the sunday from ... you-know-where

No picture for today, folks.  Today was traumatic enough without one.  It started off like any other Sunday: get up, start getting ready, head downstairs to devour lots of bananas and that really great yogurt with little bits of cookie in it.  But it turns out that the Hyde Park stake (aka the stake that Alvaro and Thais -- the amazing food people -- attend) had switched its fast Sunday to today.  I'm not a member of the Hyde Park stake and it wasn't my fast Sunday, but somehow that message either wasn't relayed to Alvaro or conveniently ignored, so we embarked on a centre-wide enforced fast.  It's not really that bad to not eat breakfast, but it's slightly disappointing when the only reason I didn't gobble up a midnight snack on Saturday was the thought of breakfast on Sunday.  But I decided to be in a good mood anyway and managed to get ready and leave the centre by 8:45.

We hopped onto the District Line and headed to Wimbledon. Halfway through, the train made its normal stop at Parsons Green. Here's where the problems began. The conductor announced that the train wouldn't be continuing on, so we'd have to get off and wait for the next train.  We weren't panicked yet because when we got off, we saw that the next one was coming in 5 minutes.  So I hopped around like a crazy person because I was cold (actually I didn't do that, but I wanted to) and finally the next train arrived. The doors opened and a lady stepped off and said, "The train's stopping here." So it turns out that the entire line closed.  This was a problem because A) We were in Parsons Green and B) We had no idea where Parsons Green actually is. So we ran to the bus stop, which, let me tell you, was not all that easy to find, and promptly discovered that Mitcham (where our ward is) wasn't on the map.  So we asked some nice man to help us, and he said something like, "Get on the bus, head to Putney, get on a train to Clapham Commons, swim the English channel, hitch a road on a freight, tap dance across South America, surf back to Africa, parasail into Birmingham . . ." I forget the rest. But seriously, there were a billion steps to his directions.  So we nodded and pretended like we understood and then hopped on the bus.  

We sat there for a few stops, then transferred to another bus that said it would take us to Mitcham.  At this point, we realized that Mitcham is probably a decent-sized suburb of London (if you can call it a suburb -- I'm not sure what the proper word is) and we know exactly one corner in the entire area because that's where our church is located.  We knew that this corner is by the tramlink, so we asked the bus driver which stop would get us closest to that.  He said that we were on the wrong bus and told us which one to transfer to.  So we hopped on that bus.  A few stops later, things started to look a little familiar, so we hopped off.  Bad plan.  We realized it was the wrong stop about 5 seconds after we got off, so we had to wait for another bus to come pick us up.  By this point we were definitely panicking because -- I may have forgotten to mention -- Rachel and Courtney were speaking in sacrament.  We finally arrived in Mitcham (at the exact corner we wanted), so Rachel asked if the bus driver could just let us off.  He said no, because obviously we're Americans and it would be completely out-of-character for him to be helpful, so we had to wait until the next bus stop.  We ran back to the church, which was probably really funny since we were in dresses and nice shoes, and arrived just as the clock struck 10:45 (sacrament started at 10).  We were torn between being really embarrassed, wanting to leave, and wanting to laugh so we didn't cry.  George, my favorite 12-year-old, was randomly standing there and he said, "You missed it!" We explained what happened and he said, "You took five buses? Why did you do that? That's stupid! There's one that comes straight here." Then he proceeded to give us a look like we were probably the most pathetic creatures on the planet. I kind of wanted to drop him off in South Jordan and tell him to try to get to Salt Lake and see how he'd like it. Good luck, kid. But actually that wouldn't be fair because Americans actually like British people so they'd probably be way too helpful. As we passed the first door (we'd decided not shame ourselves more by walking in and taking the front row and instead sit in the gym and listen), Elder Kendell happened to look over and he started laughing.  I'm glad someone found it funny (actually I found it a tiny bit funny, but that's probably just because I'd already given my talk so basically it was a lack of sympathy on my part). Turns out everyone thought we'd forgotten the time change and that's why Courtney and Rachel missed their talks. So to protect our pride we had to inform everyone that no, we hadn't forgotten the time change, and actually the District line had closed down with us on it, then we wandered around Parsons Green, basically walked through all of England . . . actually I'm pretty sure what I actually managed to say when Elder Kendell came over to gloat was, "Five buses!" before we crawled away and hid under a rock.

Then he said, "Elder Hatch wanted to come talk to you guys about your talks after church" -- so obviously I'm not really all that important because clearly I'm not included in that group -- "but since you didn't give them, he couldn't."

Such sympathy.  It touched my heart.  And this coming from the missionary who had never spoken a single word to us before.

Then he said, "I told him I'd come talk to you guys instead since he couldn't," (wouldn't? He's normally not that shy) and informed us that General Conference would be played at the Stake Center on Saturday and we should definitely be there.

Turns out that both he and Elder Hatch are going home in just a few months.  So somehow their friendliness now kind of makes sense.  Maybe they're finally seeing the light at the end of the run!-it's-a-girl tunnel.

Primary was slightly better than the earlier part of our day in the sense that Ramsey (or Abba -- they're sisters and I can't tell them apart still) only ripped about half of my hair out of my head when she "plaited" (aka braided) it.  This is an accomplishment because normally I come home practically bald. And then the Elders Quorum president (who's like 21 -- crazy!) checked the Transport for Londoners website on his phone and informed us that the District line was up and running again.  It took me about 30 seconds to figure out what he was talking about (Phone? What is that? I think I had one of those once . . .) then we crawled back to the tram station in shame.

Actually it wasn't all that bad. The ward members were really nice and the first counselor was very understanding.  The youth probably hate us because they had to bear their testimonies about some youth activity they had over the weekend to fill in for us. But yeah. I wouldn't recommend missing your talk in the near future. And if you do, blame it on the District line.