Scotland Part 4

After the Highlands, we made our way down to Irvine, which is on the West coast, Southwest of Edinburgh. A sweet family, the Yates, let us stay with them with only a couple days notice and we had an entire house to ourselves, because their grandma was out of town and the house was available. So many people were so kind to us and I feel like we couldn't thank them enough! But thank you to the Yates family! We went to church and met a lot of the members Jake knew in this part of his mission and then went to an old apartment

and walked down along the beach. This was no Huntington... Though the picture may be deceiving, it was cold and windy! Not exactly my idea of a "beach front" but it was still a pretty sight to see.

 After Irvine we drove over to Stirling, which is about 45 minutes outside of Edinburgh.

Here I am on the city streets

And here's Jake standing in front of an old apartment... he lived on the very top floor and had a huge flat. 

I'd say the missionaries get pretty well taken care of in Scotland!

We got to meet a sweet member who was in the ward when Jake was here and whose husband recently passed away from Mad Cow Disease. So sad! That really is a big thing over there.

Then we met up with Ben, one of the guys who was baptized while Jake was in Scotland and he was such an amazing guy! He's from Nigeria and has some of the most interesting stories to share. Ben was so kind to let us stay at his house that night.

The next morning, Jake insisted that we go to "Greggs" for breakfast, because it is "SO GOOD" but one bite into the cold sausage (if you can call it that) roll and I was done. My giant chocolate muffin (but really more like a decadent piece of triple layer chocolate cake with chocolate ganache) was sufficient to tide me over.

 This castle is for sale in case you wanted to buy it...

 

We visited the Stirling library which is where Jake wrote me off. These pictures depict our personal feelings at the time...

For your convenience, here's a close-up on my face... ha ha

We also visited the Stirling castle, but decided to save our pennies and viewed it only from the outside

Then we drove to Livingston, 

viewed an old apartment, 

 met the missionaries that lived there

(awkward...)

Met up with Hazel Deans and her awesome family

(Very good Scottish brogue... I sometimes had a hard time understanding these guys)

Had some fish and chips

and I had my first experience with haggis 

(don't barf... it's sheep guts wrapped in a sheep's stomache...)

ha ha my face pretty much sums up what I thought about that...

(It really didn't taste that bad, but the thought of it was enough for me to be done after bite #1)

 Then we drove back to Stirling and met up with Ben again

 

   Had a nice long chat before saying goodbye 

 and then made our way over to Edinburgh for the last three days of Scotland.

To hear about Edinburgh and all the crazy adventures from this part of the trip, read Scotland Part 5