I´ve been gone for three weeks!! you miss me yet?? haha just kidding. Time has gone by SO fast yet so slow. Our days seem like weeks but our weeks seem like days! Well this past week was full of emotions! mostly the spirit but lots of other emitions as well, one of my teachers Hermano Rodriguez told us that when we got set apart we were blessed with sensitivity to feelings so we could relate to other people and hear and feel the spirit . I defenitley know that that is true because every time the spirit is felt very strongly, not a dry eye leaves the room. . . then again my district is only girls .. but still to be able to feel the spirit testify of the truthfullness of this church basically 24/7 is incredible. My companion and I joke that the mission is making us into big babies because we tear up at least once every single day. However, I wouldn´t trade that right now for anything.
Talking about the teachers, they are AMAZING we have about four different teachers just for our district! The benefits of going to a smaller MTC. You get all the attention and help you need plus more. Any scripture reference you ask a teacher about, they know it. I have yet to ask a teacher for a scripture where they haven´t immediately shot out the book, chapter and verse that I was looking for. I am very grateful to be here. So so so so grateful, this is already the best experience I have ever had and the cool thing is that it´s just beginning. I´m grateful to wake up and look out the window and see the Madrid temple. I counted today and we are exactly 50 steps away from the temple entrance, How wonderful is that?! It´s beautiful!
The food here is pretty good overall... except all the meat they give us looks like it´s way undercooked. and... i never ask what kind of meat it is because i´m pretty sure its not cow meat and i´d rather not know. i just eat it and pray that i can digest it well. haha. But it really isn´t that bad, the rest of the food is usally pretty good. The butter here is really yummy, which is probably not a good thing. I have heard that missionaries in Spain usually stay the same weight or loose weight.. so i don´t know , i guess we will see when i get back.. ha.
mom, you´ll be glad to know that I haven´t gotten sick at all! I was feeling a bit dizzy the first week, not sure why. But that went away and i´m perfectly fine now.
So I´m not sure who i´ve told and who i haven´t told but we have the opportunity to go to a park which is called el parque del retiro every saturday for about 1.5 hours to proselyt! It´s a learning experience that´s for sure. I feel like since i´m one who knows more spanish, when people that we talk to find out i can speak and understand they just find something to argue about and go off on random tangents but to the missionaries who don´t know spanish they seem to be more patient with and nicer too... but it´s alright. I´m learning a lot!
Last Pday we had the opportunity to go to downtown madrid to a part called La puerta del Sol. The architecture of all the buildings was absolutley stunning! it was full of little shops , kind of like an outlet mall but with so many other random stores too. They took us all down on a bus and told us to meet back up at 5 pm . My district meet up at the spot at 5:05 (because we had to wait for one of the girls to finish purchasing something). When we got there we couuldn´t find anyone from the MTC. we waited for about 15-20 minutes and decided that maybe we heard wrong and we were supposed to meet at six... so we decided to go shopping some more! then we returned at six and still, we didn´t see anybody. So we decided that we should use a pay phone and call the mtc to make sure that before we hopped on the metro that the rest of the group had actually left already. while some of the girls were trying to figure out the payphone, i said a small prayer in my heart that we could find someone from the mtc here and literally 3 seconds after my prayer THREE teachers from the mtc walked by! and i flagged them down and the girls hung up the payphone (they hadn´t even called the mtc yet) and we just rode back on the metro with the teachers. We teased a couple elders who are in our zone about leaving us behind in downtown madrid and they laughed and said they realized while they were on the bus that we were gone and one of the teachers started to really worry, but then one of the elders told the teachers that we were the Dan Jones district and if anyone were to get lost in Madrid it was us, but if anyone would be okay and find the way back to the MTC , it was us. . (because we are the advanced spanish speakers, so we can communicate and eventually find our way back) So now the joke around the MTC is what do the Dan Jones girls do when they get lost... they go shopping!
One more quick story, so there were missionaries that came into the MTC with us but they were heading to portugal and all of them already spoke portuguese so they were only here for two weeks. long story short, they were leaving on tuesday morning. one of the Hermanas was saying goodbye and slipped me a note. i tried reading it .. but its in portuguese so i could only understand some stuff i had this other hermana translate it for me and it was from an elder going to portugal (who is from cape verde) basically confessing his love for me... kidding. but kinda not kidding. He said that i was someone he could see spending eternity with and he apologized for feeling this way because as a missionary he knows he shouldn´t be and then he apologized because he isn´t respecting the fact that i have a boyfriend.. and yeah just stuff like that. it was really weird and now when i look back on it it´s funny. He was always talking to my companion but never really talked to me, now i know why.. so yep, that´s my interesting story for the week.
I love you all so much! this pday is a bit different because the schedule is off so we have had extra time to come in and type emails so this is probably the longest any of my emails will be while im here at the MTC. but I love you all! I know this church is true because the spirit testifies it to me every day! I can not wait till i have the chance to go to Barcelona and tell everyone that i talk to that I am happy because HE lived! I will try to send pictures after i send this email. we will see how that works out. Take care and keep working on always strengthening your testimony individually and as a family. Know that you are all in prayers every day and that I am so grateful to have such wonderful people in my life!
Sending my love from Spain,
P.S. I don´t have everyones email so feel free to forward to whomever would like to read this:)
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| This is just a picture of my Flight. Look how far i Flew:) |
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| This is my first day at the MTC. From Left to Right: Hermana Roan, Me, Hermana Camacho (my companion) |
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| After getting our "Chapas" (Name tag) . standing in front of the Temple |
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| My compañera and I standing next to the missionary objective in spanish. This was on our first saturday here. The white builiding you can kinda see through the window is the Temple. |
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| My Bed!!! BYU **represent!!!** |
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Some of the girls in my district with the temple behind us.
left to right: Hna. Camacho, Hna. Anderson, Hna. Roan, Me!
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| Me on our first Sunday evening stroll around the Temple. |
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| side view of the MTC |
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| The french speaking missionaries and my Companion and I. The Elders are from Tahitian and the blonde sister is from sweden and the small sister was polish and paraguyan |
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My district plus another district.
L to R: Camacho, Roan, Anderson, Tyler, Rindlesbacher, Steenblik, Silva, Me
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| I trimmed Hermana Andersons hair ! and everyone was like of course hermana HAIR would be the one to know how to cut HAIR. haha . I´m glad I brought my scissors. |
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| This picture is taken from the far side of the MTC so the building you see left of the temple is still part of the MTC . This shows you how close we are the Madrid Temple! |
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This picture is funny because the Elder on the left is the one who sent me the letter and in this picture he is looking at me so all the girls think it´s just hilarious.. . eh.. But these are a couple elders from cape verde who are going to Portugal. Elder Cordoso and Elder Da Cruz
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The rest of the group of guys going to Portugal! They are awesome missionaries and all spiritual Giants!
L to R: (elders only) Lima, Helske, lopez, Fernandes
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| Downtown Madrid! |
