So here I am! Typing on a plane while flying over North Dakota. We are on a direct flight from Salt Lake (departed 9:00 pm Mon.) to London Heathrow (arriving 1:30 pm Tues.)

In case you’re wondering how to get from the Wild Wild West to the UK without a pit stop.

It’s been a very cool flight because although we are flying through the night, the sun is at a consistent dusk (or maybe dawn??). It’s fun to be so far North on the globe!

The “tube”

Paddington Station

Our hotel is one of these tall buildings along the canal.

We went to the cutest little grocery market to get some groceries for our week in London. It feels like a combination of Trader Joe’s, Ikea, and a gas station?? Super cool!!

After shopping, we had our “welcome dinner” at a pub along the canal.

Due to our anti-curfew, we were to stay awake and explore a bit. This is the part where my inner explorer gets giddy. On this trip, I haven’t made many plans aside from the ones where we need to reserve tickets and such. Mostly because I want to simply wander, explore and experience the places that we are in! Therefore, a couple friends and I decided to find a local piano concert near Portobello road. Once we got there, it looked like a law office?? Definitely not a piano concert venue haha. So instead we wandered and found this amazing cathedral. We soon discovered they were having choir practice and quietly sat outside the open door on a bench so we could listen but they wouldn’t see us.

The male and female pair that was singing sounded amazing together and it made me wish I knew Latin so I could understand the words they were singing.

Regardless, as we sat and admired the old architecture of the cathedral, I reflected on the stained glass piece displaying Jesus Christ. One of my goals on this trip is to find Jesus in the places I go. I know He is with us in our everyday and I want to focus on that during this trip. It was a very sweet and peaceful moment of reflection for the four of us.

Below are additional pictures from our “get lost” excursion.

Wednesday, June 29th 2022

We started our day with our first church history class in the basement of the Hyde Park chapel. Anika and I went to the Victoria Albert art museum which was super cool! I loved walking through the different exhibits and admiring the many different forms of art they have.

Our group did a tour together of Kensington Palace. It was neat to step into the past and see how royalty used to live. We took some fun pictures as well.

Views on the walk to Kensington.

A few of us gals on the trip went to “afternoon tea,” a common occurrence in England complete with tea (we stuck to herbal ;) ), little sandwiches, and desserts.

After tea, we made our way to King’s Cross station (reference to Harry Potter). All the other girls got onto a crowded train just fine but sadly the doors closed just before I got on. Haha it was quite humorous as I mouthed to them through the moving train, “I’ll meet you there.” It has continued to be an ongoing joke each time we get on the train. “Did Meysa get on!?”

 It was quite the fiasco getting back to the group, though I knew which station to go to. The group had exited out a different door than I had and it took a while to find them. But then I did! It was good fun once we were back together. Plus, we got to visit King’s Cross station which was a pretty crazy place and very fun to visit.

After going back to the hotel, I left with three of the photography students to Big Ben and the London Eye to take pictures at night. The nice thing about being with three stellar photography students, is it means I have three person mentors teaching me how to use a camera in manual mode. It’s challenging!! But fun. I need to upload pictures from my camera still, so for now, you get pictures from that night that I took on my phone. :)

Accidentally opened up on the selfie camera! Haha don’t you hate when that happens.

Thursday, June 30th 2022

We traveled to Oxford to visit the University and met with Reverend Teal, a Priest and Chaplain of Pembroke College. It was a neat meeting! Reverend Teal speaks so fondly and reverently of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He had only good things to say about it. In fact, he told us he visits the ward in Oxford nearly weekly! So cool.

He discussed the story of Abraham and Isaac with us and the implications of sacrifice. He taught us many new things based on translations of certain words in the story. As we applied the story to our lives today, he said something along the lines of, “If you give your life to the Lord, He won’t just take it. He’ll magnify it.”

Double decker bus!

Honestly, leaving London and going to Oxford was an answer to prayer. London is great and clean and busy and fun. But for me, it’s too busy. Going to Oxford felt quiet and peaceful. In fact, as we were walking down one of the streets in Oxford, there was a man playing the guitar and setting the mood for us as we walked down cobble stone roads with giant, ancient buildings and spires towering over us. Enjoy more pictures of Oxford:

My group and I, after a Tiki Masala fiasco (I will leave details out for this time), left Oxford a bit early to attend an ED SHEERAN concert! It was at the Wembley stadium and the entire place was packed. I’m not the biggest Ed Sheeran fan, but the concert was a total blast. Turns out, he’s a great entertainer! We were up on our feet for most of the concert and he was constantly giving us lines to repeat back to him. Most of the concert was a one-man-show. He has a peddle mixer and record a bit, loop it, record more, lay it on top, etc. It was phenomenal! Very fun to be a part of.

If there’s something I’ve learned about London (and I have a feeling this is true throughout the UK… I guess I’ll find out soon) is that the people love their alcohol. Many of the people leaving the concert were drunk and trying to get on the same train.

For this reason, we went the long way and walked to the next closest station to get home safe and sound. We even met some sweet concert attendees that we bonded with enough that we could ask their honest opinion on American accents. They said they love American accents! And think they sound friendlier than British accents. Thought I would include that in case anyone else was wondering.

This might sound silly, but I learned something of a spiritual nature while at the concert. While in new countries, I’m trying to focus on God’s love and Jesus Christ’s Atonement for ALL people. While sitting in the Wembley stadium, I looked across the thousands of occupied seats and realized they are ALL God’s children. God loves all of them and is happy to know them. Maybe He felt an abundance of love for the Wembley stadium since so many of the souls that He loves were gathered in one location.

Friday, July 1st 2022

We had our photography class again in Hyde Park. Then we ate some lunch and did some souvenir shopping.

Found one of those cool corner buildings!

With an assignment to complete, five of us went to the British Museum. The assignment was a scavenger hunt and had us all around the museum. A couple of the items on the list:

One of the exhibits we needed was closed :(

That night, I had tickets with a couple of other girls to watch Much Ado about Nothing in Shakespeare’s Globe theatre. It was amazing!! First of all, the set was incredible. But I also loved the script and the acting! The entire play was very well done and had me laughing the whole time.

Us girls got gelato for the first time on this trip (very far from the last time) and made our way home.

By the way, in between all of these events are long tube rides, many of them are very warm since they do not have air conditioning and are very low underground. We usually have a lot of fun on the trains, though. If they are willing, I try to talk with the locals around me and hear some of their story. They usually talk about their time in NYC when they hear I’m from America.

If we aren’t standing near any locals, then we usually like to “Subway surf.” This means riding the tube without holding onto the railings while also not allowing your feet to move. The other day, a local showed us a new way to play: balancing on one foot and not using the other one nor any hands. That one was hard!!!

Saturday, July 2nd 2022

The next day, I decided to skip out on the morning field trip and instead catch up on sleep. My body was telling me I needed sleep. I was exhausted!! That night I got 12 hours of sleep!! It was amazing. I really needed it.

After doing laundry, we left for DOVER! Definitely the highlight of the trip so far. We missed our train by 37 seconds and had to wait 20 minutes for the next one. While we waited, Owen and I made a new friend named Nick. He told us about Ashton and we related on living in a small town and feeling crowded in the city. He was very cool and helped us get onto the right train.

Dover was a dream come true! Ocean, small town, castle, white cliffs, and hiking! We had a blast exploring and taking pictures. Dover smelled so good and fresh and it was so much quieter than London. If someone told me I needed to live in Dover, I would not be sad.

Sunday, July 3rd 2022

Today was church and it was fun to hear testimonies from the saints in London.

We had a picnic outside of St. Paul’s Cathedral and attended Evensong. I was constantly amazed by the beautiful cathedral and loved listening to the words of the prayers and sermon. The singing from the choir was stunning as well. Another student and I stayed to listen to the organ recital afterwards. The organist was probably about my age and had been playing for 13 years.

After church, all of us have mostly been relaxing since we are exhausted from doing so many things each day. It’s crazy to think we’ve only been here for five days, because it feels like it’s been at least two weeks.

We leave on Tuesday for Stonehenge and Gloucester. Hopefully I’ll be better at writing updates… but no promises. ;)  

My only Fourth of July goal this year.

Buckingham Palace and the changing of the Guards was slightly uneventful but very cool nonetheless! In fact, they had a whole parade ordeal to go along with the changing of the guard. We kept saying to each other that I was very fun to still watch a parade on Independence Day! (Even though we were standing in the Country we become independent from 🙊.)

The palace in all of its glory.

I mostly took videos of the parade so this is the only picture I got.

Guards guarding the guard.

A fellow patriot!

After Buckingham Palace and hot dogs, we toured Tower of London as a group. The ones giving us tours are known as “beef eaters.” They have to have served in the armed forces for at least 22 years. They live in the Tower of London along with their families while they are employed there.

This is Katie!

Speaking of Katie… I ran into the Shepherds from Cortez while at the Tower of London! Small world!!

Katie Shepherd and I in front of the tower bridge! (Commonly mistaken for the London bridge.)

Tower bridge

The actual London bridge…

On the other side of the London bridge is the Borough market. Tons of food vendors! I forgot to take a picture… but I definitely didn’t forget to take a picture of the Mac n cheese I got there. ;)

After the Borough market, we went to WIMBLEDON to watch some TENNIS! It’s crazy timing that we were in London while the tournament was taking place, but it worked out great!

It’s actually very difficult to get tickets to Wimbledon. BUT once people have been at the tourney all day, they start to leave and they resell the tickets to people later in the day and give the proceeds to charity.

The timing worked out wonderfully! We got in line right in time to be able to go in and watch an entire match.

I didn’t know this, but there are mixed doubles at this tournament! We watched a female player from Canada and a male player from Australia play against a female player from India and male player from Croatia. It was such a fun game and had us in our toes!!

Spoiler: the team listed first (from India and Croatia) ended up winning the last set 7-5.

The atmosphere itself was so much fun. Take an average American football game and picture \240the exact opposite. Haha. All the women wear dresses and nice hats, everyone is silent during play, and they eat strawberries and cream. So much fun to be there and observe! I also got some good practice shooting for our photography class. (Once again, I have yet to upload them… whoops.)

After Stonehenge, we went to Lacock Abbey which is surrounded by the cutest little town! The abbey itself has been used on multiple filing locations including Harry Potter and Downton Abbey!

The house of Harry’s parents!

Classic Potter corridor.

Potions classroom!

Fox Talbot was a great pioneer in the world of photography. Prior to his discover of negatives, a photograph didn’t last very long without fading quickly with time. The first photograph that actually withstood time and didn’t fade was of this beautiful window in Lacock Abbey!

After Lacock Abbey, we went to our smelly Travelodge hotel in Gloucester where we stayed for two nights. It was nice to have a change of pace (Gloucester is a much smaller town) although it’s definitely not as nice or clean as London. BUT it is home to the largest cathedral in Europe!!??

After the cathedral, we visited the Gloucester docks! Some of the lost inland docks!

I got a lot of pictures of it! …. But they’re on my camera as you may have guessed. ;)

After that, we made our way into Ledbury, the cutest little town where we did some thrifting, pet some dogs, and picked up some yummy lunch!

“Janey’s” - the local ‘all day breakfast’ hub :)

Bacon, Brie, and cranberry panini! 😍 So good! Dad, you would have totally loved it.

Once we had eaten, we went to the Benbow farm. This is where Wilford Woodruff and others came to preach and had a lot of success! So many people were open to hearing the gospel here and got baptized! It’s amazing how the Lord prepares each of us individually.

After that, we went on a little hike to a point where many apostles have come to pray, bless, and deficate the surrounding areas. It was beautiful!! Great content for our photography classes. ;)

What it looks like to be on a photography study abroad.

This day I was sporting a particularly “frat boy” look.

Busses are for catching up on sleep. :)

That night, we rested for a bit and then Katie, Anika and I went shopping at the outlet mall attached to our hotel. Those close to me know that I love outlet malls. It was so much fun!

We ate dinner at T.G.I. Friday’s and got shakes at 5 Guys as if we were missing American food or something?? 🙄😂

The professors’ kids (7 total) let me join in on a game of “Cover your Assets” on the bus ride to Liverpool. We had a blast!!

This is what our church history class looks like on most days. Brother Esplin uses the Coach microphone to teach us!

There’s a little grocery store here that we all love! It’s called Marks and Spencer’s, also known as M&S. They have cheap, easy, healthy food that you can grab along your way! I would like to thank all M&S employees for making this trip possible. 😂

Our first Liverpool stop was the Marityme dock to see where more than 50,000 Saints had boarded ships bound for the States. There’s a monument there and it was very touching to imagine those faithful Saints board ships to America. I have always loved my experiences on Trek and this seemed to expand those experiences to think of those that had crossed the plains only after boarding boats to move continents.

Loved looking at this picture and thinking of a similar crowd of Saint many years earlier.

We went to the Marityme museum and learned all about Lusitania. Such a sad story.

I loved this iconic scene of two workers patching up the centuries-old cobblestone road. One was patching, both were chatting.

Our Liverpool hotel is very nice!! Anika and I have pull out beds in the kitchen and the other four in our apartment are in two separate bedrooms making six of us total.

We were all pretty tired and felt like taking a load off rather than hitting the town once again. Since the UK Netflix has some gems that the US Netflix doesn’t have, us girls cuddled up in our hotel room to watch the Kiera Knightly Pride and Prejudice. We could hear the seagulls outside the window while wallowing in the depth of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s attraction.

View from our hotel window.

I love Liverpool! It’s smaller than London, but nicer than Gloucester. In general, it has a better feel to it. Plus, beautiful, old buildings are common place. No pictures can do justice.

We had reservations that night for The Cavern Restaurant, sister to the Cavern Club which is where the Beatles often performed in their early days. Liverpool is the land of the Beatles!!

We of course made our way to the Cavern Club to hear some live music. \240This middle aged man did a great job of keeping us on our feet and singing alone. Many Beatles tunes were played, as I’m sure you could have guessed.

Our walk to the train station.

The receipt for all of our train fares.

Once we got to Preston, we walked to the mission home in Preston which is one of the last existing buildings of the mission.

One of the students asked if people still live here. Fortunately, the answer is no.

This is the town square of Preston where many missionaries stood to preach (back when that was the mode of preaching), including Gordon B. Hinkley!

A store front that we passed had old photos pasted on the windows. You can still see the glue that they painted onto the picture.

Preston!

Beatles t shirts!

Our next stop was the River Ribble where the first baptisms in Preston took place. The story goes that Wildord Woodruff was having great success teaching in the countryside yet felt prompted to go to Preston. Turns out, there were many people ready to learn and accept the restored gospel there. After teaching for only a few days, many were ready to be baptized and had a foot race down to the River Ribble. We replicated the foot race and it was very fun.

The River Ribble.

It was sweet to be in this place and think of those faithful people being so excited to be baptized that they raced to the River.

This next story is very dear to me! This day was packed with church history stops so if you’re not interested you’re welcome to skip to the next day. :) But if it were me, I would stay. ;)

Gordon B. Hinkley served as a missionary in Preston. We visited the flat that he lived in while there: 15 Wadham road. It was in this flat that he had the following experience:

Listening to this story while standing outside this building, I found myself hoping that the students in the group who had not yet served a mission would be feeling the same spirit I felt and be prompted to serve as a missionary. I wanted this for their own sakes and the sakes of the people that they would serve and bring to Jesus Christ and His gospel.

As I was so focused on these other people, I had the, “Lord, is it I” concept come in my head. Why was I focusing on what other people were thinking and feeling in that moment rather than focusing on my own personal application to the story being told? Perhaps it was because I had already served a mission. I used that time to reminisce on my mission and the joy I felt while serving others. I thought of all the people I had met and helped. I also thought of the miraculous growth I made while serving as a missionary. It made me wish I could go back and serve another mission. The love, joy and growth I felt while serving was real and long lasting.

Instead of trying to figure out how to cheat the system and serve another mission, I started brainstorming ways I can “forget myself and go to work” in my current circumstances.

I’ve learned that what President Hinckley taught during his life is true: the path to joy is in helping others.

More bus rides :)

Bonus points if you can find me in this picture. (I made it pretty easy. 😂)

One of my dream houses from this trip.

After Preston, we went to a small town named Chatburn where more preaching occurred in the early days of the church. Anika, Katie, and I ate lunch and found this beautiful chapel. No one was in it so we went inside to sit and admire the beautiful stained glass. There was a little prayer tree there so we wrote prayers for Ukraine and hung them up on the tree.

Anika’s photography project is on “Sanctuaries” (she’s in the advanced class and has to work on a project throughout the trip), so this little chapel was a perfect opportunity for her!

If you look closely, you can see that the right panel depicts a small timeline of Christ’s life.

The jogger gang!

More bus rides! Getting creative for nap time.

For the next part of our journey, we went to Charles to visit the temple. The Missionary Training Center is on the same piece of property (owned by the church) so I took some pictures of it for my coworkers back in Provo! (I currently work in the Research and Evaluation department of the Provo MTC and we often work on projects for the England MTC.)

Some of us did proxy sealings while in the temple. It was a sweet spirit, as usual. Just a little more chaotic since our girl to guy ratio on this trip is 3:1.

Me, Katie, and Anika!

Beautiful gardens outside the England MTC!

Double decker bus! (Mom’s request 😊)

Due to our frantic travel plans, we made it back to Preston with just enough time to eat dinner before catching one of the last trains to Liverpool. It was going to be a late night so we didn’t want to catch any later trains. Pressed for time, we searched for a place to eat. We found a couple spots but they honestly seemed a bit sketchy and none of us wanted to get food poisoning… miraculously, we found “The Cafe Bar” down one of the alley ways. When we asked out waiter how long the wait was and explained that we were trying to catch a train, we promised us, in his thick Italian accent, that he would have our food out to us in 15 minutes. We watched as he gave his team of chefs their orders and they worked diligently to meet our deadline. We felt so happy and taken care of! As a plus, the food was amazing!!! We were trying to stay away from Italian food as a preparation for our travels in Italy, but when all was said and done, we were glad we made this acception.

Antonio proving he met his end of the promise.

Such good food!

We got home late that night and did our laundry. Us girls had the chance to finish Pride and Prejudice while we waited for our clothes to dry. ;)

By a streak of luck, our two wonderful professors found a different bus company that would take us to Wales. However, their 53 seater bus was occupied so we split into a small coach and an 8 passenger van. Anika and I, along with 5 other students, went in the van for the 2+ hour drive.

Our driver’s name was Mudasa and it was basically the party bus!! Perks of being in the van is that we could plug in our phones to play music. This meant two hours of dance party on the way there and some acoustic music while watching the sun set on the way back. Though we were the ones providing music, Mudasa was in charge of the volume. Whenever he really liked a song we would crank the volume really loud!! We all got a good laugh out of it.

This bus crew! Minus Mudasa.

A very long tunnel Uber the River Mersey!

I’m officially OBSESSED with Wales. I’m simply bound to live there someday!

Opposite of the beautiful and perfect perfect beach is an evergreen forest. Really.. does it get any better??

The name of the town we were I was so long that it could even fit in my little weather widget.

The coach in front of us! It was too big to get into the natural reserve I just showed you, so our poor Mudasa had to shuttle our group in and out of the park.

Our next stop was Beaumaris where we ate dinner and then left for home. We had more on our agenda for the day, but because of the bus fiasco, we didn’t leave Liverpool until 1:00, severely abbreviating our day trip to Wales. :(

Fish and Chips on the Beaumaris pier!

Jennie, a Masters student on our trip, had her fish and chips completely swiped by the Seagulls! It was wild. Everything was gone within 10 seconds! This photo was after the fact…

Speaking of seagulls, Katie caught a seagull!! I long running bet within our group. One of the students said she would pay anyone $20 if they could prove the caught a pigeon or Seagull. Needless to say, Katie had her dinner paid for.

This dog was very excited about the seagull commotion.

Anika!

I wish oictures could do justice. This place was serene and good. The air felt so nice and there was an overall calm feeling as we toured the country. The people were kind AND we were blessed with nearly perfect weather. (Can you spot the moon in this pic??)

Katie, Anika, and Me!

Such a beautiful sunset. Pictures can do no justice.

Overall, I am a big fan of Wales. I fear I may have peaked while visiting Wales. I felt so happy and clear minded! It was so easy to feel good and think my own thoughts. I felt close to God and could hear His voice. As I reflect on my attendance on this trip thus far, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude and love for Heavenly Father. He truly knows what we need. This trip has been perfect for me. Even though going to BYU Jerusalem was a long term dream, this trip is what I need right now. And now He and I both know that.

Since our original bus company backed out on us, we had the same company from the Wales trip drive us to Scotland. The buses were very small and it was a literal miracle that we fit all of our luggage, and people into two small coaches! It was very hot and smelly, too.

Have you seen “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty?” Anika and I had to visit Papa Johns once we saw there was one in Edinburgh!

View from the Edinburgh hotel room!

Edinburgh castle!

Hiked Arthur’s seat! Where Scotland was dedicated for the preaching of the Gospel by Orson Hyde.

The next day was a tour of Edinburgh castle!

Outside the castle is The Royal Mile. This man taught us about the Jacobites!

Bagpipes throughout the Royal Mile!

Bacon, Brie, and jam panini! 😍

We went on Harry Potter tour around Edinburgh! J. K. Rowling a lot of the Harry Potter series in the city of Edinburgh so our tour guides (pictured below) showed us all around some of the significant sites. The above pictured cemetary is where J. K. Rowling would often go walking and where she got a lot of inspiration for her writing.

It’s hard to see, but this one is a headstone for Thomas Riddell. Sound familiar? She had to spell hers differently so that it would rearrange to spell

Potential inspiration for Diagon Alley!

My van buddies for the trip from Edinburgh to Pitlochry.

St. Andrews Cathedral

Me, Katie, and Anika

Dunnottar castle!

The first ever hostel I’ve stayed in! Very cute and fun. Feels like camping, but indoors.

The room we stayed in.

Driving with the Esplin family to the Isle of Skye!

Elian Donan Castle! We got to go in and talk with one of the tour guides. He told about the war tactics they used in building this castle to protect it the best they could. It was sweet to talk with him and get to talk to someone local.

Grocery shopping in a kilt. :)

Then we trekked out to Neist Point Lighthouse at Sunset. Absolutely BEAUTIFUL!! This view really sent itself to the top of my favorites list.

You can see the lighthouse in this one!

I love how the pink clouds reflect off the water.

Our cute hostel.

View from the hostel front door. It’s pretty okay, I guess.

The next day we did a hike called the “Quairing Walk”. AMAZING!!! What I consider classic Scotland views. It’s was rainy, misty, windy, and perfect.

This trip has been sponsored by PB&Js.

Rainbow!

Jennie can fully prepared on this trip with travel spices and everything!!

I’ve loved becoming friend with the kids on this trip. This is our photography professor’s daughter, Addie.

Photography class in the retro, old lounge of then hostel.

Hiked to the Old Man of Storr.

Some sound nutritional advice from the UK.

Hiking to the Fairy Pools.

Swim suit models in the Fairy Pools.

Cold, wet, and happy.

We were all starving after swimming in the fairy pools. So we left for Portree for dinner! Such a cute bay town.

Me and Janaya!

Anika and I eating fish and chips. It was AMAZING!!

Went for a walk with Janaya that night as the sun was setting. This picture was taken at 10:35 and the sun had just set!

Driving, snacking, and napping to our next destination!

Our newest napping formation.

Glen Etive walk/hike. The water was like a mirror!

Can you spot Meysa?

Once we got to Oban (the town we were staying in) Hannah and I both felt like going for a run. We found a random trail that took us to a beautiful lookout. Aka it was a steep run. But very good! And amazing views (and smells).

View from the top!

Oban at night. :)

Church the next day in Oban. We attended the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The people were all so nice! And we all enjoyed singing and listening to the sermon.

We then took a ferry to a small island near Oban. After walking for an hour, we came upon a cute tea house/garden and of course another castle!

This castle was cool because it was free/public. No tour guides, but you could take yourself all the way through!

Sadly, the only pictures I have of the exterior are on my camera… but this is a cool shot on my phone from the inside of the castle.

Saw some Hairy Coos on our drive!

We stayed the night in Stirling. Walked the streets, ate some very Scottish food for dinner, and stayed the night in a very old and cramped hostel next to a midevil prison (now a museum) with a cemetary separating the two buildings. Charming.

Hostel on the left, prison on the right, cemetary in between.

Our tiny room.

Neighbors!!! :)

Waiting for the rental vans to complete drop off.

Boarding the plane - all smiles.

4 hour line - all frowns. (Just kidding we played a gazzlion rounds of Spot It so it wasn’t all frowns.)

My after waiting fir 3.5 hours. (Please don’t judge me for spelling Duffel wrong haha… it had been a long day.) oh and for context, this picture was taken at 10:39 pm and our plane had landed at 7:00 pm, 2 hours after it was supposed to land.

One Professor had lost luggage, the other didn’t. So they communicated through this little window as if in prison haha.

Midnight bus ride to Venice! Our poor bus driver waited for us during all of those many hours.

Blurry Venice!

Midnight walk yo our hotel in Venice!

The cutest Italian hotel you ever did see.

Finally in bed! This picture was taken at 1:20 am. It was so hot and we were all very sticky.

Follow up on the lost luggage: This is not an update on the luggage status, but an update on how I’ve felt about the situation. There are many mixed emotions surrounding the 14 missing suitcases. Mostly sorrow and angry, some despair. From the beginning, I have felt calm and unworried. This experience has taught me the minimal importance of material things and the great importance of the untangible - relationships with God, Jesus Christ, family and loved ones as well as a sense of self confidence and being able to function during times of unideal material situations.

I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s good to build our foundation as the wise man did - on a rock and not on the sand. Surely the things we bring with us after this life \240are not things that can get lost in the Edinburgh airport.

The view from our hotel stairway. I could not get over how everyone keeps their windows and shutters open. So picturesque!

The shopping crew! (Katie and I are luggage losers… Anika was kind enough to shop with us.)

The walk to the store.

The aftermath.

My first Italian pizza! It was amazing.

You’ll be seeing a lot of street pictures in this post! So beautiful!!

Pointe Rialto

Gelato in Venice! (salted caramel on top raspberry in bottom… in case you were wondering.)

Katie the bird lady!

St. Mark’s square

St. Mark’s bascilica

Found the sweetest painter! His name is Alfredo. He was the first merchant to really talk with us and teach us things about art and life instead of only getting money out of us. It was so sweet to meet him!

Found a chapel in the middle of Venice.

I don’t know if you remember my goal to find Jesus while on this trip. But I really enjoy the chapels scattered throughout the cities we are visiting. It provides a wonderful opportunity to sit and ponder the significance of Jesus Christ in our lives while we leave the busy world outside for a few, quiet moments. This particular sculpture reminded me of Isaiah chapter 53. It talks about how Christ took upon Himself our pains, sorrows, and sins. As we are able to move forward in life, we must remember what He had to take upon Himself in order for it to be possible.

I only had one goal in Venice - eat dinner on the canal. Through some miracle, Katie was able to get our group of five a table right along the canal! It was surreal. In fact, as soon as we sat down, a man playing the accordion came over and serenaded us. I almost exploded.

Our next goal was to ride a gondola with an attractive Italian man as our guide. We had a really fun time.

This is Antonio!

Anotnio knew exactly what he was doing, man. He lined us right up with the Rialto and then asked for my phone to take our picture.

As our gondola ride was coming to an end, I asked Antonio asked what gondolas were used for historically. He explained it was for royalty as they made their way through Venice. Which of course led to him agreeing that we are all beautiful princesses. Haha ooh la la!!

We had so much fun walking home. Because the scenery and environment from the gondola reminded us so much of the Pirates if the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, we played the music from the ride as we walked home. Again, so surreal!!

Our cute little hotel is down this little corridor.

The view from our bedroom windows before leaving Venice the next morning!

We were sad to only have one day in Venice. But we definitely made the most of it!

Road trip on some crazy roads! Reminds me of driving to Silverton, CO on the million dollar highway.

Stopped in Cortina for lunch. This is where the 1956 Winter Olympics were hosted.

Destination of our hike!

This is the super nice hotel we are staying in! It’s basically in the middle of nowhere. Definitely my favorite place we’ve stayed so far!

View from the trailhead at 5:46 am.

Viva la Italia!

Me, Janaya, Jared, Anika!

I love hiking conversations. :)

All throughout the hike, there were cute lodges where you can use the bathroom and buy food. (I think some of them also act as hotels/hostels.) The one I’m pointing at is one we hiked to and then we had to go all the way down and all the way back up to where I was standing while taking this picture.

No wonder everything felt so Austria-esk!! It was all so beautiful. We all agreed we had to continually remind ourselves we were in Italy and not Switzerland or Austria. :)

Lots and lots of beautiful cows! Haha we had so much fun taking pictures of them. They all have bells around their necks. So as we hiked, we heard constant ringing. It was really cute and fun!

The watering hole!

Jennie! My friend!

The irony of this picture is we asked our photography professor to take it for us. Yet if you look closely, it’s a blurry picture.

Perks of hiking with photographers is you get some pretty sweet pictures of yourself!

The last six pictures were taken by Jennie.

Once we got back to the hotel, we were greeted with a rain and thunderstorm. This is the amazing view out of our bedroo lm window. So dreamy!!

Our taxi driver, Marco, took a few of us down to the town named Cortina. We spent some time exploring and eating some food.

Found a chapel in Cortina.

Our hotel!

Sunset from our window!

Ended the day with astrophotography! Anika and Katelyn have all the pictures on their cameras so I’m not able to share them at the moment. But we used my phone as the flashlight so their cameras would focus. Once we wanted to take a timed group picture with the stars in the background, we needed a bit of light, but not for the full duration of the shutter speed. So we put my phone on a timed photo using the flash to give us just the right amount of light. This is the picture that resulted. We had a lot of fun stat gazing and listening to the cow bells ring.

Cutest Alp town you ever did see!

The twin we initially parked at, Ortisie, is known for its wood carvings. I love seeing Christianity practiced in the art and creations of others.

Gondola gang! (Left: Brittyn, Katelyn, Bekah, Mikayla; Right: Me, Rachel, Anika, Katie)

Front view from the gondola.

Rear view from the gondola.

The peak!

The cows (and Ben) following us on the trail!

Back down!

Cutest mountain towns! They all felt a lot like Ouray, Vail, etc.

More views from our hotel room.

Random, but that morning this was the view from our hotel window (I love thunder in the morning.) and also my roommate Sarah Jane and I poking our heads out the window!

After our joyous baggage reunion, we made the long bus ride to Florence in a private coach.

First stop in Florence was the Duomo! Get ready to see some pictures of sweaty people climbing millions of stairs.

Golden gates sculpture

After the Dupmo, we went to the Accadamia museum to see the David and many other pieces of art and history.

Lemon and cantelope gelato! One of my favorite combos for sure.

We stayed in a convent run by nuns while in Florence! It was a new experience and I really liked staying there!

On our way to Cinque Terre, we drove through Pisa to take some typical photos of the leaning tower.

Cinque Terre is a cluster of five, colorful cities built on cliffs along side a bay of the Mediterranean Sea. If you’ve ever seen the Disney movie Luca, these are the towns that the movie is based in. They are beautiful and fun to visit! It’s all walking based with the exception of a few utility vehicles. And even then, they will often use hand-pulled carts and baskets to perform functions around the town.

The town we stayed in is called Corniglia (the g is silent). Because it is the city with the most stair climbing to get there, Corniglia is the least popular city out of the five. It also doesn’t have a great beach - it’s mostly just a dock that you can get into the water from.

However, BYU has a great hostel at the top of the hill that allows us to rent out their entire place. It was so hot and we were constantly sweating. But we were grateful to have a place to stay while in Cinque Terre.

(Pictured above are the 27 flights of stairs we had to climb to get to Corniglia. There’s a shuttle from the train to the top, but stubborn people like me that want to prove to themselves that they can do hard things opted for the stairs instead of the shuttle.)

Our yummy pasta dinner before running down to the beach to go swimming! There was a group of old Italian ladies sitting behind us, just talking and smoking. It was easy to tell that they were locals, spending the evening as they usually do - sitting in their chairs and staying caught up on the micro-town drama. At least that’s the story I told myself. ;)

Our super sweet, Italian waitress! She was so funny and kind to us! We all got a crack out of being with her.

Our walk to the beach.

The water was SO salty! It made it very easy to float.

The sunset was amazing!!

A joyous and goofy part of the trip was singing fun songs about the sea with Rachel while sitting on the rocks and allowing the waves crash in our legs.

The walk back up!

We ate lots of gelato while in Cinque Terre.

Our fun group eating gelato together before retiring to our hostel.

Freshly squeezed orange juice!

Breakfast in Corniglia. :)

Did someone say gelato for breakfast??

There is a train that takes people up and down the five cities. You get a train pass and they will take you up and down all day long.

This is the Southern most city - Riomaggiore. It had a nice beach and fun shopping spots. (Maybe I should copy and paste that sentence for the other cities.)

This chapel is in the second city that we visited - Manarola

The fourth city - Vernazza! (We skipped the third city since that’s where we were staying.)

The fifth city - Monterroso! (Has anyone watch the Disney movie, “Luca?”)

The best beach! And most beautiful sunset!!

We almost met Anika’s goal of getting gelato in every city that day. ;)

If you look along the coastline, you can see the lights from all five cities! We had a blast visiting all five in one day. I think my personal favorite was Vernazza because it was less crowded, had a really nice beach and more of a quiet, local feel.

Going down the 27 flights of stairs! We then took a four hour train ride to Rome!

What was the first thing Katie and I ate in Rome? Yes, it was sushi.

We did some exploring later that day and took some neat pictures! I love the cobblestone road and hanging vines.

I call him the “Italian Cowboy.” He was honestly a very good street artist and had quite the crowd by the time we travel back to the convent.

The Vatican! (Spoiler alert: keep reading for some inside photos.)

Paul’s kids! (Photography professor)

Paul! (Featuring my cheap sunglasses from Venice)

The Colosseum

This is the Arch of Titus near the Colosseum. It was constructed in 81 AD My finger is pointing to a depiction of the Menorah which is now used in Jewish culture as well as the symbol of Israel.

The Roman Forum is pictured below.

So many cool, old structures!

This next part was one of my favorites! You can see Peter and Paul’s names at the top of the list of martyrs.

This is the Prison that Peter and Paul were kept in for some time. A few of the epistles were written from this dark, damp, underground cell.

I loved standing here and thinking about how real Peter and Paul were. Sometimes it’s easy for me (and I’m sure many others) to see the people in the scriptures as something more than human! Almost like reading a fairy tail. I’ve been to many church history sites, and that tends to help me get my head in the right mindset. But I have to say that visiting this site, where New Testament authors were imprisoned, verified my testimony and helped me see them in so much more of a real sense rather than in a fictitious way. It also brought to life their testimonies of the Savior and just how much He did and what Peter and Paul were willing to do for the Living Savior.

Trevi fountain at seven AM!

A side shot if the pantheon. (All the pictures from the front are on my camera.)

The Spanish steps.

On our way to Vatican City!

St. Peter’s Basilica

The mummy of Cleopatra!

We went to see the Sistine chapel, and it turns out there’s a gian of