London - The Mormons, the museum, the relic, and Westminster

Church * Natural History Museum * Hyde Park & Speakers Corner * 

Convent * Westminster Abbey

It's a bit weird that we're coming home tomorrow.  I thought my kids would be chomping at the bit to get home, instead they don't want to talk about it.  It's always hard to confront reality.  Of course, Stewart is nervous to get home and start the next phase of his life - college.

We attended the Hyde Park ward today.  In addition to the Ward house the huge building also severs as a visitors center, the mission offices, and a family history center.  It was the biggest Ward and biggest building we've attended this entire summer.  It's in a great location for missionary work as there are many families walking up and down the street to visit the great museums located nearby and to go to Hyde Park.  There was a world map in the Relief Society room and I wish everyone could have stood up and pointed to where they were born.  There had to have been someone from every corner of the globe.  In YW there were girls from Italy, Spain, New Zealand, America and the U.K.  In RS lots of members from Asia.

After church we picnicked in a nearby park and then visited the free Museum of Natural History with the rest of London.  Or perhaps there is just no way to escape the crowds here.  The museum was huge and we visited 3 areas: dinosaurs, mammals, and creepy crawly things.  The dinosaur exhibits we have in Utah are superior to anything we saw here - I guess we take our Utah dinosaurs for granted.

Our next stop was the Tyburn convent to visit a Maxfield relic - yes, a relic.  Back in the early 1600s, Thomas Maxfield was a martyr for his Christian faith.  Thomas was born a Catholic and escaped to France where he joined the ministry and became a priest.  He later returned to England has was hung near speakers corner at Hyde park.  Somehow the Spanish ambassador salvaged one if his bones (his right radius to be exact - in its entirety) and it is now housed in the crypt of the Tyburn convent.  (Eric had to do some pretty amazing google searches to figure this out).  Anyway, we visited with the Nuns, got a tour of the place, some stories about the martyrs, and took our picture with the bone.  We really tried to be as respectful as possible, and I think they expected us to offer a prayer or something - we just took a picture and tried not to stare or giggle too much.  They were super sweet Nuns and super dedicated to what they do.  

After the convent we stopped by Speakers Corner in Hyde Park to listen to the preachers and whomever else wanted to share their opinions.  It's been a traditional spot of free speech for centuries and many of the early Mormon missionaries in England preached the gospel on this corner.  We listened to one Christian preacher for a while that was convincing, but he had to contend with non-Christian hecklers, which made it difficult for him to share his message.

Our final London stop, and for that matter, event of the summer was a Sunday organ concert in Westminster Abbey.  That is the best way to see any Abbey with the organ filling the great expanse of space.  The organist rocked the organ.  He didn't pick out the slow organ funeral marches, but the up beat, sometimes modern, dance across the keyboard, bring down the house organ songs.  I love listening to the organ.  

Well - that's all she wrote folks.  For those of you reading along at home I apologize for my quick, unedited, personal journal entries.  Sorry none of the pictures were labeled (I'll do that when I have a computer).  Hopefully you enjoyed our adventures right along with us.  A final shout out to my children who exceeded my expectations as world travelers.  They did amazing in new circumstance, with new food, less than comfortable living situations, long days, long walks and  "boring" museums.  We've never had so much continuous family time and I wouldn't trade a day of our summer for anything.

Natural History Musem

Entering Hyde Park

Tyburn Convent

One of my favorite pictures of the summer