at the doctors. I was so confused for a few minutes. We had seen "tablet" as a dessert on many menus. 

 In fact we had actually bought some tablet one day after lunch. It was not my favorite. Tasted like burnt caramel. It wasn't gooey and smooth like our caramel but crystalized sugar and crumbly.  

After listening for a little longer I decided the tablet given by the doctor was a new pill or prescription. Kind of funny! I loved hearing their accents! The ward we attended was the largest ward in the Plymouth Stake. Shockingly there were only 13 women in RS. And that seems to be about the norm. One of the sister missionaries and myself were the only 2 sisters born into LDS homes. Everyone else was a convert. In fact in their whole stake there are only about 30 YW both inactive and active. I was told many times how lucky I was to be living in such a righteous community and to be surrounded by so many active LDS saints. It was such a humbling experience to talk with these sweet sisters. I learned that there aren't a lot of options for the youth to date other LDS members in Cornwall. The parents here hope and pray that the spouses their children choose will have the desire to learn the gospel and eventually become members themselves. They know the chances of their children marrying in the temple are pretty slim. And so they encourage their children to get a good education so that they can go to the States and attend one of the BYU's or attend school somewhere in Utah so that they can be surrounded by other people of their faith. It is there hope and prayer they will meet their spouse at that time. Wow!!! I didn't realize how much of the gospel I take for granted. Both Kory and I left the church building feeling spiritually lifted and a little bit in awe of the Latter Day Saints. 

After church our plan was to go back to the B&B, change our clothes and then drive to a somewhat local museum and garden nearby. There were entrance fee's, parking fee's and we would be making people break the sabbath day by working. And so on our drive back home we decided that we would keep the Sabbath Day Holy. Even though we were on vacation we were going to do our best to honor the Sabbath Day. And so we drove back to our B&B, changed our clothes and when the rain stopped and sun came out we went for a walk. 

We found another little red mailbox. It wasn't too hard to do as each side of the street had these boxes spread along the rock wall surrounded by shrubbery. 

There was a castle close by and so we tried walking to it knowing it would be closed but assuming we could walk around the outside of the ruins.  

We came across another cemetery. 

The little lane we walked along. 

Such beautiful vegetation all around us. And it changes so quickly every time we went around the bend the scenery changed. 

Cornwall has a lot of sheep farmers.

After walking almost 2 miles we finally came to the entrance of the Restormel Castle. 

Unfortunately the road leading to the castle had a locked gate so we never get to see the castle but assumed it was somewhere hidden past those tall trees. 

So, so green and beautiful.

On our way home we walked a different way allowing us to walk through the town.  We came across a local church surrounded by headstones. 

The oldest head stone we found was dated 1717.

A fun sign we saw posted on the door of the store front. 

This would say No solicitors back home. 

The parking in the UK is absolutely crazy. A lot of there parking signs state you can park for one hour but then you have to leave for at least 3 hours before parking in the same lot. People must shop a lot quicker. The bottom signs states no alcohol on the streets. Awesome!

After our walk we took a nap, read a conference talk or two and then went downstairs and visited with our great hosts. It was a great relaxing day!