The Cecil Encounter

So Thursday July 8th seems like an eternity ago, even though it had only been two weeks. I'm having so many unforgettable experiences here in London, but the crazy thing that I'm noticing is that they are forgettable! The problem is that I'm having so MANY unbelievable experiences that my brain literally cannot contain all the wonderful images and information inside it without a few things getting muddled together. So I will try to do my best to recall these memories as I write them just 2 short weeks later so I cant hopefully accurately represent them to review later. Thursday was being set up to be a rather unremarkable day at the London Centre and most of us were stressed because we had quite a bit of homework to complete before leaving for Paris. So it just happened that almost all of the students spent the afternoon at the center writing papers. Several students were sitting at the dining room tables with their laptops out when the door rang and Lauren, who attends UT and not BYU, answered it. She opened the door to find President Cecil O. Samuelson, the President of BYU and also a member of the seventy, standing on the doorstep. He stood there smiling, apparently expecting her to recognize who he was but since she doesn't attend BYU, she didn't know who he was and asked him for his name. When she called down to the Shuler's flat to tell them that had a visitor, she proceeded to ask him what he was President of, and he explained that he was the president of BYU... How embarrassing! I couldn't stop laughing when I heard of the encounter. I was upstairs in my dorm when all this happened, and someone came up and said that President Samuelson was at the Centre. I raced downstairs to meet him where he, beaming, graciously shook all of hair hands (multiple times) and chatted with us for a while. Now it needs to be understood that at BYU, President Samuelson is somewhat of a celebrity, and my roommates and I affectionately (though probably not entirely respectfully) refer to him as Cecil. One day my roommate Annie and I passed him in the Library on campus where he said "Hi" to us as we passed. We almost peed our pants. It was the most exciting moment for us. But now I had the chance to meet Cecil for real, and shake his hand and talk with him. It pretty much made my week. I never would have guessed that I would meet the President of BYU some 5,000 miles from campus, but everyday at the London Centre is a magical surprise. We got a group picture with him, but it's not on my camera so as soon as I get hold of it, I will post it as proof of my exciting encounter.