Bloody H*ll!

You'll have to excuse the title of this post, but this morning as I was walking down the street I heard a man say, "Aw, bloody h*ll," and I have to say I have never been so utterly thrilled to hear someone curse before in my life. :) 

Well, this is day 2 in London! Today, we went to church at the Hyde Park chapel, which is also a visitor’s center complete with a Christus statue and several exhibits about the church. I was surprised that at least half of the congregation was American - of the 7 people who presented or spoke, 4 were American. We also doubled the size of their Relief Society. However, the best part of church was an elderly British gentlemen who blessed the sacrament. I swear, he has to be a narrator or actor or something for a living, because his voice, his enunciation, and the feeling with which he read the prayer was just amazing -- and that’s not to mention his absolutely beautiful accent. I felt like I was listening to a celestial reading of the sacrament -- either that, or the introduction to a dramatic documentary or movie. I wished that he could bless the sacrament every Sunday - it was that amazing.

Here's the monument to King Albert again, as well as some of the beautiful flowers in Hyde Park.

After church, a group of us went to Hyde park again for a picnic lunch. It was so funny
because the park was filled with people walking dogs, and 95% of the dogs were corgis.
That must be the popular dog breed here in London. After our lunch, a group of us threw
a frisbee around for a little while, and it was just a really lovely and enjoyable afternoon.
The park itself is quite large and Kensington Palace sits on the grounds (that is where
William and Kate live!). (See above).

The iconic red double-decker bus! These are everywhere. 

A little while after lunch, we took the tube over to St. Paul’s Cathedral to see an Evensong
service. The service was performed by a youth choir from the area, it their amazing voices combined
with the echoing acoustics of the spacious, vaulting cathedral made the whole experience very
ethereal and almost other-worldly. The large pipe organ that played was also stunning - it filled the
whole cathedral and you could feel the vibrations from the music deep in your chest. The sermon
and songs centered around the living Christ, since this is the Sunday after Easter. The reverend
talked about how things are often not as they seem, such as when the apostles met Jesus on the
road to Emmaus. It was a beautiful service with beautiful music, and I was so glad we were able to go.
I love seeing how similar our faith is to the faiths and beliefs of righteous people all over the world, and
my own testimony is strengthened by hearing and worshiping with those from other faith traditions.
The sung verses of scripture and the dissonant, eerie tonal chords of the choir really filled me with
a deep reverence and awe.

After the service, a few of us walked down the street from the Cathedral to see the river Thames and walked across the Millennium Bridge. The Millenium Bridge is the bridge from the beginning of the 6th Harry Potter movie, so it was super awesome to be there and see that! Then, we walked back to the tube and retired once again to our flats. (This is a picture from on the bridge.)

That's the London Bridge in the distance!

I walked past this wall on my way to church today, and it was stunning to realize that, unlike in the U.S., WW2 was being fought in Britain for a while. The fact that the walls still have holes and damage from the bombings during the Blitz is stunning. It is like seeing the story of history written on the walls the streets around me. 

All in all, it has been an amazing day. After using the trains and buses so much in Spain,
I feel surprisingly comfortable using the tube here in London. They call the tube cards “Oyster Cards,”
which is really funny. The cards in Spain were called “Bonos,” so it must be a European thing to give
your public transportation cards unique names. :)

I’m still utterly charmed with London. I’ve actually passed more people speaking foreign language
s on the street than I have speaking English. There are also a lot of Spaniards here - it is so cool to
walk down the street and hear the lovely, distinctive Castillian accent again, even though I’m not even
in Spain.