Cookies & Conversation

Sundays are a busy day, but Sunday nights are relatively quiet and give all of us here at the center time to bond. Sunday nights we have a tradition called "cookies and conversation". It was started by the wife of our professor and is the only baking I have been able to do here. All of our meals are cooked for us or we go out with no access to a kitchen. This Sunday was different! After dinner our professors asked a few of us to help them make cookies down in the kitchen for the group. How lucky am I? I mean who gets to help their professors and their wives make 140 cookies and talk for over an hour?
Here in London things are a little different. I still need to post about where I live with pictures, but for those of you who don't know, we all live together. There are 39 of us students here...33 girls and 6 boys. We have two main professors from BYU, Professor Crowe and Professor Dursteler. Dr. Crowe's wife also teaches our visual arts class! The professors live and eat with us in the BYU London Center. There are two sides to the building and they all live in apartments on the other side. It has been such a neat experience to live with our teachers. I know it may sound super weird, but they become like parents rather than scary people who grade us and watch our every move. We go to class in PJ's, no shoes just rolled out of bed and the classroom is down the stairs. We have all become super comfortable with each other and it is like we are one big family. A London family. The boys are like my brothers, and the girls are my best friends. It really brings people together when you are in another country feeling like you are on another planet. My professors are like my parents here. They do everything with us and when anyone has a problem, we go to them.
It was so nice to have the opportunity to just sit and talk and bake with my teachers. I know I won't ever have this opportunity again once I have left here. But for now...One of the best parts of the week?...Cookies and conversation.