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.