Roadtrip Day 2- York Minster & Preston

Today has been the most random, hodge-podged day of my life. I voluntarily woke up early! Haha, nobody knows what prompted me to get off to the early start, but it was nice. We started with this incredible hotel breakfast, then started off our morning walk through York. We walked along the ledge of the old York wall to the York Minster.

Our tour-guide knew EVERYTHING about that place. I learned so much about vaulted ceilings, bell towers, carvings, green men, lion carvings, stained glass, chapter houses, deans, etc. This building was one of the two most important buildings of England during the time it was built. It was so old and cool to learn about, because our guide was so knowledgable. Then we walked down shambles street again before hopping on our bus, mid-traffic, in the middle of the street! Adventure? YES!

From there, we proceeded to drive to Preston, England, where President Hinkley served his mission and where the church was first preached in England. But it was freezing! I had to be inventive to keep my face from freezing solid- We did this incredible church history tour! We went to the place where the saints were all baptized, we went to the places where the apostles stayed and were attacked by the evil spirits, we walked along the famous places they preached, we saw the memorial plaques, and so much more. Here's one of the memorial plaques.

This is where they baptized all the saints.

Then we drove past the Preston MTC where all of my England-serving missionary friends went J That was so exciting! AND…. We got to take pictures outside the Preston Temple!!! It was stunning.

But since we are so far up North, we were freezing and it was a short experience.

By this point, we are all absolutely exhausted, like tired little turtles that just want to crawl inside their shells and sleep forever. We got to our hotel here in Liverpool around 6 pm, but we were all Dead! So we went to the hotel restaurant, then went to one of the hotel rooms and had some quality girl talk. I love everyone here. Girl talked developed into a binge night for our cute friend Ashley. She hasn’t touched sugar the entire time she has been here, but she decided to take a break on that one tonight. The next thing you know, we’ve ordered fries, our friend Ramzi has brought us donuts and digestives (digestives: small biscuits from heaven) and we all brought any candy we could scrounge from our bags, and then we ordered soda! Add that to some extremely competitive games of Rook and Egyptian ratscrew, and it’s a party! I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time (or since last night hehehe.)

I even got to call Mom tonight for a brief second, and talk to some of my best girlfriends from high school on my cheap cell-phone! That was so fun! I just looked out my window and saw the dark city with sparkling lights, fog, and a lit-up blue ferris-wheel on the horizon. I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and explore Liverpool and have our Beatles tour! I’m the luckiest girl on the planet!!!