A slow, relaxing day

After staying up until 1:30 last night talking to my family on the phone (for the first time since I arrived) and doing readings for class today, I was too tired to want to do much of anything today. I know, I know...I'm in London, I should do something every day, right? Well, today that something consisted of class, a nice long nap, some address-finding (for Chinatown and Japanese supermarkets), and a lot of homework. So, I figure, I was still productive, even if I wasn't much of an adventurer.

Tomorrow should be a busy day, though! We have our group temple trip, which will last from about 7am-2pm. We're taking a hired bus, which is nice. Otherwise the only way to get there is by taking the train out to the end of the line and then a taxi from there, which gets expensive and time-consuming. The bus ride is still an hour each way, but that's not too bad. I brought family names, so I'll do those as long as the London temple has the facilities to print the cards, which I assume they do. If not, I'll just do temple names and bring these family names home with me to do in the Provo temple. After the temple trip, I intend to go to Chinatown and some Japanese markets, where I'll hopefully pick up something cool from the street vendors and maybe ingredients to make sushi. I'd really like to learn how, and I figure now is as good a time as any, since I have access to plenty of authenticity here in the great cultural mash-up that is London. After dinner, I hope to go to a show. I'm not sure which one yet, but I know I can find something to go see. Apparently Psy is really good...

I guess I could tell you all what I did yesterday...since I slacked off and didn't post. We've been assigned to our wards now (as opposed to our first Sunday here when we all just went to the nearest meeting, in the Hyde Park chapel). I was lucky enough to be assigned to Hyde Park, so my church meetings are only a 15 minute walk away. Some of the students were assigned to wards two hours away! I sat next to a really nice young family for sacrament meeting. They have a 3-month old girl named Victoria, and a little boy (he looks about 2) named Caesar. After church, the ward had a munch-n-mingle. Relief Society got out a few minutes early, so I went into the kitchen to see if I could help. The sister in charge put me to work immediately! I helped set up, serve the food, and clean up. It was a really great opportunity to get to know a few of the ward members. I really enjoyed myself! I got to see most of the faces in the ward as I served the food, and I talked with a few of them.

I did get to talk to my family on the phone yesterday evening, which was wonderful. It was quite the adventure to actually start communicating, but it was worth it! First we tried Skype, but my computer doesn't have a mic or a camera, so I had to borrow someone else's computer. The internet on both ends of the connection was being retarded, so after the call dropped for the third time, I just gave up. Fortunately, one of my roommates knew of an online international calling card service that her family has used and trusts. So, I bought a card really quickly, figured out how to make an international calling card call (which was more complicated than it should have been) and got connected. Of course, once I got connected, I promptly asked them to call me and hung up, because it's about 1/5 of the cost per minute with this particular card to have the call placed from the US to here, rather than from the UK to home. After a few minutes, my phone rang, and I finally got to talk to everyone. Phew! I kept it to an hour, which is a record for talking to my family, I think. :) Hey, there's a lot of us, ok?

Well, I'm off to the grocery store and then back to some more homework. I love you all! Don't forget to email me!