Day 4: London

Church was a much needed experience this morning, even though I had a bit of a hard time staying awake.  We attended meetings in the historic Hyde Park Chapel, one of the first Chapels in England that also serves as a Visitor's Center and Mission Office.  I have a hard time knowing how big the ward is because there were so many visitors.  I walked in a little late and sat in front of the group in what I later found out was the bench for passing the Sacrament.  They recruited me and several other guys from the group to help with this.  I was impressed with the depth of the testimonies of the British Saints.  It is easy to tell that the Church is strong here in London.

After Church, we took the tube to Hyde Park for Family Home Evening.  Dr. Godfrey allowed us to change the day of FHE so we can go to Les Miserables tomorrow.  We met at Speaker's Corner where the first missionaries used to soap box when they first entered the country.  Many people still do this today, and we stopped to watch them on our way through the park.  Unfortunately, I missed almost all of FHE.  My friend Erica and I stepped away for what was supposed to be a three minute bathroom break at McDonalds.  When she came out of the bathroom she could not find her phone.  She scoured the bathroom and talked with the management, but no one had turned it in.  We retraced our steps, went back to McDonalds a second time, and talked with the security officer at the Tube stop.  She came away with a lot of friendly "I'll call you's" but no phone.  The stress of losing the phone almost made her physically sick.  I felt so sorry for her.  Luckily, Emily, our assistant director, let her use her phone to text her parents, which made her feel a little bit better.  Sadly, there is nothing we can do but wait to see if anyone calls.

Thankfully, she did not let the phone incident ruin the rest of her night.  I admire her for her determination to move forward and enjoy her time.  We went with Emily and her husband back to Buckingham Palace, then broke off and tried to see Trafalgar Square.  The West End Live festival was still happening, so we grabbed a quick bite to eat and went one stop farther on the tube.  That brought us to Leicester Square, the home of half-price theatre tickets.  We were all ready to buy tickets to a show, but we found out the West End is dark on Sunday evening.  Instead, we decided to go see Abbey Road.  This is kind of a cool spot.  The crosswalk itself is tiny, and if there had not been tons of people taking pictures, I probably would have never recognized it.  There is no traffic signal so you just have to wait for a lull in the traffic.  Then everyone takes turns running into the middle of the road and holding the pose before the next batch of cars whiz by.  It gives you kind of an adrenaline rush while you are standing there waiting to get your picture taken and you can see the traffic start moving towards you.  Definitely worth the it to go out there.  To finish out the evening we took a walk through Hyde Park.  The park takes up many acres of the middle of the city and gives people a place to relax by a manmade lake, play in the acres of greenery, and ride bikes down public trails.  Our little jaunt through the park did not show us much.  We saw Kensington Palace (something I want to go back to), and an impressive statue of Prince Albert.  We really know how to pack things in on this trip.  I feel exhausted and am ready to go to bed.