Dia dos en Espana

Hola again familia,

Hermana Diehl
4A Planta
Calle Del Templo No. 2
Madrid 28030
SPAIN

Mom has my mission office address for those who want it when I get to the field in six weeks. I´m not sure what it is actually, so if you´ll let me know as well madre that´d be great.

I decided to put the handwritten letter into this email instead of sending two separate things. Now madre doesn´t have to type anything up. Thanks again for doing it the first time though mom. Muchas gracias... I mean grathias! I haven´t gotten very good at the theta yet... but I will because it´s how everyone here talks. And I´m already starting to learn some of the common Spain lingo: vale=okay, claro=of course... maybe that´s all I know after one day actually. But I like using those phrases so I´m happy that they´re common here.

On my flight to Madrid there were 5 Hermanas (including me) and 7 Elders. Most are from the United States (one Elder is from Show Low, AZ), and there´s an Elder from Cambridge, England. Only 4 of the missionaries in that group are going to the Madrid mission and the rest are going to my mission, so I´ll get there with lots of friends!

I was able to give out a pass-along card at the JFK airport. I know it was only one, but it was exciting for me to tell someone in the real world that I knew that he could learn some good information if he went to the website (it was a mormon.org card) and he could call the number if he had any questions. He was working in the currency exchange booth and looked very bored so I thought he would be good to talk with. I walked past his booth another time and he was doing something on the internet... so I hope he is learning things from it!

The rate between the dollar and the Euro is like $1.40= about €1.00 I think. But it changes all the time. I´m going to have my money changed over today.

On Saturdays we all get to go to this big beautiful park and contact and teach people in Spanish. It´s gonna be excelente! I´ll let you know how it went next week.

The building that the MTC is in here is RIGHT next to the temple... about 60 feet away across the courtyard. I can see it out the window when I go up and down the stairs between class (4th floor), bedroom (5th floor), and cafeteria (6th floor). It´s a beautiful temple with white marble covering it and covering the courtyard surrounding it. For service yesterday all of the missionaries helped scrub down some of the marble planters.

Mom, would you get a good map of Spain and Andorra... then you can see where I go and put little stickers on the cities or something (not thumb tacks, that would just make the wall behind it all ugly.)

Alright, I have lots of answering to do. Hopefully these answers will mean something to everyone, not just the people that I´m responding to...

Alyn- you´ve been such an excellent correspondant. Thanks for all of your letters and emails with such excellent tidbits about your family and thanks for doing the blog! I still haven´t seen it yet... and I´m not sure I´ll ever get to see it. I´ll ask my mission president when I get to the field in another six weeks if I´m allowed. Don´t worry about spending too much time on it if you´re busy, etc. But I really appreciate your work! The food in Provo was always good. I don´t think they have a small cafeteria anymore... or they just hid it well because I never found it. I ate a lot of salads and wraps and chicken and such. I think I lost a couple of pounds while I was there because I didn´t really eat dessert very often and I didn´t drink soda or juice. Here in Spain there are two women who make our lunch and dinner for us (breakfast is always cereal) and they do a very good job. We don´t have options like we did in Provo, but I like new foods so it´s good to try the things they make. I´m probably gonna gain back the pounds here though since they cook everything in olive oil! I think I can view email attachments, but until I leave the MTC I´m not allowed to send any attachments. Sorry for the lack of photos on the blog (who likes I blog without pictures?) I´ll attach some as soon as I can when I´m in the field. I have a little over 3GB worth of memory cards with me to hold my pictures (I got your package mom, thanks!). But I also brought some CDs to hopefully do some picture transfer now and then so I can clear my cards out. I´ll try to mail some pictures in the snail mail... and maybe they can be scanned in to post on the blog? I dunno what would be best.

Madi-Thanks for the letter and the picture. You were the first one to send me mail in Spain! I got it the night I arrived here and it was such a nice surprise. The picture is going to make a great bookmark for me! I can hardly believe you´re in Valiant 9! What happened my little Madi-Lyn? It´s alright though, you´re allowed to get big. I don´t think anyone could stop you anyway! I do like the Spain MTC. It´s a LOT smaller than the Provo MTC. It´s a downtime for missionaries to be leaving this time of year, so Provo only had about 2,000 missionaries. Here in Spain though there are 17 right now. There are 6 Sisters and 11 Elders. Pretty small. But we´ll all be good friends by the time we leave! Be nice to Lia and Charlie and give them a hug from me miss Madi.

Kori- I think it would be okay now to email me. The time restrictions aren´t quite as stringent as they were in Provo. I still prefer to recieve real letters though, since I can get those any time and emails I can only check once a week. But I understand if you (or anyone else) would rather just email. I have a question for you about the phone card you sent. It says on the back that when I call from overseas I will have a ¨Country Specific Toll-Free Number¨ to call, but the country specific numbers aren´t included on the back. Was there some packaging that would have that number on it maybe? I think everything else I needed was there. Thanks again hermana! Give Spencer and Baby kisses and pokes from me (as needed).

Jesse & Mindy- I found a native speaking hermana to help me translate some of the finer points of your letter, Jesse. I understood most of it on my own, but she helped me understand such things as ¨apurtate po!¨ Thanks for the advice. I think you have a good point about needing to be a happy missionary. Nobody would want to join a depressing church. Tell Cai I´m not dead please and give those munchkins kisses from me. Thanks for teaching Cai how to say Spain... even if it doesn´t come out quite right. Now you need to show him where it is on the globe so he can be as smart as I was at geography... actually, I want him to be smarter than me! Tell Cai I said his trains and his tracks are cool and to be nice to Maya. Tell Maya I said don´t eat the marbles and the Legos. And I love them mucho.

Erin- my companions in Provo were very nice and we got along well. My companion here in Madrid is from California and has been at this MTC for two weeks already, so she´s not in my district or class, but we room together and go as many places as we can together. Her name is Hermana Goins (GO-ENS) and she´s very helpful to all of us new missionaries who arrived yesterday. I like her a lot as well. I had excellent teachers in Provo (two Hermanos who went to BYU and served in Argentina and Ecuador on missions) and I´m going to miss being in their class quite a bit. But I think my teachers here will be good as well. I´ve only met one of them so far, but they are both Hermanas and the one I´ve met has a 6 month old baby and is from the North of Spain and served her mission in Madrid. My Spanish learning level in Provo was a beginner class, and I think the one I´m in now is more intermediate... sort of. I´m still not very good, but I got put in with a lot of people who ARE good so I think they have a bit of confidence in me. I wish I had that confidence in myself... but I´ll think about it tomorrow! (book quote, you know it.) Kiss Charlotte and start teaching her my name okay?

Cody & Emilee- I haven´t heard from you guys lately, but I wanted to write and say suerte! with the baby whenever she may come. I´ll say it again next week if she hasn´t been born yet. Send pictures as soon as you can after she arrives. ¿Vale? Love you.

I´ve written a lot for today. Don´t expect this much every time, but I´m glad I got to answer the letters I´ve received.

Love you all,
Hermana Diehl

(Marti emailed this straight to the blog, herself. The timestamp is Madrid Time. So we were sleeping here, and it was noon there!)

Touchdown

This arrived to my email at 6:24 AM, which is just after noon in Madrid:

Hola Familia,

I´m in Spain now and I´m safe. I´ll be sending another email tomorrow and possibly a snail mail letter for mom to type up again (thanks mom). Sorry to be so random with the letter sending... talk to you later.

Love you all,
Hermana Diehl

Snail letter typed in by Mom

20 January 2009

Dear Familia,

I had a hard time organizing my thoughts this morning when I emailed (while waiting for my laundry to finish so I could move it to the dryer and worrying about a bunch of other missionaries who were waiting to use the computer), so I decided to write a letter to add to my scattered & confused email.

I want to answer everyone’s questions, and I hope I got most of them already, but I can see why questions often went unanswered when my missionary siblings wrote back, there’s not much time! I did want to make sure I explained about going to Spain next Tuesday more clearly…I don’t remember who asked me about it, but I thought you might want to know. I fly out with a group of about 13 missionaries (at least) that are going to the Spain MTC as well. We leave the MTC at 6:00 AM to fly out of Salt Lake at like 9:30 AM. We land at JFK in New York (Not La Guardia airport where that plane went into the Hudson Mom, so don’t worry) and have a 3 hr. layover. Then we fly all night across the Atlantic (I’m sad I don’t get daylight to look down at the ocean and look for islands & such) and land in Madrid about 9:50 AM local time. I’m glad I don’t have to lose 8 hours of time and then try to start teaching people the day I arrived or something. I get 6 weeks of MTC buffer time!
My classroom (where I live) is 18M here (connected to 19M where the gym/auditorium is), and my room is in 17M (where I sleep). My service is in 1M (the main building) and I get to mop floors, vacuum, clean windows…I wish my companions and I could join the Elders in our Zone with their service assignment; they set up chairs in the auditorium on Saturday & Tuesday evenings for Sundays & Devotionals. Just set-up, not take down. Lucky Elders.

Kori, I’m sorry to hear that the Boy is allergic to penicillin! I’m glad that you know about it now though. Does that kind of allergy ever to away with age maybe? I hope so! Give him kisses for me, k?

I’m looking forward to baby Diehl (Cody & Emilee’s) being born! I hope you’re feeling alright Emilee? Not too uncomfortable…but knowing how the last month of pregnancy went for my sisters, Probably not. But I still have hope! Kori, how are you doing also? How’s baby Fred? I still vote that you name him Diehl Kori Gammon. Hopefully he’s getting bigger…but not too much (smiley face).

Here’s my study advice to you, my family: either study the atonement for 15 minutes every day for a week (with a study journal or something to write down insights or new information you get) OR study the words in Mosiah when King Benjamin was speaking to his people (this has a lot about the atonement in it anyways), as an option for those who don’t want to do my study challenge for a whole week. I learned a lot by doing both of those things last week.

I need everybody’s addresses to where I can send letters….well I have Cody & Emilee’s, Kori & John’s, Alyn & Nathan’s, & Mom & Dad’s…so I need Erin & Matt’s and Jesse & Mindy’s I s’pose. I’m not sure what kind of mailing I’ll get to do at the Spain MTC. I might have email…but if someone could send me a Dear Elder letter before next Monday so I can have Jesse’s and Erin’s addresses I’d appreciate it. (maybe Jesse & Erin could send me something? Smiley face) Erin since I don’t have your address with me I’m gonna send your card to Kori’s house since that’s the closest I can get it. Sorry Kori to treat you like a mailman! I don’t know what my address at the Spain MTC will be yet, but I’ll send something letting everyone know as soon as I can.

Love you,
Hermana Diehl

P.S I just got a card from Erin, a card from Alyn, & a phone card from Kori. Gracias mis hermanas! Now Kori doesn’t have to be my mailman.

Flight Plans

(Email from Provo MTC)

Hola mi familia!

This week was excellent. My companions and I learned that we have a lot to learn about teaching... but we are improving! We have a good time together and that makes it easier to love one another and trust each other as we teach.

Thanks to all of you who sent me Dear Elder mail and snail mail!

Alyn- I'm glad that I get to be here in the winter (like you were) because it makes it easier to want to be inside studying in my classroom instead of outside in the warm summer weather! I do think everyone else was here in the summertime... Jesse=August, Kori=June?, and Cody=August. Matt told me he was here in the winter as well... and I don't know about Mindy, John, or Emilee. But I'm grateful for MY time. I do have some pictures of everyone but I would love any pictures that you wanted to send (anyone, not just Alyn). I keep my 4x6 pictures in a little album. I brought English scriptures with me and I was given las escrituras en Espanol when I got here... I'm still mostly using my English ones though, I'm sorry to say :-) And I've been doing very well at writing in my journal everyday... I might have missed one day. Ooh! Last Tuesday devotional Elder Holland came and spoke to us and he was quite funny and very powerful. Amazing. I was about 40 feet away. His grandson is here at the MTC right now, Elder McCann or something. He made his grandson come up on the stand for everyone to see. It was funny. Uh... if you'd like to make a mission blog for me, you can, but don't feel like you need to because I personally won't be able to look at it. But if you would put my current addresses up on your blog (any of my siblings can do this) then at least our extended family can write me as well! And thanks for the quotes from the Pinestraw, I love your funny girls.

Lia- thanks for the card with the pictures of the temple and your family. I love it and I showed it to my companions and they thought it was awesome! I love you Miss Lia Ruby.

Mom- thanks for the funny story about Dad. To tell you the truth it was the first real pang of missing anyone that I had... sorry if that's a little harsh, but I'm having a great time here and I am glad to be here and not at home right now. I love you mucho though! I did receive the medical stuff, thanks for sending it. And I think I got everyone's email address correct this week... (and I added Emilee, thanks Cody for letting me know she wanted them!) The cookies were chocolate chip from the Gammons. I did give the bishop my favorite scripture, but I didn't give him a photo of me... still working on that, sorry! I wish I had time to answer all of your questions, but you fired them off rather quickly and I'm just scanning letters to answer them... desculpa me. Basically, everyday is very busy and I don't have much freetime that isn't filled with studying. And it's been quite cold, but not snowing.

Kori, John, and Spencer- I love the picture and the hand-outline Spence. I showed it to everyone around me at dinner. I think my Spanish is coming along. My MTC teachers are much better than any spanish teacher I've ever had before... and they're better at teaching the gospel and how to be a missionary than most teachers I've had before. That's their job though right? I'm definately enjoying the spirit here, thanks for the advice. John, will you ask your mom if she got my note? Thanks Gammons, I love you.

Erin- even though I haven't gotten any mail from you I wanted to say, Happy Late Birthday! I'm sending a letter later today.

I'm almost out of time, but I wanted to tell you that I fly out of SLC on the 27th to JFK airport in NYC and then to Madrid. I lose 8 hours of time and travel for about 16 hours. So I will get to Madrid in the morning of the 28th. Don't worry about me, I love flying and I'm looking forward to going to Espana! I've been working on my Thsp.

Jesse- provecho means appetite... I believe? Write me something en Espanol hombre, k?

Love,
Hermana Diehl

p.s. I'm not sure when I'll get to write next, so don't worry if I miss a week.

I guess I can email after all...

Hola Familia,

It's my p-day today and I guess that, despite what my call letter said, I CAN email people. It's still good to get real mail though. My snail mail address is something like (I don't have it with me, exactly, but this will get letters to me):
Hermana Marti Diehl
Spain Barcelona Mission
MTC Box# 154
2005 North 900 East
Provo, UT 84604

I leave the Provo MTC on January 27th to go to the Spain MTC in Madrid. Both of my companeras right now (we are a threesome) are from Utah and are going to the Spain Madrid Mission. Actually all of the 5 other girls in my room are from Utah. Not surprising though. I have seen a few other Elders and Hermanas around that are going to the Barcelona mission though, so I won't be alone when I get there.

We've had some very packed days and I've slept very well at night! I get along well with my comanions. We've already practiced teaching together several times (in English) and know how to pray, testify, and contact people in Spanish. My ear for hearing Spanish (thanks siblings!) has been rather helpful so far. I'm able to teach my companions a little bit, but the knowledge I have is soon to be surpassed by what we're being taught in class.

Thanks to the Gammons (John's parents) for sending me a box of cookies! It got here on Thursday (the day after I arrived) and I was able to share with my district. Thanks to Cody for the 'Dear Elder' letter the day after that! I appreciated your advice and am trying to use it as I learn from my teachers (Hermano Crane and Hermano Harrison - they're great teachers.) And thanks mom for your letter and for sending my medical information! To answer your questions:

I don't know if there were any other missionaries on my flight... but I don't think so.
There were two other missionaries on my shuttle from the airport. A sister from CA who is going to Temple Square (there seem to be a lot of them around here), and an Elder from ID who is going to Baltimore, MD Spanish speaking.
And I already answered the other questions above.

I'm glad to be here and love all the people that I get to learn from and with. I have a great district and zone. My companions and I are the only Hermanas in the whole zone... but it's fun. Our district seems to be the a little more well behaved having us there... but the other districts are still good.

I'm learning a lot about relying on the Spirit to guide me. I want to be good at everything NOW... so I guess I'm practicing my patience as well. I love all the gospel study time I've had and wish I could have more most days.

I love you all. I'm sorry if I got anyone's email wrong, please make sure that it got to everyone, mom and dad. I would love letters from all of you... emails are okay, but I don't have a lot of time on the computer to READ the emails, so letters are much more convenient for me while I'm at the MTC, just FYI.

Hermana Diehl