SUNSHINE!

Today a miracle happened: the sun was shining all afternoon. :) We started out the day early--the earliest day yet, walking to the bus and then driving to Coniston, a town on Conistonwater (go figure...haha), and enjoyed a day of Ruskin. We met the branch president of the branch we're going to tomorrow, because he works at the Ruskin Museum there and we had class at Ruskin's grave and then went to the museum and then took a boat across the water (random fact: there is only one lake in the Lake District. the rest are waters or meres) to Ruskin's house, Brantwood. There is was rainy, until our three hours there were done and then it was sunny for our 4-mile hike through the woods to where the coach was picking us up again. We saw some really odd forest sculptures, got really yummy Toffee cake, and played on a playground, including an awesome game of tag with a really fun British boy named Oliver. He was nine and reminded me of Mikey.

Tomorrow is Sunday and I'm very excited. Hooray for Sundays! This is our first meeting with an actual branch here, since last Sunday was just us. The branch president is a wonderful man, and we're doing our first fireside that evening. I'm playing piano for most of the songs, but I'm happy that I get to sing a bit too. We also need to provide a rest hymn, so 3 other girls and I are singing "Our Savior's Love" as a quartet. I get to sing tenor up an octave. :) Hooray hooray! Then we're heading off to Malham, so this is our last night here in Grasmere.

So. That's about it. Today's been long. I need to go shower in our ghetto, electric shower and then pack my suitcase (aka probably getting fed up and just stuffing everything except my church clothes into it). Tomorrow is average wake-up time, rather than early.

I <3 England!

P.S. The piano at Brantwood in the drawing room is open for anyone to play, so us BYU kids kinda took it over. I was just sad that I don't have much music memorized. It's basically just the Ravel and even that is just the first 1-2 pages out of 8. Sadness. But I loved hearing Emma play Pride and Prejudice.
P.P.S. If you don't know Ruskin, wikipedia him. He was great at everything! Writing, painting, drawing, gardening, he even composed too...but time is out! Cheers!