"Nothing complicated, I just said "Hey before we leave would you like a Book of Mormon to read?"

Hey family/all the people who read my blog! 

Thanks so much for the emails! It's good to hear all about your lives. If I have time I'll answer some of your questions. For now I'll just write all my awesome stories first.

And mom, thanks for the Christmas package! It got here safely and everything seems to be in there! I hung up the decorations and the stockings with Gorilla Tape that another elder had. So it's pretty ghetto-fabulous.

So yeah, the plane ride was pretty cool. However I slept through the part where they handed out free snacks so I didn't get any freaking airplane peanuts!!! I was so sad that I missed out on that during my first airplane experience.

It was just us three elders going from SLC to Atlanta (myself, Elder Farnsworth from Kaysville, Elder Sweat from Heber) and then at ATL we met up with, I think, five more from various states. Oh and one sister. All of us going to the same mission.

At the England MTC there are only 18 elders/sisters I think? 15 elders and three sisters. The majority are Americans going to the Scotland/Ireland mission. In fact I think that all the Scotland/Ireland missionaries are all Americans, and vice versa. There are two other sisters; one from Albania and one from South Africa.  Both are going to some England mission. The Albanian sister came here speaking little to no English, but she is getting better. For some reason they are having her take the missionary prep classes before she takes the language classes.

The non-American elders: There are three from England, one from Brazil (going to a Portuguese-speaking mission in England), one from South Africa, one from Germany, one from Denmark.

Oh psych, the Danish elder is also going to Scotland/Ireland. The German is actually going to the Alpine Germany mission, same as Luke Morrill's. Mom if you wanna tell his mom to tell Luke to look for Elder Fahl, they might be entering the field around the same time since Elder Fahl already speaks German.

My companion is one of the British elders. Elder Hunt is his name. From Dover area. 

The first day was awesome, we just got to do whatever while we waited for other elders to arrive. But then the class days after that were awful. Super long, I was tired, and yeah. But it's gotten better.

One of the cooler experiences was going to the Preston temple at night with my class and just looking at it in silence. Very spiritual and peaceful and stuff.

Other than that the MTC has been kind of a drag. At least as far as the classes go. The elders and teachers I'm here with are great though! I'm not sure if Provo MTC zones (our whole group here is a zone, and split into two districts) are this close, but we all get along pretty well. Just an amazing group of guys. The sisters are nice too but ya know, we don't interact with them quite as much.

One weird thing about being here is that everyone says super long prayers on their food. The way we do it is just on our own silently. Back home I was never in the habit of blessing my food unless it was a meal with the family, so it's a nice change. But it's kinda weird how lots of the elders take like a minute or more to say their prayer. I think I heard this funny saying from dad a while back, ''Four words are as good as ten, bless the food amen.'' hahaha I don't know if it's the best motto but it's what always comes into my mind at meal times. Maybe they're all just more spiritual than me, but who knows. Personally I think four words are as good as ten.

The final, and coolest, story of the week happened today! We got to go to the town of  Chorley (that's where the MTC actually is; the Preston temple is called Preston because it's the closest big city). We got to browse the shops and a little flea market as well. I got some decent stuff. for £5 (five pounds/about 9 dollars) I got an England national team t-shirt and a Man United jersey! At first I thought it was so cheap because it was a fake, but then when I took a closer look at it,  it is used. But still in good condition and still a steal. Also got an Arsenal beanie to even it out a bit since I like arsenal a bit more. haha And when I was buying the beanie, British Elder Hobby was asking which team I liked better and I said arsenal, and a lady walking past glared at me and like hissed or something. Pretty weird haha. I guess it's not good to vocally support a team other than the local team here.

I'm getting off topic. The actual cool part was that when this other elder and I got back to where the van was supposed to pick us up, the other five or so elders who were with us were talking to this lady. She was smoking while talking to us, and didn't really talk about religion at all. But one elder said he had a few copies of the Book of Mormon in his backpack, so I got one out and gave it to her when we left.
Nothing complicated, I just said "Hey before we leave would you like a Book of Mormon to read?"
and she said yeah and even gave us her name and info! It was pretty cool. Everyone was like "Elder Burt you are awesome!'' and stuff, but I was just like, eh I had nothing to lose ya know? So that was a pretty easy/successful first-time missionary experience!

Oh and one more thing: I can call home on Christmas next week!!! MTC prez's wife said it will probably be around 4-6 pm HERE, so about 9-11 am Utah time. Which number should I call? And would a specific time be better for you guys? Let me know so I can log on here Christmas morning and call whenever is best for you guys.

Wow this is a long email...anyway I want to send you guys some pics but my camera isn't being recognized by this computer, so I'm gonna try to email them with another elder's card reader thing.

Thanks for everything, love you all!

Love,

Elder Burt