Remember

We spent another fun day P-day Monday November 4th in London. Since we don't have a car, we don't leave the temple grounds the whole week except going to church on the mini-bus. So, on our day off we are ready to go to London. This time we went to the Westfield Mall again.  Spent some time there (had a pedi!) and then hopped on a bus to ride to Piccadilly Circus (a circus is an open circular area where several roads join, no elephants or trapeze artists!). The large jumbo-tron was showing highlights of the recent Rugby World Cup Championship match between England and South Africa in Japan.  England lost, but it has been a very big deal here. Nobody at home even knows that there is a Rugby World Cup...neither did we!

 It was a great ride along Hyde Park and down Oxford Street.  All of the Christmas decorations were beginning to be put up. 

 This fountain sits almost in the middle of Piccadilly Circus.  It is Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain
made in the late 1890's. It is in honor of the Earl of Shaftesbury, Antony Ashley Cooper...yeah, we don't know who that is either.

  

 From here we walked over to Leicester Square. We sat inside and had some hot chocolate. 

It was a very cold day.

 We enjoyed being back in Leicester Square since it was the first place we went in London back in May.  They were busy setting up the Christmas Market and the lights in the trees.

 

 From there we walked over to Seven Dials.  It has a food market we wanted to check out.
Seven dials is a road junction where 7 streets converge.  At the center is a column with six sundials.  Six sundials because it was commissioned before the addition of the seventh road, originally there was to be six.  It is a wonderful part of town with narrow cobblestone streets, shops and restaurants.

Seven Dials Food Market has lots of different restaurants, but this one caught our eye.
It's call The Cheese Bar and it is like a sushi-go-round, only with plates of different cheeses.
And...the cheese here in the UK is Amazing!!

 From there it was over the Covent Garden Apple Market.
Here too they have been putting up the lights.

 From the ceiling they have giant misletoe hanging...

No lights on yet, but it's going to be pretty.

St Paul's Church Covent Garden.  Completed in 1633, it is nicknamed "the actor's church".

 We stopped for dinner before heading back at Palm Court Brasserie and had

Moules Frites, yummy!  Real candles with real flames on the tables!

The following weekend we started our Remembrance Day Sunday celebrations at the Hyde Park Ward. Remembrance Day here in the UK is a very big deal.

It, of course, is on 11-11, but they really celebrate here on the second Sunday in November.

It began in 1919 as declared by King George V in celebration of the end of WWI.
In America it is Veteran's Day, but it is not celebrated like it is here in the UK.

At 11 o'clock in the morning there is 2 minutes of silence and it is observed throughout the United Kingdom.  We were in Sacrament Meeting and we stood reverently and silent for 2 minutes.  All noise outside stopped.  We were in the middle of London and it was all quiet.  It was a moving experience to think that all were standing throughout the country and remembering those who gave all in WWI and WWII. America sent troops to fight in the wars, and many were lost, throughout the world, but here bombs were dropping, perhaps that is the difference of the importance of this day to them. The talks were excellent about remembering.  Remembering those who served and sacrificed and also remembering our Savior who also sacrificed himself for all the people who ever lived on the earth.

We wanted to get to the Cenotaph where the Royal Family remembers by placing wreaths at the memorial. It is THE celebration in town so it was very crowded even hours later.  Almost every town in the UK has a war memorial of some kind and each town has a ceremony at the memorial on Remembrance Day. Most wards in the UK either participate as part of their Sunday services or church on that day is postponed until later in the day so all can attend the memorial services in town.  Our East Grinstead Ward has a shortened Sacrament Meeting and then as a ward they walk to the town's memorial for the service.

This is the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London.  A cenotaph is a monument to someone buried elsewhere, especially one commemorating people who died in a war. (I had to look up the meaning because I wasn't sure what it meant.) This cenotaph was first erected at the end of WWI as a temporary monument.  A couple years later it was made a permanent monument and is actually right in the middle of the street.

Poppy wreaths were laid by Prince Charles, representatives of local civic leaders, the armed forces and ex-servicemen among others.  The poppy can be seen everywhere. There is a Poppy Factory that makes poppies throughout the year to sell and employs veterans. 

 The poppy is the symbol of Remembrance and a show of support for those currently serving.

The poem written in 1915 by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of Remembrance. He wrote this poem after seeing poppies growing in the battle-scared fields.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders' fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders' Fields.

 The Queen and other members of the Royal Family watch the ceremony from the balconies of the Foreign and Commonweath Office.  These blue buntings are at the balconies where they stand and were later removed.

Westminster Abbey had a Field of Remembrance where members of the public can make personal tributes with a cross and poppies. There were lots of veterans proudly wearing their medals on their jackets and poppies everywhere.  We will not forget this day in London and the feelings we had as we participated in Remembrance.

 We walked up the street toward Trafalgar Square passing the Royal Horseguard.

The Christmas Market was open at Trafalgar Square.
We had a brat and some churros.

It was a beautiful clear day, but really cold.  We walked up and had dinner at Bubba Gump
and then walked back down the street.
The buses were all diverted because of the road closures for Remembrance Day.

 

 The moon was bright and full as we walked back passed the Cenotaph.
That is the moon in the middle of the Eye.

 The next morning we rode out to Tower Hill station to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.

There was lots of traffic on the bridge and we were trying to get a picture of this sign but couldn't because of all the cars passing.  A nice lorry (truck) driver saw us and stopped so we could get this shot!

 The bridge was built between 1886 and 1894 and is iconic to London.
 
 This bridge is so beautiful.  We decided to take the tour and go inside.

 The views are beautiful and we had really good weather, no rain, but cold and windy.

 In the bridge they have a section with a glass floor so you can see the river and road below.

 Shard to the left and walkie talkie to the right...that's what they call those buildings!

There is a mirror in the ceiling above the glass floor to taking selfies.
We are standing on the glass looking up to the mirror so we can see ourselves standing above the road and river. Lots of people lie down on the glass for this selfie.

While we were in the top of the bridge the drawbridge opened to let a ship pass.
We watched it open through the glass floor.

Then a tug boat went under pulling a military ship that was flying a French flag.

The crew was on deck standing at attending in line down the center and also taking pictures themselves. Pretty awesome thing to go under Tower Bridge.

The reflection in the glass is kinda bad, but you could see the ship really well.

There it goes out the other side.

Those two walkways above are where we were with the glass floors.
And that is where the bridge opens, between the two towers.

Fun Fun! That's Tower Bridge! We still sometimes can't believe we are here.

That sky!

View of the Tower of London after we crossed the river over the bridge.
Once again, we had an amazing couple days in London.

But, we come home to this view, we can't believe how blessed we are and thank
 our Heavenly Father everyday for this and all our other blessings.

We had stake conference this weekend.  Great meeting on Sunday.

Elder Alessandro Dini Ciacci was the visiting authority.  He is from Italy.

President Irwin our temple president also spoke.  We loved what he said about happy endings.

He and his wife used to go to the movies and on the way home if there wasn't a happy ending, they would make one up.  We don't have to make up our happy ending.  The temple is where we make happy endings.  We love thinking of it that way!

 We had an American Thanksgiving Dinner on our P-day 25th November.

 Lots of great people

and lots of delicious food.!

We had a really amazing experience in the baptistery last week. 

There were 2 families booked in.  When they arrived we discovered that they were pretty much all over 80 years old.  They had several family cards to do and each thought the other booked in might have youth to do their baptisms for them.  Well, no youth.  Just these seasoned, lovely people. 

They decided that they could do these baptisms themselves.  We had a baptizer that was 89 years old and one 90.  Two brothers and one sister did 62 names. One of the men did his brother's work.  The spirit was so strong.  What a privilege to participate with them.  When they were leaving they were happy and giggling that they had completed what they did.  When they came in they never would have believed that they would be the ones in the font. We saw them in the temple everyday that week as they completed those family cards. Temple work is a a joy!