Ashley is in England!

I don't know if I should call her Ashley or Sister Boots. I think I will call her Ashley as she is my daughter. It feels so formal and distant calling her Sister Boots.

Ashley had a 6 hour lay over in Alanta yesterday, but was unable to call me. I was bummed, but I knew that she might not be able to call. This morning I was pleasantly suprised with a letter from her! She made it ok and is really tired. I am just going to post her letter here.

Hi!
This is just supposed to be short. I have arrived safely (sorry I couldnt call from Atlanta... beautiful airort though. At least the international terminal was. Everything was shiny and blue...) \i met u pwith some elders and a couple sisters there... and we waited for 4 hours.) The flight was so long, and i had a seat in the middle so i couldn't even look out the window :( I tried to sleep, but that didn't really happen till after dinner (cheese and spinach tortilini... not bad. it was actually kinda good. You had me convinced it'd be nasty) I sat by 2 young women who were vacationing in the western states, but were from Manchester. They gave me some advice and such. I'm to try crumpets soon... apparently they're the best part about England... I was glad to land though. And exausted. Gonna be able to take a nap after this.

And my p-day is on Tuesday by the way... so this isnt my p-day letter. Sister Williams is going to send you a link for some pictures of us arriving... try not to cringe... i'm sure i look horrible. Let me know when you've accessed the site (picasa web album) so i can let Sis. Williams know that it worked.

Everything here is so different... as expected. The toilets looked weird (completly round). And flushed funny. I knew the cars would be backwards, but it was really disconcerting sitting in the back seat and seeing the driver on the wrong side. As we drove down what looked to be an interstate and passed through Manchester, I kept thinking that i'd never seen so much green. so beautiful. then we actually got out of the city. The country side was so beautiful. Rolling green hillds and townhouses in lots of different colors. We even passed a pastures with a huge flock of fluffly white sheep.

The MTC is right across the way from the preston MTC (though both are technically in Chorley)

Words that are different

bathrooms = toilets

check (like check mark) = ticks

well.. thats all i can think of for now. This keyboard is different too. so i quit trying to capitalize letters (the shift key on the left side is more to the left so i kee hitting the back slash... as you may notice) and the aostrophe is hard to get too. But hey... I get to write home every week!

The grounds around the Mtc are so beautiful... after my nap \i think \i'll go for a walk. pretty much the whole day is free after this cuz we're waiting for the rest of the missionaries to arrive. There will be 46 of us total. 10 sisters. And the majority of the 46 are not from the U.S... 13 are ELLs (ask Lexi if you dno't know what that means :P...)

This is going to be awesome! :) It still hasn't really entirely set in... prolly cuz i'm running off of 2-3 hours of sleep (and it's only noon) I spose it's pretty early there though huh? Sometimes i feel like i'm dreaming... but i like this dream!

I love you all sooooooo much! Hope everything is going well! I'll try to send a better letter on Tuesday (this one was supposed to be short... and I'm half dazed.... nap time! ... or maybe a walk. or a shower...)

You're all amazing! Wish you could be here with me, but I guess that would defeat the purpose, huh? (Mom feel free to use any/all of this on the blog... maybe you could fix the spelling errors :)

~ Ashley. (a.k.a 'Sister Boots')