Chippenham, Elder Kiddle's First Mission area

This past Saturday we were able to visit Chippenham which was the first area Elder Kiddle served in in his youth mission 51 years ago. The changes to the town were dramatic with a much larger downtown including a couple of inside malls. However the home in which Elder Kiddle and his companion boarded is unchanged on the outside. Like the buildings in Bath it is a very enduring sandstone structure. It was great to be there once more. Here are a couple of pictures.

Elder Kiddle's old digs (the one on the right)

birds on the river bank off High Street

A week earlier we visited Rochester Castle and Cathedral.  They are very old structures. The Castle was built by the Normans in about 1127 AD.  The Cathedral is even older and dates back to 604 A.D.

 Rochester Castle

 Rochester Cathedral

One of many stained glass windows in the Cathedral

On Monday November 6th we visited Walmer Castle which has some beautiful gardens attached to it. The picture I am including was the Queen Mother's Garden. The Castle was built under the direction of King Henry the VIII.

The Queen Mother's Garden at Walmer Castle

Today, we finally opened the Temple to patrons again. It was wonderful to be back working and performing ordinances in the Temple . We have really missed that. The air conditioning really works good now. A small orange construction barrier on the back side of the Temple is the only evidence still standing from the renovations that were done to the air conditioning. Even the lawn has now been restored. 

Our Mission continues to be an outstanding experience in our lives.

Love, Elder & Sister Kiddle

The Mystery of the missing wallet

The mystery of the missing wallet

During the Temple closure for renovations we get Saturdays and Mondays off so we decided this past Saturday to take the train to Rayleigh, Essex where Elder Kiddle's Great Grandfather, Edward Benjamin Kiddle, is buried in the Rayleigh Cemetery. It took three different trains and three hours to get there. We then took bus no. 1 from the train station to the Cemetery and were delighted to find his grave and even more delighted to find it in legible condition. The headstone was still standing straight and tall. It was raining hard or we would have taken some time to clear away some of the weeds on his grave plot. We have posted a picture of the grave as to how it looked over 100 years ago when Elder Kiddle's Great Uncle Walter Kiddle was serving a mission for the church in England. We also post some current pictures of the grave and a few sites around Rayleigh.

Once we had visited the grave we did look around the Cemetery for other possible family members but found none except for some in-laws that had been added to Great Grandpa's head stone which we explain with the picture.

We then took bus number 8 back into town to look around. We saw a lovely soccer field and a few of the stores downtown. We passed a sweets store which displayed several jars of sugarless candies in their window. We went in to buy some sugarless sweets but when Elder Kiddle went to get his wallet out of his back pocket it was gone. We were horrified as it contained his driver's licence and his Canadian Visa cards and his temple recommend. It also contained our return train tickets. The lady at the candy store directed us to the police station which was just around the corner. We gave our report and they helped us contact the bus company as we felt that it was on the bus were the wallet was lost. The bus company said that they had no way to contact the bus driver and they would have to wait for the bus to return to the bus barn to look for it. We were told it would probably be Monday before they could report back to us. We said a prayer and asked the Lord to help us retrieve the wallet.

We returned to the train station. Soon after we arrived a number 8 bus came in so we asked the driver how long the number 8 bus took to make a complete circle of its route and were told 3 hrs. We decided to wait and see if the same bus we were on came in. We waited for two of the #8 buses to come in with no success. We decided to wait for one more bus. While we were waiting Elder Kiddle received a phone call on his cell phone and it was a man at the bus barn and he said he had the wallet. We were ecstatic. He said he would send a friend over to the train station with it. In about 1/2 hour the man came with the wallet. The money was gone but all the credit cards, driver's licence, train tickets etc. were still in it. We were soon on the train back to the Temple. We really feel the Lord intervened in helping Elder Kiddle get his wallet back. " Thank you Heavenly Father."

Now some pictures

The grave over 100 years ago

The Grave today (notice the rain on the camera lens)

                                         

Showing how upright the grave stone still stands and the extra names now on the gravestone.

Elder Kiddle's sister Elsa informed us that Sarah Ann Hopton was a sister of Great Grandma Kiddle (Eliza Stead (Jones) Kiddle) and was executor to Great Grandpa's estate after Great Grandma went to Utah with the children. Great Uncle Walter in the first picture was one of the children who returned to England on a church mission.

                             
around town

The train station where we spent most of our day

Elder Kiddle's wallet now contains only his English banking card and Temple recommend and none of his Canadian credit cards and Driver's Licence.

Who would have ever thought that our mission would have included a Sherlock Holmes mystery.

Love from Elder & Sister Kiddle

Trip to Cornwall
     7 Temple Missionary Couples

For the 2nd week of our break we travelled with 6 other couples to Cornwall and back. We enjoyed many breathtaking views of the sea, along with more castles and Cathedrals;

 Stonehenge

   Cove & Ruins of Tintagel Castle

 

One of many narrow winding roads with arbour arches to our Cottage on the Helford River



         
            Porthallow Cove

 Lizard Point

 Mullion Cove

 St. Ives

 Mousehole

St. Michael's Mount

Watching a Shakespeare play at the outdoor Minack Theatre

 The Eden Project

" Hedgehog" ice cream cones  at Swanpool Beach - Yummy!!

                     

Pendennis Castle  and Truro Cathedral

                                      

      Curleys (our Drivers) with us at Church at Helston Chapel 

Cockington Village, Devon

Wells Cathedral  and the Roman Baths

What a great Trip!!!

Love Elder and Sister Kiddle

Loughborough

Our visit to Sister Kiddle's birthplace (Loughborough) to visit her aunts

We had a very enjoyable visit with Aunt Joyce and Aunt Valerie for 4 days this past week. Our cousin Marylyn Pringle came to visit on the Tuesday and took us out to see some of the sites. She took us to visit Queen's Park where we had lunch. There were beautiful gardens in the park and an amazing Bell Tower that had a carillon in it. The bells in the tower were all made at the John Taylor Bellfoundry located in Loughborough. After lunch Elder Kiddle climbed up the inside of the tower and on to a balcony where he enjoyed a marvellous view and took some great pictures. We then went and visited the John Taylor Bellfoundry. The bell (Great Paul) for St. Paul's Cathedral was made there. We saw the large casing in which the bell was made on display in Queen's Park. We had a guided tour of the Foundry that was very interesting. They still use the same method in making new bells as was used over 200 years ago.

 Sister Kiddle with cousin Marylyn in front of the Casing for the bell in St. Pauls

 The Carillon Bell Tower

 some of the bells in the bell tower

 a view of some of the gardens and the band stand from the balcony on the bell tower

a view of our hotel (red building) from the bell tower

On Wednesday Aunt Valerie drove us to Beacon Hill and Bradgate Park which are high points from which you can see a lot of the country side. One of the rock out-croppings at Beacon Hill looks like the side view of a person's face. 

 View from top of Beacon Hill

 Sister Kiddle in front of a 600 Million Year old outcropping of rock

Sister Kiddle is a quite a bit younger than that!!

 Information sign about Beacon Hill

 Elder Kiddle in front of rocks that look like a human face

 Sister Kiddle and her aunts Valerie & Joyce  by a wood carving near parking lot at Beacon Hill

 Rosalie and her aunts in front of rock wall built as the Romans did rock on rock

View of climb up to Old John at Bradgate Park 

 Old John

 a view from Old John

another view from Old John

The above represent only a few of over 200 pictures we took on our visit to Loughborough

Below is a picture of Sister Kiddle waiting for a train in Loughborough Train Station for our return journey to the Temple.

We love you Aunt Joyce and Aunt Valerie. We can hardly wait to visit again in December

Elder & Sister Kiddle