Halloo from the other side of the world!

Well, good morning! :) I am in the MTC in England, and it's 11 a.m here. This keyboard is slightly different, so if there are issues, that's why. I'm in England, not the U.S., and so things are a little different.

I am supposed to tell you that I have arrived safely (which, obviously, I have), and that my P-day is on Wednesday (which isn't new news), and you will hear more from me then. But we have an hour to email, so I'll send you a good letter. ;)

Okay, so I'll start with yesterday. It still feels like Wednesday. But it's Thursday. Whatever. Anyways. There were actually almost 20 of us on the Salt Lake to Chicago flight. I was so excited when we had so many missionaries. We chilled for a while, I went and bought a sandwich, and then we got on the plane. It was so small! I have never been on a plane that small! The first part of the plane was two seats on one side, one on the other; the second half was two and two. I was in the second half, right over the wing, and sat next to an elder. He was pretty tired, so most of the time he slept. I entertained myself by reading the Book of Mormon in German, and tried to nap, but couldn't, and looked out the window. Two and a half hour flight. Not long. It was pretty great.

Chicago was good. There were only five or ten more missionaries that showed up. I went and bought a smoothie, and we chilled and talked and took pictures. I'll send them to you next week, probably. And I promise to take more pictures here. :) It's lovely. Anyways. I wasn't really excited for my 7:45 flight, but then we found out that the flight is only 7 hours and 4 minutes, which is slightly better. I did get my seat moved up from row 40 to row 33, and an aisle seat, too. I sat next to an elder, and there were two elders right behind us. So that was fun. They gave us drinks and dinner, and then I tried to sleep at about 8:30 Chicago time.  I slept for a solid two hours (very solid, too!), and then pretty well for another hour. I remember between the 11:00 and 12:00 hours (Chicago time; that's what my watch was on), I was uncomfortable, but got some sleep---Maybe 40 minutes. Then, at about 12:15 (6:15 Manchester time), they brought around breakfast. And then I entertained myself by watching out the window until we could see land.

But, yeah! I'm in England, the weather is absolutely gorgeous. I don't know who my companion is yet, but President Edwards, in our get-acquainted-with-you interview, said (hinted?) that I would have companions. So we'll see. I do know that there is another gaggle of missionaries coming from Europe to speak German, and I think they're all coming for only two weeks. I don't know that for sure (that they're coming for two weeks), but that's my guess. I haven't seen them yet, but we're suposed to meet our companion(s) at 4:00 p.m. today. We have free time between lunch and 4, so I might take a nap. We'll see. It looks like this MTC serves all three German missions. It's wonderful. I got through the border with no issue at all. I explained my purpose, presented my documents, he stamped them, and I walked on through. Three minutes tops. I am feeling pretty blessed---and watched over, too. My suitcases came normally, I converted my money to pounds (it's so pretty! They're fun. Exchange rate was about 1 dollar to .7 pounds.), then met some of the MTC workers outside. No issues at all. I'm feeling pretty good. My head feels a little light (this is normal for low sleep), but I'm functioning somewhat normally---as much as you can on three and a half hours of sleep.

Well, yep. Remember: the Book is blue, the Church is true, and God loves you! This is a great work. We are so blessed to be able to serve. :) I'm excited to get going. I'm going to go make my bed and head to lunch, so I'll write you more next week!

All my love,

Sister Elizabeth Winters

P.S. If you want to put this on the blog, that's fine. Was auch immer du moechtest.