London Temple

This past Tuesday while we were at the Hyde Park family history center, Brother Mills from our ward in Mapleton came in!  He was there with his daughter.  He works for the church and is over all the international MTC's.  He was in Europe for 2 weeks.  It was so fun to see them and get all the news from our home ward!  We showed them around and took them to dinner at a little Chinese restaurant nearby.

Wednesday we finally were able to go to the temple.  (Our last planned trip was called off when I got sick.)  They have overnight accommodations there, so we were there 2 days.  It is south of London and out in the country.  We live in north London and there is no way we would ever drive through London (nobody does), so we picked a route that looked good, the Circular Highway to the west and go southwest to connect to the M25 freeway that circles London.  We have gone that way going northwest before, but going southwest, it wasn't so great.  It took us into city-type driving more than we wanted.  It took an over an hour to get to the M25 freeway   So we thought the next day we would just take the M25 all the way around to the northwest to the A1 (I'm sounding like I know what I'm doing don't I?) to get home.  Nice thought.  The M25 congested the whole way!  It should have taken us 1 1/2 hours but it took us over 3 hours to get home.  But it was worth whatever it took to go to the temple.

We'll start with with bad part first and get it out of the way.  This is on the way home, stuck on the M25 watching the planes land at nearby Heathrow airport.

Now on to the good stuff: on our way to the temple.

Crossing the Thames.

 There are more hills going to the south.  This is on the M25 freeway. 

When we exited the freeway, we drove south into the country.  It's a country road that takes you to the temple.

It goes through a couple of little towns.

 Here's a small town pub and restaurant.

 

And here we are:

 The London Temple

The grounds are beautiful and cover a large area. 

 If you know me, you know that I like taking pictures of flowers.

 This is the David O. McKay Oak.

 It says:  THE DAVID O. MCKAY OAK

LIVING BEAUTY AND INSPIRATION GREAT STRENGTH AND STABILITY REACHING TOWARD HEAVEN RESPONSIVE TO GOD'S SUNLIGHT CASTING FRIENDLY AND COMFORTING SHADE GENTLE IN ITS CONTRIBUTION TO MANKIND UNMOVED BY DISTURBING WINDS 

TO BE REMEMBERED

This is the Visitor center.  I was hoping to see Elder Mike Pinegar who is the director here.  I went to high school with him. We missed him by 5 minutes.  

This is one of the buildings that have overnight accommodations.  We stayed here. The temple is to the right and we just had to walk across the driveway and up the temple steps.

They have nice rooms.  See the folded up bedding at the foot of the bed?  You put your own sheets on the bed.  We also found out they charge a little over a pound for the soap and towels.  That's okay though, the price to begin with is very low, 24 pounds a night. (about $40.00)

 This is the kitchen.

We were able to go to 3 sessions and do sealings while there.  We met people from Utah and Arizona, and the Larsen's were there who are the couple from the mission office that help us all the time. I am looking forward to going again. 

One more look at the country before heading back to the city.

 

We have been very blessed this week!

Norwich

Elder Syme and I have been volunteering a few days a month at the church's Family History center at the British National Archives at Kew.  Because we are in the National Archives and need access to the films downstairs, we had to go through the background check and all kinds of forms to get a pass.  Now we are official.  I can go anywhere in Kew I want to. 

We attended the Norwich stake family history fair on Saturday.  Because it is a few hours away, we decided to stay over a couple of nights and go to church on Sunday too.  It was supposed to be a two and a half hour drive north, but it took us over 4 hours because of road construction and a lot of traffic.

 This is going around a round-a-bout.  We hate round-a-bouts.

But the drive was beautiful!  I passed the time trying to get some good pictures.  It's hard to get good ones from the car and the land is kind of flat, so it's hard getting good landscapes which is my favorite kind.  Wish I could have gotten a close up picture of this windmill.

Some of the areas are a little dryer up here.

 These trees remind me of the forests back home.  They were clearing some of these to widen the highway.

 I love these trees!

 

Jerrol was impressed with these fields.

If you look closely you can see a sprinkler in this field.  

 There are many little villages in the area around Norwich.

This is the bed and breakfast we stayed in about 14 miles south of Norwich.  When we got there, they weren't in because they were out walking the dog.  They had left a note on the door telling us where the key was and to let ourselves in.

This is a view from the back.

While Elder Syme was getting the key, I took pictures of the sheep right by where we parked the car.

Our room was nice.  The beds were softer than a table, but not by much.

This is the sitting room downstairs.

 

 The owner of the B&B recommended this place next door for dinner.  But it was closed.

So we went to the next town and had fish and chips.  

Yes, the fish and chips here are amazingly good!

 The street in town looks typical for England.

And here is a church.  Every little village around here has a church.  The man and the B&B was telling us that one village has 2 because they had a controversy about who was going to build one.

Norwich has a population of over 376,000 people.  Needless to say I didn't get pictures because I was busy navigating through town with garmin.  We were in the south part and didn't really see much of the city anyway.  This is the stake center.

 The fair was a lot of fun.  They had games and face painting for the kids, indexing, how-to for scrapbooking, scanning pictures, and research helps.  We helped in the research area.  It was a good experience meeting and helping members.  

On the way home we ate at The Countryman in a small town, which was also suggested by our B&B host.  The food was good, the service was very slow. 

Our breakfast at the B&B was very good and interesting.  We were to place our order the night before from the menu.  I had poached eggs, baked beans, bacon, mushrooms (very large and tasty), and hash browns.  Jerrol had the same, but his eggs were scrambled.  The gentleman talked me into trying some black pudding.  It tasted like sausage and had the look and texture of a brownie.  It was pretty good, but wouldn't want it very often.  I later found out that it was made of blood.

On Sunday we went to church and then we were invited to lunch by Pres. Arbor, a counselor in the stake presidency.  He and his wife are in their 30's and have 3 children and live in a small upstairs flat.  The two girls, Kitty and Sophia were shy and adorable.  Seth, their 4 year old son was so cute.  He had glasses and was very cross-eyed, but was a real character.  He had to show me all his toys.  Pres. Arbor teaches music and works at the museum.  They served a rice dish that was very good.  For dessert she served a nut cake.  They are a wonderful family, really enjoyed their hospitality.

That is the best part of our mission - meeting people.  

The drive home went much better.  The traffic was much less and being Sunday there was not construction going on.  Got a few more fun pictures.  Here's one of the fun sites, a hog farm.  

 The highway is divided but not a freeway.  Need gas?  

Need to pull off the side of the road?  This is called a lay by.

How about a round of golf?  This is the gateway to a very fancy country club.

How about a little excitement?

It was a very nice weekend. This is one of my favorite pictures of the trip.  Love the English countryside!