October 28
Today was the first day of my imminent doom. Also known as my first day of church in the Lea Valley Ward. These next few Sundays of my life are sure to be filled with all sorts of fun surprises. Well, I suppose I'll explain myself. So we get off the tube, mind you it was the last stop so it was on the outskirts of town and step out into what I can only describe as the Harlem of London. The streets were crawling with nasty people who look like they snort cocaine in their spare time and who would like to take advantage of 3 young blonde girls. You know, normal stuff. So we were walking down this street trying to find the chapel, all the while passing sketchy people and sketchy stores, not exactly sure where the turn is. One of the banks that we passed even had a sign on the door that said, 'for the safety of our staff, we have shut down this branch'. That made me feel safe. We finally found a map on the back of a bus stop and realized we had gone too far, so we turned around and about 2 blocks down the road this sharply dressed middle aged man came up next to us asking if we were looking for the LDS church. We must have looked a little out of place... I mean just a shot in the dark. We heard a car's exhaust pipe pop and thought we were getting shot at, all 3 of us jumped so high. But so this nice man told us where the church was and that he was going there, too. He even asked if we were from BYU, after we said yes he was telling us that he could always pick out the BYU students in those parts.
After we finally finished our scary journey to the chapel, we met with the bishop and he asked us all about our previous callings and whether we could play the piano. It was the first time in my life I was grateful that I couldn't play the piano. We also found out that we had a talk assignment in 2 weeks, lucky us. Now this ward that we are now a part of is quite an interesting one, to say the least. If you walked into that chapel not knowing where you were, you'd think you were in the middle of the Congo. Everyone was dark brown and had immigrated from some part of Africa so it's kind of hard to understand them sometimes. There's also a few mexicans thrown in there, too, so we were definitely about 3 of 8 white people in the whole congregation. It's going to be a cultural experience, that's for sure.
The best part about church, though, was the fact that during the third hour we had a combined relief society and priesthood meeting to talk all about safety. Topics covered:
- Keep the chapel doors locked at all times, unless it is between 1-4 on Sunday afternoons during church
- Women are under no circumstances allowed to leave the chapel alone after dark or even dusk
- Children are to be kept in the classrooms at all times and kept a good eye on so that no one wanders into the building and steals peoples' offspring
- Anytime you come to building when it is not church, ring the doorbell and identify yourself
- Don't let anyone in the building you don't recognize
- Pick up your children right at 4
- Be wary when you leave the building
I think that quite sums up my church experience. Let the fun begin!
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