End of our second week

 

Dear Family and Friends,

We can't believe that we've been in London for a whole 2 weeks. Everything has been amazing! As I was telling some of you, one would think that in a country that speaks the same language, things would be pretty similar but not so. There are differences in electricity, the sizes of bedding, food, washing clothes, using an oven, the money, and the list goes on. The post boxes are even different! So it has been an adjustment learning to live here.

Our flat is very nice. It's in Chelsea and a garden flat. That means it's the ground floor with it's own entrance and has a small garden in the back. I am excited to see what it looks like as the weather gets warmed. There are 2 bedrooms, a sitting room, bathroom and small galley kitchen. I'm calling the style English Quaint and I love it.

We work about 35 hours a week in the London Family History Center, which is on the ground floor of the Hyde Park Chapel/ Mission Offices complex. It's in the center of the museum district in London and a block away from Hyde Park. It's a very exciting area to work in. We are experiencing a huge learning curve. It's very much like taking a new job and feeling very overwhelmed. We not only have had to learn how to run the center but also how to help patrons use the resources available in the center and websites for British research. Since the research here covers the entire British Empire we also are learning about records from other countries such as Jamaica and Australia.

Our Sunday assignment is the North London Ward which is in East Finchley- I love the English names. To get there takes 1 1/2 hours. First we take a red double decker bus to Earls Court Tube Station. Then we take the tube in the district line to the Embankment. There we change trains and go on the northern line to the East Finchley Station. The photo below is East Finchley High Road.

 

From the station we take bus 234 to the chapel. There are several American couples and the Bishop is an American. There are also people from all over the world in the ward- Africa, Scotland, Norway, Canada, to name a few. We gave talks today introducing ourselves. We will have callings for Sunday only. Everyone seems very nice.

London is very diverse. As someone pointed out to us, since the British Empire covers a lot of territory, those people can freely come to England. We hear more people on the street speaking a foreign language than speaking English.


As the people here say in closing,
Best Regards,
Elder and Sister Fugal (aka Cheryl and Ken, Mom  and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa)