Where can I begin? Ah, I should probably say that I've had a slight change of location, though it was only for yesterday afternoon and today. I spent the morning travelling by Underground and by National Rail. I'll explain why, before you get suspicious about the location change at the bottom of this post. So as you can see, I'm not in London at the moment, I've actually spent last night with my mum's sister and brother-in-law in the Suffolk countryside. My cousins, who I was with a few weeks ago, had come down a few days before (they left last night) and so we had a lovely pub lunch together. Then I got back and had a lot of fun with my cousin, Lindsey. We watched a bit of the play, Sound of Music (from what I saw, it's very different from the play), which was showing on TV, before we went swimming in my aunt's indoor pool. It was a lot of fun. Lindsey and I knocked a ball about and she won. She's a real water baby, and loves being in the water. She's also very talkative, so I enjoyed chattering with her about a whole hoast of things, even when we were playing cards, which we did after being in the swimming pool.
You're also probably wondering what the LMD have been doing since I last posted. So on Good Friday we caught the Tube to Wembley, and as we stepped out of the station we were welcomed by the sight of the Wembley National Stadium. So we had to stop to takes some photos (which you've probably seen on Facebook or Instagram), before heading off to the church we were going to do evangelism with. When we got there we had a really beautiful service. When that ended, we had lunch and then broke into small groups and headed onto the streets. We then went the different streets near the church and knocked on the doors of the houses. It was something that I've never really done before, but it was good. A lot of people didn't answer the door, and some only opened the door a crack, afraid we were going to try to sell things to them, but we quickly assured them that all we wanted to do was ask them a few questions and invite them to the church's Sunday service. A number said they didn't want to answer any questions or told us they weren't interested in knowing anything about the service. A few said they were cooking. However, we had quite a few REALLY good talks and answers from a number of people. A few even said they might come to the service. I do hope they did. After that we went up to the stadium, so that we knew where the Wembley library was and the Brent council, before heading back to the house.
Then on Saturday we went out to join the April DTS (who live in another house) and the Salvation Army in Harlesden, where we had been handing teas, coffees, sandwiches and desserts out earlier in the week. Like the other night, we had teas and coffees for the people who walked past, hot cross buns were also being handed out. We also had face painting and balloons for the kids (due to the English laws, I haven't posted any pictures). There were a number of homeless people came by, drawn by the teas and coffees. We had a few people handing out pamphlets and chocolates, as well a few of the students had a drum and a guitar, so were singing songs. I had been given someone's camera and was walking around taking photographs of the different activities the YWAMers were involved in, though when it came to the children, I had to angle the camera at the face painter not at the face being painted. It was a nice challenge for me, because when I was team photographer in Brazil I always use to angle the children's faces rather than the adults involved, however, as I mentioned previously, there's a law in the UK regarding photographing children. You have to have the parents' consent before you start taking pictures of their kids.
Saturday afternoon, after we got back from helping the Salvation Army with the last of what they needed our help with and, after we had lunch, we hung around the DTS house on Station Road, during this time I was able to Skype my parents. We then went out to play games, as a group of friends, in the park. It was a lot of fun and a good opportunity to be destracted, by the games, from my tiredness, because I'm still adjusting to the busy schedule, and, on Saturday, I was very tired. We had a lot of fun at the park. We then went back to the LMD house, where we had dinner and I packed for my trip to see my aunt and uncle. I left for their place yesterday morning when most of the people in my class were in church celebrating Christ rising from the dead. I've never actually done that before.
The photographs: all the photographs were taken yesterday,in my aunt and uncle's woods, when we were walking the dogs. The last one of my cousin Lindsey looking out over the flowers in search of Ellie, their spaniel, who had gone after a deer.
I'm travelling back to the base this afternoon. So I'll write again in the next few days.