Finally, a nice weekend

I was so excited last weekend when the weather finally decided to clear and warm up a bit. As it turns out, it was the calm before the storm...it rained all day Sunday. Anyway, I decided to make the most of the nice weekend. Friday afternoon I stopped by the flower show at Macy's. Overall, it wasn't bad, but not quite what I expected. They had a few really amazing arrangements, though.

On Saturday I made my way around town a bit. I started with a walk down Canal St., which I didn't take a picture of, but really should have. It was crazy! Loads of booths selling knock-offs and what seemed like thousands of people.

I made my way next to the Grand Central Terminal. I had stopped there briefly before with Christine when we were meeting a friend of hers there, but I wanted to go back to have a good look around. It's really quite a nice place.

My next stop was the New York Public Library. Now that was an amazing place. Not just the architecture, but the carvings and murals that lined the ceilings. The library also had an original Gutenberg Bible on display in one of their gallery rooms. Absolutely incredible!
This is the ceiling of the main reading room. It's huge! Patrons don't have access to the stacks. They have to request a book and then pick it up in the reading room. The books are transferred back and forth by dumb waiters. It's really quite interesting.
My surprise came when, as I was wandering up Fifth Ave., I came across some pipe bands down a side street. I decided to have a look and thought there must have been some sort of Scottish festival going on. Upon further investigation, I found that they were the tail end of a parade! I couldn't believe it. Apparently, last Saturday was Tartan Day, and I had stumbled on their parade. I walked further up the parade route to get a better view of the parade. If I'd known, I could have viewed the whole thing (it was much shorter than the St. Patrick's day parade, but still quite substantial).

A spirited fanI must admit, the Scots certainly had better weather than the Irish did.

I rounded off my day with the Broadway show, The Pirate Queen. It's based on the life of Grace O'Malley, an Irish chieftain from 16th century Ireland. There were some great Irish dance numbers! I really enjoyed the show!

A lovely visit to England

I had the lovely pleasure of spending a few days in one of my favorite places...England. You see, a few weeks ago I found out that 2 of my converts were going through the temple for the first time on April 4th. And as New York is a bit closer to England than Salt Lake is, I decided I would make all the necessary arrangements to make the trip over.

I left Sat. March 31st - arriving early in Manchester, Eng. on Sun. April 1st. Sarah, a friend from Sheffield, my second area, picked me up from the airport, and after crashing for a couple of hours at her place, we went to the stake center to watch 2 sessions of General Conference. I was able to see most of the members of that ward that I was friends with, which was very nice.

Monday, I wanted to take it a bit easy so Sarah took me to a reservoir just outside Sheffield, called Damflask, to go walking. It's about 3 and a half miles around, and it was a very pleasant morning. After our walk and a bit of fish and chips for lunch, I visited a few more friends.

This rock was in the middle of the path. The reservoir is popular for sailors and rowers.

I love the English countryside...

...and the daffodils were in bloom everywhere

On Tuesday, I wanted to take in some more countryside. We spent almost the entire day in Derbyshire. We started at a village called Bakewell, famous for the Bakewell pie or tart.

Then we went to this viewpoint called Monsal Head.

Afterwards we drove to Castleton, in the heart of the Peak district. There're some fantastic views there. We hiked up a bit of the mountain to see Peveril castle.

Wednesday was the day I had been anticipating, and it was a perfect day at the Preston Temple! I met up with Wynn and Monica, my 2 converts, Mary, my companion from that time, and a few other members of the Ashington branch.

(l. to r.) Wynn Sidell, Mary Boswell, me, and Monica Tuke

After the endowment session and a break for lunch, Monica had some sealing work to do, which included her own sealing to her parents. It was such a wonderful experience for me and I'm so glad that everything worked out for me to be there with them! The only unfortunate thing was that I had to come home!