Church History Tour

Our last two days up North, we hit Preston and Liverpool to follow the early missionaries and members as they converted and emigrated to America. In Preston we visited the Wilfred St. house that the missionaries lived in as well as the River Ribble where two men had a foot race to see who would be baptized first! I have never really studied the history of the church here in England before so I didn't realize the importance of the members here in the early days of the church. In those days, there were more members in England than in Utah and the whole pioneer trail! The apostles that came here sacrificed so much to do this work.
In Liverpool, we stood on the docks where so many converts started their long journey to the Utah Valley. It was a great experience to stand there by the statue on Albert Docks and sing "Come, Come ye Saints" as a big group. These two days really opened my eyes to the extent of work and miracles that happened here in the early days of the church.

Fountains Abbey

This is probably the most beautiful place I have ever been. We walked into this long valley (a flowing river included) and there in the middle were the ruins of the Abbey. I didn't know such majestic scenery existed. This Abbey was originally created by some monks that fled to escape the corruption of the church, and was later destroyed by King Henry VIII as part of the destruction of the Monasteries, so there was a lot of significant history involved with the Abbey. It was amazing to walk around and picture monks walking through those arched corridors and hallways. There was so much height involved in the architecture! I got dizzy just looking up to the top of the tower. This along with the pointed arches gave the Abbey a very High Gothic feel. Too bad we don't build things like this anymore.

Southall

Southall was a very eye opening experience for me. I absolutely loved the Sikh temple and the people there. They were so nice and willing to share about their culture. I was surprised to learn how similar our religion is to theirs! They were such a humble people and showed such reverence to their scripture. The Hindu people were also very open to share about their religion, but unfortunately, I didn't get as much time to talk to them. Their temples were very ornate and bursting with beautiful bright colors. Southall itself seemed like a whole different world and I didn't even feel like I was still in England! It was a very different culture and it was such a neat experienced to be fully emersed in it. To top it all off, we ended the day with some delicious Indian food!

Canterbury

Canterbury was AWESOME! It was so cool to finally be on the scene of all the great things we've been learning about, such as the murder of Thomas Beckett and the signing of the disillusionment of the monasteries by King Henry VIII. The cathedral was also a visual presentation of the changing of architecture with its Roman round arches, Gothic pointed arches, and the vertical height from the Renaissance time. Many of the stained glass windows and stone statues were destroyed by the Puritans who were against such forms of art in cathedrals, but those that remain or are rebuilt are stunning!

Castle of Dover and the White Cliffs

City Walk

Unfortunately, I don't have any good pictures of St. Paul's cathedral because I couldn't upload them but it was amazing! It was rather ironic to be standing on the steps of an ancient cathedral and be looking right at a Starbucks window across the street. It goes to show the inevitable change that comes with time. Regardless, I was amazed with the side and grandeur of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and it humored me to notice that the crowd of pigeons rivaled that of tourists.

Moving through Cheapside it seemed that the older market places were slowly growing into buildings with more height and steel. As we turned one corner, the Swiss Reinsurance Tower loomed above us. Just a block before we had happened upon St. Michael’s Church, a beautiful treasure tucked behind a coffee shop and other buildings. Going from stained glass windows to steel towers was a very abrupt change, but made for a very intriguing walk.

Finally, we made our way down to the Thames were we took the liberty of using our cameras for a while before we continued to The Monument. Two Pounds and 311 stairs later, we were standing on top of The Monument overlooking all the streets we had just walked along. It was great for getting perspective of where we had traveled in the last few hours.

Dancing

We went to Trafalgar Square and out of nowhere there was this dancing group...so naturally we had to stop :)

Day 1

I've been in London for 32 hours now...and only slept 6 hours thanks to some serious jetlag! Rumor has it that the townhouse we're living in use to be Ernest Shakelton's house which would be SO cool because he's basically my hero, but then again, I have also heard its an old Russian consolate so who knows the true history. It's a beautiful old building though. Its been a busy 32 hours! I did some serious unpacking in my room that I share with 13 other people, took a little tour of the neighborhood, failed sleeping last night, and then headed out to Trafalgar Square and the British Museum today! And I officially had my first waffle and it was beyond delicious!