More of May

Here we are with the sister mission leaders, Sister Chevarri and Sister Yardley at a YA activity. The missionaries come to most of our activities.

We showed the devotional broadcast by President and Sister Nelson (for Young Adults) at the building Wednesday evening, along with a baked potato bar. We planned for 20 or so, but we only had four young adults come and seven missionaries. It was the week after school was out, and several of our regular attenders were out of town. The elders are really big eaters, so they made quite a dent in the food. We took leftover beans to the Munch and Mingle after ward conference today, and they were all eaten!

We played the Chocolate Game Monday evening. If you get doubles when it's your turn to roll the dice, you get to start eating a chocolate bar with a knife and fork, wearing gloves, scarf and a hat, until someone else rolls doubles. There weren't very many there until the missionaries showed up, and then it was more fun.

We went on a hike again yesterday in the same general vicinity of where we went last week. This was called the River Caron in Caron Glen. The trails were beautiful, and very green.

This was a weird little seat for one that I tried out.

We followed the path until it came to an end, and then hiked up a hill, where we found a big meadow with sheep and lambs grazing. I really like the sheep, but even more with the babies!

 

Alva Glen, Young Adults, etc.

We went on a hike in Alva Glen yesterday, looking for waterfalls and a hidden cave. It turned out to be a beautiful place! We loved it.

Therre were sheep grazing on the hillsides, many with their baby lambs.

We went up to the top of one of the hills and had this amazing view.

Sheep grazing.

This is from inside Smugglers Cave. Charles hiked down to it, but I just watched from the top.

Charles on his way down to the cave/waterfall.

This is Dolly, or the stuffed remains of Dolly, the first successfully cloned mammal. She is in the National Museum, which we visited Tuesday.

Today's Linger Longer.

The hillsides look like this now. The yellow is "rapeseed", used for making cooking oil.

 

MAY-PENTLAND HILLS, HIGHLAND COOS, ZONE CONFERENCE

We hiked up in the nearby Pentland Hills yesterday to see if we could spot some Highland Cows. The sister missionaries told us where they saw some, so we went to check it out. Charles took us up a very steep way, which almost made me dizzy when I looked down, but I wanted to go down a different way. Fortunately, the way down is where we saw the cows. I love this picture because the cow looks so huge! Actually, I'm a few feet behind it and I'm kneeling, so it just makes it look bigger. If it was actually as big as it looks, I would not have ventured so close!

Whenever we drive out to Costco, we see these manmade ski runs on the side of the hill. On this hike, we were able to have a closer look. We actually went quite a bit higher than the runs.

                                       

For FHE Monday, our American FHE chair thought it would be fun to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, even though people here don't know what it is. We had taco salad and batted at very small pinatas. Everyone had a great time. They love it when we have actual food.

Holly, Bene, Haley- these girls make activities fun

This is from our all-Scotland Zone conference Wednesday.

The Scotland Sister missionaries

The Elders

All the red-haired (ginger) missionaries in Scotland.

 

PRESTON TEMPLE

We decided it was time to make a trip to the temple, so we drove the 3 1/2 hours to Preston, England yesterday. It was wonderful to be there again. On the way, we got to see lots of fields of sheep and lambs. It's lambing season, and they are cute to see romping around the fields and hillsides.

 At church today, we were surprised to see some old friends. The Cottams son and daughter, John and Lindsey, with their spouses, Matt Nelson and Laurel Holdaway. We're friends with all of their parents from way back. Our older children knew them as youth in the ward and in the stake.