London - Day 3

We woke up bright & early on Sunday morning & quickly got ready for church.  We had stayed up SO late the night before that it was hard to wake up.  Emily had found a church building in the city in Hyde Park that started at 9:00, but there was NO WAY we were going to get there in time.  We looked up the church locations again & realized there was a church building literally a 7 minute walk from our apartment.  That ward started at 10 am so it was perfect.

We left the apartment & walked to the church building & were thrilled to arrive in just over 5 minutes.  The building was small, but it was great to see one of our church buildings in the middle of London.  We went inside & sat down in the chapel which was also the gym.  Instead of pews they had stackable chairs set out for sacrament meeting.  It was adorable.  Immediately we had several people from the ward come welcome us & ask us where we were from.  It was a small ward that mostly consisted of immigrants from different countries in Africa.  We met members from Ghana, as well as several other African nations.  The stake president was speaking that day & it just so happened that one of the area seventy general authorities was there to speak as well.  We LOVED him.  His name was Elder Mark Stewart from Scotland.  He sat & talked with us for over 20 minutes before church started.  He thought it was amazing that we brought our almost adult daughters on a mother-daughter trip to London.  He was really nice to talk to & we couldn’t wait to hear him speak.  Sacrament meeting was beautiful.  The speakers were truly inspired & we just felt at home there.  Afterward, many of the ward members invited us to stay for 2nd hour so we did.  Elder Stewart led the lesson for 2nd hour & pulled us moms & our girls to the front.  He asked us questions about the church . . . mostly “on a scale of 1-10, how do you feel the church . . . “  They were HARD questions, but they really got us thinking about how we can be more welcoming as a church, how we can strengthen our own testimonies, & how the purpose of our church falls into 3 categories: 

Service

• Inviting Others (missionary work)

• Temple Work & Geneaology

He taught us that in everything we do we should be asking the question: “What is my next ordinance & how can I come closer to Christ?”  Is it baptism? Endowment? Sealing?  How can I help others to achieve their next ordinance & help them come to Christ?  I just loved how simple that teaching was.  It made me want to be a better person, to reach out to others more, & to serve!  After the meeting, we went outside to take pictures in front of the church building & some of the sweet women of the ward jumped into our pictures because “we’re family now!”  I just loved them so much.

After church, we walked back to our apartment, changed clothes, then made a quick grilled cheese & tomato soup lunch before setting off on some exploring around 1:30.  We rode a hop on hop off bus to all the biggest sites in London & enjoyed walking around & seeing it all.  We saw the London Bridge & the Tower Bridge as well as the Tower of London.  We rode all around the city until we came to the London Eye, Big Ben, & Parliament.  We got off the bus there so we could explore on our own for a bit. 

We got lots of fun pictures in front of Parliament & Big Ben, then made our way over to Westminster Abbey.  They don’t do tours on Sunday, but they will allow you to attend mass so we decided to “go to church” again that day & enjoy a Catholic Mass inside Westminster Abbey.  It was lovely.  There were many beautiful hymns sung & some speakers who gave talks.  I enjoyed looking at the beauty of the cathedral.  It was so peaceful & quiet inside. 

After the service, we walked a few blocks to Buckingham Palace to explore.  We watched the guards for a bit, took some pictures, & just enjoyed the beautiful weather.  Around 4:30 we hopped back on the bus & rode it all the way back to our starting point by the train station.

We were exhausted by this point & rode the tube back to Elephant & Castle again & walked back to our apartment.  We made more grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner & then went to bed early.  Our bodies needed the rest.