
Had a great sleep in my warm hotel bed. Woke up, got ready, and had breakfast at the hotel. After breakfast we drove to Caerphilly Castle, a medieval castle in the center of Caerphilly, Wales. It is the largest castle in Wales; second largest in the UK after Windsor Castle. The castle was damaged in the English Civil War, when the Parliamentary army fired a cannon at it, causing the tower to lean 3m out of the perpendicular. That’s comparable to the Leaning Tower of Pisa! We explored the castle, going through different passages, and seeing spectacular views of the surrounding city from the top.
We stopped for lunch at Subway afterwards. This was frustrating, because our directors said we had about 15 minutes to buy lunch and get back on the coach. Well, Allyson and I do just that, only to find that the directors have not returned yet. They came at least another 15 minutes after that! So frustrating. Subway was good though; I had been craving a good tuna sandwich.
The rest of our day was spent going to different LDS history sites. Not my first choice for an adventure. I would have much rather seen more castles and sheep! Haha, sheep are everywhere here!

The first church history site we went to was Hill Farm. Hill Farm is in Castle Frome and is the site where Elder Wilford Woodruff preached and baptized many of the United Brethren, including John and Jane Benbow who lived there. Elder Woodruff brought all but one of the six hundred members of the United Brethren into the Church. He baptized many of the converts in the farm pond, which we also visited. We also visited Castle Frome Church, which had no LDS church history significance other than that it was an Anglican church that protested against the Mormons.

We went to Herefordshire Beacon, the most prominent hill in the region and a favorite place of Elder Woodruff’s, where he often went to pray and to think. Elder Woodruff led Brigham Young and Willard Richards up to the top of the hill for an important meeting, where it was decided that the Book of Mormon and the hymnal would be published in Britain. We hiked up the hill. The view was spectacular. The clouds seemed to glow. We could see the entire surrounding town and land far beyond. It was super windy on top of the hill. I compare it to The Pali Lookout, the windy cliff side on Oahu. The wind was so powerful, loud, and cold. I lost part of my hearing for a little bit. Beautiful up there!
Our final stop on our church history tour was to Gadfield Elm Chapel. This quaint chapel was the first British chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
We got back on the coach and headed home. Another upsetting meal tonight. We stopped at a crap truck stop, which had three fast food options. Gross! Didn’t want to eat any of it. Ended up wasting £5 on some not very good soup and a cheese sandwich. They gave us an hour tonight, which was ridiculous, because we neither needed that much time, nor wanted that much time. We just wanted to be on the coach sleeping. They said the only reason we were stopping was because we would be getting back so late. Load of crap, because we got home an hour later, and still had plenty of time to get dinner. Not very cool of them.
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