¡Felicidades! ¡Parabéns! Eliza is here!

¡Familia!

Congratulations Cody and Emilee on finally getting to meet Eliza! I started crying when I read ¨Eliza's birth story as told by her father.¨ Bien hecho Emilee! According to one of the Brazilian Elders that is here in the CCM in Madrid, ¨Parabéns¨ means Congratulations in Portuguese... so hopefully that is true and I didn´t misspell it or anything. I am so excited that she´s here! I kept telling everyone I talked to this week that I probably had a new neice and I wouldn´t even know it until Thursday. Eliza was born just after I started my personal study on Monday morning here in España. I was thinking about the three of you (I didn´t know what Eliza would look like but I was thinking about her!) all week, and wishing I could be there to see what you did when you became a papa and a mama and got to hold your daughter for the first time. Don´t worry, I´m really happy to be where I am, but I love meeting all the new little people that get sent to my family and I felt a small twinge of wanting to be somewhere else. Give that little girl a kiss from me and tell her that I love her. She looks beautiful and I would love to have some more pictures of her por favor! That´s so nice that Emilee got to celebrate her first birthday as a mom already! I hope it was a good day for you Em!

What town exactly was Eliza born in? I like to record the births of my neices and nephews in my journal and include the town, county, and state (like it´s a pedigree chart entry). I have all of the other details I wanted from the emails. Thanks for sending the updates and the pictures mom, Alyn, and Cody! I didn´t get to see the cell phone picture, but I got the two attachments with the birth story.

Also Cody, have you gotten to share the gospel with that man in your lab yet? Be brave; you know how important the gospel is. Maybe you´re this man´s chance to hear it.

And Emilee, thanks for the encouragement to not waste any time! This is the Lord´s time and I´m just here to do what he needs me to. And I´m trying to write down as many good experiences as I can in my journal so that I can remember them in the future when I think back on my mission. I´m very busy, but I need to leave time to write down the important things. I appreciated your letter so much.

Mom- Sundays are nice here. We have a district meeting that´s like Sunday School first, then all of the Hermanas meet for Relief Society in the apartment that the CCM (CCM means MTC in Español) President and his wife live in here in the building. Then all of the missionaries and some of the leadership here at the CCM have a sacrament meeting together. Last week was Fast Sunday and it was excellent. The spirit was so strong. The amazing thing to me is how the spirit works. I felt it the strongest when a Brazilian Elder bore his testimony in Portuguese and I only understood about 8 words (most of them being ¨em nome de Jesus Cristo, amen¨) and also when an Elder who is from Utah bore his simple Spanish testimony. He´s having a hard time with the language, but as soon as he started speaking I felt the spirit so strongly. I love how the Lord works through simple means and humble people.

Sorry I forgot to tell you that I ran into Sister Call in the Provo temple! It was nice to see her and that was sweet of her to send you a note.

Will you tell the Phelps family that I said ¨muchas gracias¨ for their generous contribution to help me on my mission. It makes me feel so good to know that the people back at home are helping me... necesito trabajar con más diligencia! I´m so glad to hear that Brother Phelps was able to go to the temple again! I love the Temple. I just got to go myself this morning. They´ve been doing English sessions for us with some of the missionaries and Spanish people wearing headsets to interpret into Portuguese or Spanish.

I cried again when I read about Ethan Ellsworth passing away. Your cousin Cory and his wife are such good people. Heavenly Father knew he could trust them with the challenges of having to see some of their children´s mortal lives come to an end before their own. He knew he could trust them with those choice spirits. I can´t even imagine, but I know that the Lord knows how they feel and that through the atonement the pain of that loss can be taken away.

I wanted to write so many things. About my friends here at the CCM (there are some great Brazilians, an Elder from Portugal, an Elder from Germany, and the one I mentioned before from England... I love to see the world wide church!) I wanted to tell more about going to el parque on Saturdays and getting to contact real, live potential investigators (it was amazing to testify to people in Spanish and have them understand me!) And about what Madrid and Spain are like a little bit more... but I´ve got a lesson to prepare for Reunion de Distrito el Domingo. Oh here´s a fun tid-bit to close with: my teaching companion here at the CCM is an Elder. Elder Green from Spokane, Washington. My normal companion and his companion are in the same district that´s been here for three weeks longer than we have and they teach together when we do simulations... so we get to work together as well. For everything else I´m with my Hermana companion, but not for teaching. I never thought I´d have a compañerO!

I love you all, talk to you next week,
Hermana Diehl