Back at it, London day 5

Monday morning was service again.  Sorry to disappoint all you hoping for big city stories and adventures, that is coming soon as long as we get a nice hours cushion built up.  We worked with two brothers house over house, and finished the street in less than an hour.  We went to the next street over for more intercom witnessing, o joy!  This particular section was also interesting because we were going the houses above businesses, and their doors were right on the street.  So we were knocking on door and talking to people as someone ate breakfast literally right next to us at a sidewalk cafe.  Towards the end we had an encounter with a dog, and I'm just guessing Michael was a bit scared, as I was suddenly standing alone and looked back to find him back in the road.
We went home after service to study and rest, and then went to Doug and Kam's for dinner.  Over a authentic Oriental meal we had the privilege of learning about all their years as missionaries and the circuit work in Japan.   We could write a book just about what we learned, and will give you details about this at a later time.  The meeting was Monday night because of the remodeling mentioned in a previous post, so we went strait to the hall from dinner.  Their young kids (under 12) are amazing, the comments make us look bad.  One boy, about 7-8, gave one of the best Bible readings I have ever heard, and of course with the perfect British accent.  The number 3 talk was given by a brother who has struggled with stuttering for years, and he was obviously fighting the whole time, but gave a very good heartfelt talk.    The local needs was a new experience for us.  To get the optimal level of religious recognition, the congregation needs to be registered as a charity in the UK.  Once you are a charity, you are required to have a president, secretary, treasurer, etc, as well as hold an annual meeting to review the state of the charity.  The local needs turned into the annual meeting, and they financial situation was discussed along with lots of other terribly boring business matters (taxes, legal mumbo jumbo).   The brother barely took a breath go get it to all fit in the allotted 10 minutes. (When they opened the talk that was the annual meeting the words they were using were very interesting. Actually we got a little nervous and wondered what in the world was going on. But it all turned out fine. -Eric) The last part about the foreign language field was confusing at first until we realized it wasn't really directed at us.  There is an Albanian group that meets on the same night, they do their school separate and then join us for the Service meeting.  He went on and on about the special search work, which we were thoroughly perplexed by.  But it was explained later that this is simply going to doors and asking is they have any neighbors nearby that speak a particular language.  The congregation then butchered the song, we were pros at it.  After the meeting we scrambled to book service partners before schedules locked in, the competition is not for the faint hearted. I was only semi-successful, got 2 confirmed, but will refine my technique and do better next time.  (I of course dominated and after fighting people off, claimed my turf and got booked to work in service with different ones all the next day. -Eric) After meeting we walked outside to our first rainstorm of the trip, and had a jolly good time sprinting home in our suits.