Institute / Church Surprise

i have to back up a bit to write about what happened on thursday night first.

Institute
i was debating in my head whether or not to go to institute. i knew it would probably be worth it if i went but it sounded so nice to just go home and relax for the evening. i was literally in the tube watching the train come to a stop as i was debating this in my head. as soon as the train stopped i decided to just go home. but then the doors opened and it was so crowded and so many people were trying to get on that i just turned around and walked toward the train that would take me to institute. and thus i went.

i walked in and finally got that hello and welcome that i really missed on the first day of church. and it came from the institute teacher - a really nice older guy named Worek (sp?). he was like the epitome of an old British scholar. it was wonderful. and he introduced me to a couple of other guys in the room. i was early so there were only like 4 of us in the room. he also introduced me to one girl from texas. we really hit it off and fell in love and decided to get married. jk... i know someone was waiting for a story like that. ;) but we did have a good conversation, and i finally got the local friend i've been waiting for. she's been here 2.5 years going to a university here. she just decided to do it right out of high school. and i was talking to her about where i could possibly keep my luggage while i'm gone for two weeks - something that's been troubling me quite a bit. and she offered to keep it at her place. so that's wonderful! and a load off my mind! as for the institute class, all we did was watch the last ces broadcast by elder nelson. and we discussed it a little afterwards. next week is actually the last institute class and it's a quiz so i'm not sure if i'll go. we'll see.

Church Surprise
first of all, i got to be someone else's "friend" today. there was a girl by herself here from utah. she's in bath for 4 weeks and was in the area this week for church. so i got to show her where to go for everything and let her sit next to me and all. i also introduced her to the girl from texas so she had someone to go to RS with.

interesting note - the sunday school teacher was american and he asked the people in the class to raise their hand if they were american. 2/3 of the class raised their hand. he asked the brits to raise their hand. about 4 people did. he asked the people from anywhere else to raise their hand. about 6 people did. isn't that crazy? definitely not what i was expecting.

so after sunday school was over, i hear a faint "tom!". i turn around and molly beard is looking at me with a big look of surprise on her face. of all the places! we spent third hour just talking. turns out she's touring europe for the summer. she's a teacher now and gets summers free, so she's spending this one touring europe. she's been in london for 5 days and will move on to france at the end of this next week. the poor girl is going through the same stress i went through when i first got here but on a much larger scale bc she's alone. she's doing this alone!! she didn't like the look i gave her when she told me she was doing this alone (it was the look of 'you've gotta be insane'). she thought it would go a lot easier than it is. she was telling me she's seeing all these sights and can take pictures but can't point out things to anyone else. she said this is the most she's talked to anyone in 5 days. she said it's weird literally having no one to talk to. interesting point. so i suppose it was really helpful to her to have me to talk to today, not to mention just to see a familiar face. we're both gonna venture out to fhe tomorrow, and we'll probably meet again to do something on thursday. so yeah, that was a big surprise for me today.

saturday was a celebration for the queen's birthday so here's a few pictures from it: