Wales and Welch Connection

As our days here in the UK are coming to an end, we want to make sure that we are able to explore as much as we can on our P-Days.  It helps that the weather is getting warmer, and the sunlight is lasting more than 7.5 hours!  (In December, the sun rose at 8:30 and went down before 4:00!!!)  On Monday our good friends, the Days, took us to Wales.  If we don't come home from our mission, look for us there!  It is so beautiful.  Craig and I both have ancestry from Wales, which is only an hour's drive away, but we had not yet been.

My great-grandfather, Benjamin Perkins, was born and raised in Wales, working in the coal mines from the time he was 6 years old.  He immigrated from Wales to Utah to be with the Saints when he was in his early twenties.  I come through his second wife who also immigrated from Wales to be with her sister, and converted to Mormonism when in Utah.  Her journal talks of the barren land and savage ways of Utah, particularly Cedar City, where she first lived.  As if that weren't harsh enough, they were sent to San Juan County, and were part of the group who went through what is now referred to as "Hole in the Rock."  (Benjamin Perkins and his brother were the ones who dynamited the walls, making the "road" down.)

As we basked in the lush beauty of Wales I couldn't help but compare that to the landscape of Bluff and Blanding, where they were assigned to settle, and can only imagine how they missed their beautiful homeland.  I am overwhelmed with gratitude for their sacrifices that allowed me to grow up where and how I did, comfortably immersed in the Gospel.  

An interesting-to-us little side note:  Several years ago, the Welch language was becoming obsolete, but there are efforts to revive it.  In some schools the children are taught to first read and write in Welch.  The Sacrament Prayers on Sunday were said in both Welch and English.  It's a beautiful language!

Wales has lots of Castles!  (Dorky picture - I was looking up into the sun!)

And beautiful old slate buildings (with handsome Americans in front!)

And walks with nice names (Says "Craig Forys Walk" in Welch and English)

And long words!  The Welch do not write any more succinctly than the Brits speak!
(This is the name of a town!  Get that all on your return-address label!)