Week 2

So this is about where I got really behind and recording what I'm doing. So...here's a sum up:

Sunday:

My first church experience in Stratford. I am in the Catford ward in the Wadsworth Stake. I am supposed to be working in the Primary but they haven't specifically assigned us yet. We left at 8:30 to try out the route to get there and ended up getting there just at 10 when Sacrament meeting started. We really won't be able to get there much earlier because once we get off the tube we just have to wait for the bus. It was Fast and Testimony meeting and, like my program director said, our bishop asked the six of us to bear our testimonies at the beginning of the meeting. It's been a while since I've done it so it was a good opportunitity.

Later that evening we had a fireside with our whole group with the bishop actually from my ward, Bishop Chittock. He and a member from the Stake Presidency talked to us about the church in London and the role we can play. They basically explained that the church is really young here and that most of the members are converts. So it just takes them a bit to fully know and be aware of the proper church ways to do things. And that even the ones in leadership positions have likely only been members for 6 months or so. Plus it is very diverse out here.

Monday:

Classes start :(
Haha, OK it's not that bad. I'm not in the first class so I don't really have anything until 10:10, other then breakfast from 7:30-8:15. So I'm hoping I can use this time to one, sleep in if needed, two, go running, or three, do homework. Yay.

After class we went to the National Gallery (For Humanities we have certain paintings that we have to see for each class period so um, I'll be at the musuem a lot) From there, it was on to the Imperial War Musuem. (The picture is a part of the Berlin Wall in front of the museum)We only had a couple hours so I just got to go through a couple exhibits, mainly the Blitz and stuff about the World Wars. Then we had to back to the Center for dinner. Yum!

Tuesday:

Today we went to the British Library to see the Sacred Exhibit. It was amazing!! To see some more of my thoughts about it see this "musing" I wrote about it for my English class. There was also a really cool exhibit upstairs that had pretty much everything you would want to see: Canterbury Tales, the Magna Carta, Leonardo da Vinci's sketchings, Beethoven's original music, Shakespeare writing's, Jane Austen letters, original Beetle's music...ah it was crazy and amazing.

In the evening after dinner and such I saw my second musical: Lion King! It was really good although it was more focused on display than the music. As you've probably heard the costumes are amazing, and it was really cool to see how they portrayed different animals and the interactions between the main characters. Overall they did an amazing job. I wasn't too impressed with Disney's Beauty and the Beast when I saw it in New York, but this definitely out did that and I enjoyed it. Once again I was way close, I think it was the eight row. :)

Wednesday:

Our first day trip. We ventured to the Isle of Wight where we saw Queen Victoria's house and gardens, took a six mile bike ride, and came back to pasta dinner at the Center.

Thursday:

Not too much today...Just class, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, the grocery stores, and then dinner, and homework. I think I had like 5 papers to write.

Friday:

It had been raining a lot so our trip to Greenich was pushed back and instead we visited the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Beautiful buildings and way interesting history. Afterwards we made an attempt to find Portobello market because someone had heard it was also open on Fridays till 5, but we couldn't find it so it probably wasn't there and we went home. After a while I needed to go out so Courtney, Lauren and I went to find Primark this really busy but way cheap store we had heard about. Seriously it's huge and amazing. We didn't quite feel like shopping right then, because given the dynamics of the story you'd have to be there a long time, so we just checked it out and stopped at a couple of souvenior shops on the way home where we all finished our homework.

Saturday:

Today we all woke up early once again to meet with the youth of the stake for a 10 mile hike around the English countryside. It was long, but we only had to go up one hill, and the scenery was amazingly beautiful! We didn't get home until about 4:30 and we then had to leave again at 6 for the play Called to Account. It was a political play about the British involvement with Iraq and the indictment of Anthony Blair. It was interesting but definitely not that exciting...I kinda wish they had presented it differently because I would have loved to learn more about it but the means of presenting it kinda made me sleepy especially after the long hike. Basically it was like watching a trial. There were never more than 5 people on the stage in the same scenery- a table for the prosecution, a table for the defense, and a table for the witness. So we just saw the testimonies of the different witnesses and the questions asked by both sides.