Past few days

WOW, so these past few days we have been busy busy trying to do lots on our last weekend. So i havent had much of a chance to sit down and write. I can feel this post already starting to get ridiculously long--brace yourself. Right now im sitting in our family room watching the rain--a little bizarre that last sunday I was absolutely miserable because of the heat, and now I almost have the desire to go put on my sweat pants. Interesting English weather.

Friday morning was spent doing some homework. We have all procrastinated to the max on all of our school assignments, so the past few days have been catch up time. M'kynzi have been talking about going to Borough Market for the past few days so we decided to go over there during the day. It was great! It was like a farmer's market but a hundred times better. There were tons of stands with food, bread, jams, spreads, fruits, vegetables and chocolate. My favorite part was the free samples! Everyplace that sold some type of spread had pieces of bread out to sample it and I took as many as possible! They were all so good I just couldnt get enough. I wish we would have gone when we first got here so we could have actually brought some food to bring back home, but with our departure in the day ahead, it was just not feasible to buy more food. My favorite was the caramel spread that i think i had four or five samples of and the M'kynzi and I just decided we had to buy. We have yet to open it though--we need to get on that. I did eat a delicious pork sandwich. I really wish I could go back every saturday. After the Market we unfortunately went back to Harrod's. Lillie was thinking of buying some souvenirs from the gift shop. M'kynzi and I just took a seat at the gift shop and we kinda felt like white trash sitting on a step in Harrod's, but whatever. We were just too tired to walk around and that place drives me crazy. I really cant take it--over priced and over crowded. Next we came home and then Lillie and I went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant on Gloucester that we have been wanting to try. It was so amazing! I have never really had Thai food before, but it was so good. Lillie and I shared our food, so it was really good. A few weeks ago we had heard that there was going to be a YSA dance at the Hyde Park building that night so we wanted to go over there to check it out. We got there and there was no one there! maybe like 3o people, max, i swear. So we were really disappointed and were very self conscious of feeling really American. We werent sure if other girls from our group were going to show or not and right as we were going to leave Hannah and M'kynzi came. So it was nice to actually know a few more people. The had thing about dances here is that we dont know any of the music that they play at the dances, so it makes it hard to have a really good time. All though the dance wasnt the greatest it was really enjoyable due to the fact that we became friends with three British guys that live a little north of London. The funny thing about this story is that before Lillie and I left for the dance she was a little concerned about looking cute and I told her that it really doesnt matter, its not like we are going to meet anyone and low and behold, we do. So after the dance Hannah was talking to them and was kinda interested in one of them and so she decided to invite them over. At first I thought it was kinda ridiculous to invite over random boys, but im really glad that we did cause they were really fun. I think the combination of the fact that we havent hang out with any boys for over a month (Todd doesnt count anymore, haha) and that they have amazing british accents contributed to it. But they came over and we mainly just talked to them and we interviewed them for one of our class assignments. I really just liked talking to them about different things and getting their opinion, like we talked to them about the economy and their views about the pound vs the dollar. The best part of the night was when they taught us British slang words and they wrote down everything they could think of. We also like trying to mimic the words that they said, but they said that we didnt do a good job. It was also great when they tried to sound american. haha. when they said words where they pronounced the 'r' they sounded like hicks! its was really funny. so it was really fun to have them over, and we definitely didnt get to bed till really really really late.

On saturday we again started the day by getting some homework done. Then for lunch we crossed Kensington Gardens on the look out for Cafe Diana--just for laura! I wasnt sure of where it was at, so i was afraid i would be leading my friends astray, but we found it. And it was perfect because we had all been craving Fish & Chips one last time and so we got them there and it was so good! Very enjoyable to eat there. I hope you are happy laura! Then we came back to the flat to meet up with Tom and Reuben (two of the boys from last night) to go to Camden Market. I had been there before but wanted to go again and do some last minute shopping. At first we all kinda thought it might be strange to hang out with those boys again since it was totally random, but it was a lot of fun. Camden (every time i think of camden i think of My Name is Earl) was just as crazy as last time and while we were doing our shopping it started pouring rain. so that was a bit of a bummer, but of course it didnt last too long. I bought a really cute shirt (cause you know, I dont have enough) and some prints of London scenery. It was funny shopping with boys cause they obviously arent use to shopping with girls who take a long time looking at stuff. Then we decided to head out to Abbey Road for the classic Beatles shot. Luckily lots of tourist were there so we didnt feel so dumb. Its actually a busy street so it had to be timed perfectly, but luckily its a zebra crossing, so that made it a bit easier to go into the street for the photo. We made Tom come in the middle of the street so we have one perfect Beatles look a like photo (which i need to get from Cathy). Then we came back to Kensignton and wandered around until we decided to go to Indian food for dinner. delicious once again and it was even better since they played the whole freaking Rihanna CD at the Indian restaurant--so random and funny. Since we have been here a lot of us we have been talking about going out and going dancing. I have been a little hesitant about it since it seemed a little shady, but since the guys were coming with us I felt a little more safe. It took us forever to find a place to go since they dont really play hip hop in England, and we wanted to find a relatively cheap one too. We finally decided to venture out to The Roxy--it sounded promising. We got there and there was a good amount of people there but just really different than any kind of good club back in the states. I think we only knew like 4 songs that they played, the best including- The Killers, Bon Jovi "Living on a Prayer" and the best of the night--The Macarana. And yes, we all did the hand motions to the song. It was great having Reuben, Tom and Martyn there cause they definitely protected us from crazy drunks. After like an hour and a half we just couldnt handle the music any longer so we headed home. The tube was closed so we had to find a bus stop. We started to walk and I made the decision that we should just walk all the way home. Such a bad decision. It was probably about a 3 mile walk that took us over an hour (and i wont mention what time of the day it was) by the time we got home we all thought we were going to die our legs and feet hurt so much. But the exercise was good for me. The guys came up for a bit but didnt stay too long since we were all dead tired. They are planing on making a trip to Utah soon, so hopefully we can see them again sometime in the future. It was so fun to hang out with them and learn tons of new things about the UK and of course hearing their accents was great too. On friday night they told us that when they were coming to the dance that they wanted to meet some girls to hang out with on Saturday but they were mostly just joking around about it. They said its really hard to meet LDS girls here cause they are so few young single adults--and so we were informed that we fulfilled their dreams by hanging out with them. As soon as the left we were very sad and having been talking all day about how much we miss them.

For church today we were running incredibly late. I guess we were all just moving a lot slower from being up late the past two nights and just being exhausted from all of our walking. The bad part about being really late to church was that their schedule is backwards and I had to teach Young Womens. I was so scared that I would get there so late and that they would think that I wasnt coming. Luckily the girls in their ward also have a tendency of being late so i got there right as they were finishing the young womens theme. The lesson was on service in the church and I really enjoyed reading it and learning more. I was able to share my story of how i was so nervous of being called as Gospel Doctrine teacher my sophomore year. I told them that I was afraid I would have enough time to focus on it and that I wasnt qualified as a teacher. Then I shared a quote that explained how if you feel those things then the Lord will bless you to be able to reach beyond your natural self so that you can develop more talents and that you need to re-prioritize to find more time. The story and quote worked perfectly. I also told the story from the pioneers about how a handcart company was stranded during the winter and so a rescue team went out to help them and three young men had to get in the freezing river and helped carry every member of the company cross the river. It is such an amazing story of service and none of the girls or leaders had heard it before. Although it was really hot in that room and I had been sweating during the lesson I started to get goose bumps as I told that story. For me that showed me that it was a true story and strengthened my testimony of service and sacrifice. M'kynzi went into that class with me and she said I did a really good job and that she enjoyed it, so that made me really happy. After church it was pouring rain and we had to walk home in the rain. it sucked, but it was better than melting like we were last week. We wanted to go through Hyde Park today for one last time before we leave in the morning, but it has been pouring all day so we didnt have much motivation to get outside. I have to go pack now. Such a bummer, i cant believe our time here has gone by so fast, I really feel like we have just barely started our trip. No one wants to leave. Well as we have been saying multiple times during our trip...we cant wait until next time.