First Day

We went to church today. It took us over an hour to get there, but at least we made it on time. The ward was great and we were warmly welcomed. I am really excited to get to know people around here.

After church we set out to see the main sites of DC: the monuments. This is my fourth time in DC since we lived here as a kid, but I just had to go, too. We got off the metro at the Smithsonian and walked down the Mall to the Washington monument. We tried to take yet another jumping picture, but our attempts yielded unsuccessful results. Some girls looked at the picture and actually commented on my height in our jumping picture...I just smiled and replied that I'd had lots of practice.

We made our way down to the WWII memorial, which is relatively new. Apparently you're not supposed to go wading in it, a fact that was unbeknown to us until after we snapped this picture. Oh well. We wandered down past the reflecting pool to the Lincoln Memorial and sat on the steps for a few minutes before leaving for the National Symphony Orchestra's Labor Day concert on the West lawn of the Capitol. We watched a gorgeous sunset and situated ourselves on the lawn for the performance, which was excellent. We even had to go through intensive security just to sit on the lawn. That could take some getting used to here.
So far, everyone has been really kind and a lot of fun. I like my new roommate and it's weird to be surrounded by so many Political Science majors like myself. I've got a long day ahead of me--it's a holiday!--so I'm going to bed.