Love is IN THE AIR!

It's official. I'm a sister again. Don't worry, I don't mean my parents are having another child. Amber's simply GETTING MARRIED and I'll have a new brother. I can't believe it!!! Okay actually I can.. I've actually been expecting it. But still! It's going to be a wee bit difficult to help plan the wedding while I'm overseas, but by golly I'm gonna do my best! I skyped with Mitch and Amber last night and everyone at the center knows I'm crazy now. I was screaming and jumping around like a fool. 

This weekend was full of shopping and walking. I think I've walked 20 miles in the last 2 days! Saturday morning we walked all the way down to Portobello Road. Which just that was exciting! Yes, I walked down a street that has a song written about it. So of course I had to take a picture... and sing the song while I was doing so.. of the street sign. P.S. Street signs here are weird. They are just on the side of whatever building is on the corner. None of the green sign on a post stuff I'm used to. But Portobello Road has a HUGE market every Saturday morning and it was so so fun! There was food and jewelry and clothes and.. everything! We found a stand with tons of scarves for WAY CHEAP! So I bought 3 scarfs for 5 pounds. Score! The only bad part was the fact that it was super windy and miserable weather.. I've decided wind makes everything bad. It can be cold, just don't give me wind. Later that day we walked down to Herrods (biggest department store EVER) and attempted to shop/eat. Holy yeah right! It was so packed it was impossible to breathe! Everyone was on edge because of the crowds and noise.. not to mention how expensive everything was.. so we went to a little restraunt called Giraffe instead. SO YUMMY! Liz and I played this game as we walked: I would point to a random person we passed and she would make up their life story. Then we'd switch. You wouldn't believe the things some people are going through here in London. It's unreal! 

Today was the biggest adventure of all: Church. We were given our ward assignments last week, so today was our first day going to our wards. I was assigned with 4 others to the London North ward. It starts at 10, so naturally we left at 8:30. NATURALLY! I think the furthest I ever remember driving to church is.. maybe 15 minutes? And I was a kid so it was probably actually 5. So we leave to get on the tube, but as we're hopping on the doors close really fast and Ashlie gets left behind! We tell her we'll wait at the next station. We waited 40 MINUTES! Ha she accidentally took the wrong line and.. long story short it took us about 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to church. The ward was SUPER small and barely had enough people to fill the needed callings. As soon as sacrament meeting ended the Primary President jumped all over us. I'm now the Primary Pianist/Teacher assistant. It was so humbling to be in a ward where every member had to sacrifice SO much just to get there. It was so diverse (ethnically AND spiritually) and unlike any church thing I've ever been a part of. I'm so glad that I am having this experience. Already I feel so humbled.. and it's only been one week! 

Funny story about our Relief Society though. Our teacher was struggling with her english a little bit, but was doing a great job. She was talking about how important it is to keep Unity, and to make her point wrote up on the board U = E + L. Unity = E+L? She then wanted us to guess what E and L stood for. The class got Love right away, but then couldn't figure out what the E was for! We kept guessing and guessing! Finally, she decided to just tell us. She wrote on the board: Unity= Love + ESPIRITUALITY. Espirituality???? Yeah. We tried to tell her that espirituality was not an english word, but she didn't get it. She just said "yes, but it is close, no?" hmm.. except for the FIRST LETTER PART! Which is only what we were guessing. Haha I was laughing so hard. It was so cute of her.

Oh. Plus there are two old ladies in our ward that I'm pretty sure are crazy.

Other things I've learned about London: 1) Everyone has a dog, and their dog always MATCHES THEM and  2) Londoners don't wear pants - It's tights only with a long shirt/dress! 

"Portobello Road, Portobello Road!" Those are actually the only words to the song I know... 

 Me, Kinsey, Ashlie, Sharron, Liz, Elise, Paige, Annie, and Karly chillin at the tube station. Dang we're cool. 

For Mitch: This is the office Jane Austen once published her books at. And a famous line from one of these books: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."