In the morning, we woke up and got everything ready to head to our next place to visit, the Isle of Wight. In the morning, however, we went the Helston high street to see everything. One of the great things was that the parking was cheap! 60p for an hour. 😛 It was fun to see all the small shops that were on there. Since it is such a smaller town, it seemed like there was more character to the shops. We stopped at a sweet shop and bought a good amount of gummy candy for a pound.
Just before 10 am, we headed over to John and Marlene’s home. I taught them while I was in Helston with Elder Coleman, and Marlene was baptized shortly after I left the area. Previous to this trip, I was told by the Brays that her health had declined quite a bit and she was now bedridden. As a result, she hadn’t been to church in a while, but thankfully her visiting and home teachers were fairly regular in their visits. Her health wasn’t the best when I was teaching her but she was able to move around and, on the odd occasion, make it to church. When we arrived, John answered the door and they were both were just as I remembered. Marlene was in bed though and wasn’t as talkative as I remember but they were both just as friendly. It was a lovely visit and it was fun to catch up (it was kind of me talking mostly).
Anyway, we didn’t stay long since we had to be on our way to catch the ferry, so we drove back to the high street, bought our last Cornish pasty, and drove off. That was a delicious pasty as it didn’t burn my mouth like the one we had outside St. Michaels Mount. We then went to the Helstone chapel, checked it out, and said goodbye to Brother Bray who was mowing the lawn there at the time.
The drive to Portsmouth to the car ferry was a long one. We got out of Helstone a bit late and since the email said to be there 30 minutes before departure, we worried that we might be late, so we tried to hurry the best we could. In the end, we made it, but it seemed that lots of things were trying to keep us from making progress. First, it was construction, and then after that, for the next 2.5 hours, it was tractors (a lot!) and slow cars. Once we were back on the motorway, the M27, it was raining pretty heavily so traffic was generally slow. Nonetheless, we arrived with just more than 10 minutes to spare and it wasn’t an issue. We parked on the ferry, went to the passenger area, and enjoyed a window view for the journey.
Once on the island, we headed right the Ellis’ house. They were very warm in welcoming us. Brother Ellis and I then went to the local fish and chips shop nearby and got some grub (despite my insistence, Brother Ellis paid, which was very nice of them). Back home, we ate the food, watched some football (me), played some Scrabble (Ang), and headed to bed. The fish and chips were pretty good. Ketchup made them even better. 😛
