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!