Bamburgh Castle

Bamburgh Castle was first built by the Norman's in about 1095.

It was the first castle to be defeated by artiliary in 1464 in the

War of the Roses.

Bamburgh Castle is on the coast of the North Sea. Bamburgh Castle is thought by many to be the original site of Sir Lancelot's Castle.

England has many Castle's and Abbey's. We saw quite a few of them.

Aycliffe Church in England

There was a graveyard by this old church and it was near Newton Aycliffe. McDonalds was close by also, so about once a week we would drive thru McDonald's and get lunch and take it to the graveyard to eat there. It was a nice quiet spot, as you can imagine and no one bother you there.

This church was started by the Saxons in

around 980
Baptismal Font

Rievaulx Abbey

On our way to Rievaulx Abbey.

Rievaulx Abbey. We would go visits castle and

Abbeys on our Prepartion Day.

They raised pheasants so that men could hunt them.

There were so many of them on the roads and Grant

couldn't believe how tame they were. On our way

to Rievaulx we saw many of them run over.

Alnwick Castle

President Woodward took the whole Zone to Alnwick Castle
Sister Beckstrand, Woodward, Haroldson and Loveland

Elder and Sister Beckstrand

As you can see it was beautiful. Just a side note,

Alnwick Castle is where they filmed Harry Potter. The gift shop was full of Harry Potter items. It was a great day and the whole Billingham Zone was there.

Hartlepool, England

Tom came over to visit us while we were on our mission. It was December 2006. We had been on our mission for three months. He was able to spend ten days with us and we loved it. The Mission President let us take Tom to several places. We had a wonderful time with him. This is Hartlepool, on the North Sea. It was a quaint village.

I am going to start to write things about our mission that I didn't put in our letters home. First of all Tom Peacock called today and left a message on our message machine. He wanted to thank Grant and I for the flowers that we sent for Lilian's funeral. I feel so bad for him. He misses her so much and I am sure is very lonely. He has a couple of sons and Lilian has a couple of daughters, but he is not that close to his sons. I think that Lilian's daughter will look after him. She lives just a few miles away and he raised her. Tom and Lilian were such a cute couple and we loved them so much. It pains us to see Tom is such sorrow. He doesn't have the gospel in his life and I really don't know what he thinks about God and death. Don't get me wrong these people were the best that you could find. Such kind, good hearted people. They would give you the shirt of their backs. Tom is 82 yrs old and now lives alone.
I can tell you that we couldn't had better neighbors or friends. We would talk to them almost every day and they would watch our bungalow when we to the temple, and we would watch their house when they went on vacation. We just had a wonderful relationship with them. Tom was so willing to help Grant with anything that needed to be done. He even took us to the train station we we flew home for Tom and Shannon's wedding. He also picked us up.
We were just so glad that we got to know them and love them. We miss them and realize that we will probably never Tom again.

Elder Echarri, Elder and Sister Beckstrand and Elder Stuart.
Billingham, England
When we were first on our mission.