No, Really, Today Was Amazing!

We started out in Preston, where we went to church and sang a musical number we'd been preparing over the past few weeks. They celebrated the 175th anniversary of the Preston ward/branch this year. It is actually the longest running active branch of the church in operation today, since the churches started in America kept on moving until they hit Salt Lake. We went to the Preston temple and walked around the grounds before picking up the architect who designed it. He gave us a tour around Preston, pointing out the various church history sites. We saw the apartment the first missionaries lived in (it's shut down and boarded up now, but it's still there!), the site of the first church meetinghouse, which was a place for rooster fights before the church bought it, the plaza where the missionaries preached to crowds of around 3,000 people, and the river where the first baptisms were performed. We also got to see the apartment where President Hinckley stayed when he was first a missionary. At the end of it all, our guide told us the story of how they managed to build a temple in Preston when there was significant opposition in the government and the community at the time. The story was amazing! I knew it was a story my family would want to hear and I was lucky to remember that I had a voice recorder shortly after he started telling it. I missed the opening minute or so, but I still managed to get most of it. We then enjoyed the beautiful drive from Preston up to the Lake District. We'll be in Ambleside tonight and tomorrow and then we're headed for Scotland! One week left of the British Isles and then it's off to Paris before heading home. I'm definitely ready to come back home. I think the Olympics happening while I'm here has accelerated this--all they talk about is Team GB, and rightly so, but I must confess I'm more interested in the American athletes. Plus it'll be nice to not have to use converters to plug everything in and it will REALLY nice to have water fountains and water in the toilets again! But I'm still looking forward to Scotland and especially to Paris and Disneyland! More tomorrow!