A Visit from the Mayor

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Church in Warwick was another great experience for me—I really enjoyed the way the branch seems to just get straight down to business instead of asking surface level questions like some wards back in Utah. The talks in sacrament meeting sparked some really good ideas for one of my essays. I love it when things work like that! Again, our group doubled the size of Relief Society, though it was nice to see more young people in the branch due to the presence of a university.

Since we’d already moved out of our hotel rooms, we spent the day in the church, preparing lunch and practicing for our fireside. We’d been informed that morning that the mayor of Warwick along with some of the city council members would be attending, so we were anxious to get in some practice. Luckily, I wasn’t doing anything besides the choral number, so I got to spend a lot of time in the upper rooms of the chapel catching up on my scripture reading.

When the dignitaries arrived, they were all wearing large gold or silver chains with medals around their necks. It seems the whole elected office thing has a bit more ceremony than in the states. The fireside was interesting—our theme was supposed to be missionary work, but the presence of non-members had caused the topic to develop more into why we share our beliefs with others. I wondered the whole time what the mayor thought of these ideas, though I never really got a chance to ask him.

After the fireside, we caught a coach out to Stratford-upon-Avon Youth Hostel. Shakespeare bonanza, here we come!

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