Estoy en Espana

August 8, 2013

Hola Everyone,

This is so weird, I feel like I just had Pday...because I did...everyone here is so jealous of me, they didn´t get a Pday the first day they were here and they got here on a weds too. So it´s kind of funny.

Ummmmmm I don´t really know what to say. But I did forget to say last Monday that our investigator Tomas became our teacher. He was awesome and it was really funny to say that we were such good missionaries that our investigator became our teacher!

So that´s the last thing I had to say about Provo. I wish I could be as enthusiastic about Spain as Provo...I never thought I´d ever say that I´d rather be in Provo than Madrid, but honestly, if I had the choice to go back and spend my last 4 weeks there, I would. And maybe I won´t be saying that in a few days, but that´s how I feel right now. It´s different here. It´s not very big at all but it´s still crowded because there are like 80 missionaries so there are 6 girls in our room as opposed to just 2 back in Provo. I was the last one in because those girls were all already there for 2 weeks so I got the worst bed choice (top bunk by the door) whereas I had my first pick in Provo. The bathrooms are smaller. The MTC is so small, it´s just 3 floors of a Church building. We never leave those 3 floors. It is funny though the way we were told to remember: the top floor is the Celestial Kingdom because we eat there. The middle is the Terrestial because we sleep there. The telestial is the last one because we study there haha. So I miss just walking around like we did in Provo. Also, EVERYONE here got here on the same day (with the exception of a few like me) so they have always been together and so everyone knows each other and so they are all really close so I don´t even feel like I belong here, which makes me incredibly homesick for my district back in Provo. I miss them SO much. The teachers here are natives and don´t speak English very well so sometimes don´t understand our questions which makes me REALLY miss my Provo teachers. Plus we laughed a lot more in Provo whereas these teachers are lot more serious. Because it´s so crowded my district doesn´t have its own classroom so we have to use the institute classroom downstairs but that means we can´t just leave our stuff there 24/7 like everyone else can which is really annoying. The food here is horrible. I have decided that no missionary ever has the right to complain about the Provo MTC food until they eat this food. We literally have a game here where we guess what some of the food is because we honestly have no idea. Everyone else says you get used to it eventually. And not all of it is bad, but you still only get one option whereas in Provo there were at least 4 or 5 options. But I´m hoping that maybe once jetlag wears off I´ll feel better and happier. It´s almost noon here but it´s like 2am in Provo. I am so tired. It´s really hard being here. I have never once had a day where I wanted to go home but yesterday was that day. I was on the verge of tears all day and last night I couldn´t even fall asleep very fast because I didn´t want the other girls to know I was crying when they thought I was asleep. I could really use some prayers right now.

 On the bright side, I got the best companion ever. Her name is Hermana Lyons and weirdly enough, is actually a very close friend of the hermana who was with me on the plane here. They were really excited to see each other but I felt guilty that I got to be her comp and she didn´t...but I really needed this girl. She is incredibly sweet and understanding of my scatterbrainedness and is always asking if I´m okay. She is going to Malaga too. She´s from Utah. She´s the oldest in her family of I think 5 or 6 siblings.

On the other bright side, I am in a district with Elder Datwyler from my district who came on the plane with me, and Elder Ridd who was in my district and came last week. Elder Ridd told us he knew we were coming since last week. My question is...why didn´t they let us know??? Weird. So at least we´re keeping District 41-C alive :) The problem is Elder Ridd wasn´t in my district long enough for me to get close to him and Elder Datwyler is so quiet that I never talked to him very much so I still REALLY miss my district. My new district is cool though.

Some of the elders here are funny. Yesterday I laughed really hard when one of them (not someone in my district, just another elder) was talking about some sister who had left the other day who apparently thought he was an immature gringo. So I asked what he did to make her think that. He said he snorted jello. but he said it in this really nonchalent voice and it was just really funny. Also, I loved the Madrid temple and had a small miracle when I asked Heavenly Father to help me stay awake and I did. It´s beautiful and it´s RIGHT outside our windows. We are up high in this building so we have an amazing view of Madrid. We aren´t stuck here too, which is cool, like my comp and I went to the store during exercise time yesterday and just looked around and bought chocolate. SO weird to just be able to go around. We´re going to the Futbol stadium this afternoon so that should be fun.

 Don´t worry about me too much, I think I´ll be okay once I´m not jetlagged and have been here more than 24 hours.

I still can´t believe I´m in Spain...so weird.

 

Hermana Andrew

 

 

Hey, I´m back! If we wait in line, we are allowed to use our other half hour of computer time. It´s not that we can´t have a full hour, it´s just that there are too many missionaries for all the computers so we only get a half hour at a time. I didn´t have much else to say, but my comp came in so I figured I would too. I hope you don´t worry about the last email, I´m not actually that unhappy, and I feel a lot more awake now that it´s after lunch so I´m in a much better mood. I know I´ll adjust eventually, yesterday was just really hard. Also, I was going to send something to Mary but the "compose" button doesn´t work on this computer, so I can only reply to people that have already emailed me. But I´ll just have to write Mary an actual letter or something. I was just going to let her know that I was in Spain. By the way, I don´t really need anything, so I´m not implying that you need to send me a package, I´m just saying that if you ever do send me a package while I´m in Spain, be careful about what you send because if it gets stuck at customs and they have to check it, it costs a lot of euros for us to receive them. So yeah...I would just avoid it haha. besides, we´re allowed to go to the grocery store next door so it´s okay, there´s not anything I need that I can´t get here anyway. But yeah, the grocery store is super fun because it´s Spanish! and it´s weird being a foreigner. I just realized I´ve never been one before! but my comp and I were walking around talking in English and I wondered if other people thought of us in the same way I thought of foreign people back in the States...weird!
Anyway, feel free to update my FB status with my new address. Also, don´t worry about any mail that got sent to Provo before I left - they told me it would be forwarded here.
We get to take the metro to the futbol stadium in a few mins! I´m so excited to explore more of Madrid! The weather here is super nice, kind of like Provo. I thought it was supposed to be humid here but it´s actually not. We have the best views ever in this building. Madrid is such a beautiful city!
Email me or write me a letter soon!!!!
Casey