Thanks to the jet lag and an early bedtime, getting ready on time for 9 am church was easy. We were all awake by 3 am, so even after showers and a breakfast of protein bars, trail mix and water we were out the door by 8 to begin making our way to the Hyde Park Chapel. With the closures on the underground line to our hotel and with being a little disoriented about what direction we were facing when we got off of the subway, it took us the full 60 minutes to get to Church.
Father and son on a Sunday morning.
The green District Line. It's so peaceful on the trains so early on a Sunday morning.
Our lovely stop at South Kensington station.
Testimony meeting was so beautiful with a variety of experiences shared mostly by converts. But as Jacob said, "It just feels like home no matter which of our buildings you're in." The missionaries showed us several of the displays to watch in their Visitor Center area and then we took advantage of our selfie stick again before heading off on the rest of the day's adventures.
This is the screen shot of the map showing our route for the day. We started at the blue dot, the church, and ended at Big Ben before making our way over to St Paul's Cathedral. Here's what we saw along the way:
The Royal Albert Music Hall - someday we really need to see an event there.
Various water fowl on the Serpentine in Hyde Park
and gardens that were still remarkably green
We walked until we reached the south tip of the park at Hyde Park Corner - where President Hinckley, along with probably hundreds of others, preached as a missionary.
We then followed the crowds under the Wellington Arch
Buckingham Palace
where Jacob finally discovered the joy of mom's silly selfie stick. (And yes, he did wear his bowtie from church all day!)
We took a peak down The Mall, but opted to take Birdcage Walk to help us reach
Westminster Abbey.
We took a break at this point and finally stopped for some food. We found a fun pub with London style food and had a hearty lunch, arriving back at Westminster just in time to attend their Evensong. It was a mass-type service with organ, choir, scriptures and prayer. It's the cheaters way of getting to see inside the Abbey without having to pay for the tour. We got to pass Sir Isaac Newton's tomb on the way out, so it was worth the hour long service.
We stopped to admire Big Ben and spent some time on the bridge, ending our walking tour of the heart of London - and good thing because it was getting really cold at this point.
We had to make some creative underground changes to reach St Paul's, but it was an item at the top of Sarah's Bucket List so it was a must to get her there. It was just starting to get dark when we arrived, which gave us a beautiful, bright blue sky for a backdrop.
As we headed back to the subway station, we decided to do a little detour since we were so close to the Millennial Bridge and knew the skyline would be beautiful at night.
It took at least an hour to get back home with the underground closures, so going to sleep was no problem for us - and helped us to be ready on time for our 6:30 am flight to Vilnius via Warsaw, Poland.
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