Happy Birthdays

Familia Mia [Family of Mine]-

I know that I already missed a few of them, but I wanted to wish happy birthday to all of my family members that have birthdays in May. Grandma T (how old is Grandma now? I can´t remember what year she was born in), Mindy, Spencer, Jesse, Lia (and my cousins that have birthdays in May too- Spencer and Jacob at least... there are probably more, but I can´t remember right now). I´m sorry if I forgot anyone... pero ¡feliz cumpleanos a todos! [but, Happy Birthday to all!]

My Barcelona trip was good. I love trips so much. We flew into Barcelona one day and did inter-cambios [exchanges] with some of the Hermanas that are serving there (I went with Hermana Lunt and Hna. Henderson went with mi amiga [my friend] Hermana Brown). There´s a 4-missionary piso [floor- here meaning apartment] that the Barcelona and the Hospitalet Hermanas live in and they refer to it as the ¨Barcelona Hotel¨ because there are always Hermanas from other zones staying with them for conferences or what have you. And that night there were 8 of us total in the piso. We talked a lot (in Spanish since there were 2 native speakers there) and I really enjoyed seeing my fellow Hermanas... not that I don´t like the Elders... but we see them all the time. And the conference was excellent. I just felt so tranquila [tranquil] during the whole thing. We have a good mission president. Him and Hermana Waddell really love the missionaries and take such good care of us. I got to visit my suitcase and it was almost like Christmas. I have floss again!

I have a new goal... during the conference the ayudantes [helpers] were translating from English to Spanish for the native speakers and they were able to do it perfectly and really fast. It was quite impressive. And then yesterday in church there were a whole bunch of people from England the United States who asked the missionaries to translate for them... so Elder Carpenter (who finishes his mission next week), Hermana Henderson, and I all ended up translating (from Spanish to English... I actually felt bad for the people who had to sit around us because there was so much talking... we should´ve planned it better and grouped all of the English speakers in the back corner or something so they could all listen to one translation together, pero bueno [but oh well]). I didn´t do a really great job, but I was able to pass along the message. It just wasn´t in the words of the speakers, it was in my own, summarizing words. But my new goal is to be able to speak Spanish well enough to translate from English to Spanish OR Spanish to English. So... I´ll let you know how that goes over the course of my mission.

Que mas? Vamos a visitar unos sitios turisticos hoy. Estoy animada. Gracias madre por la carta con mucho informacion. Me alegro a oir de la boda de Anna y Cody. Espero que todo va bien. Mande mis saludos a ellos. [What more? We are going to visit some tourist sites today. I am excited. Thanks mom for the letter with alot of information. I am glad to hear about Anna and Cody's wedding. I hope that all goes well. Send my greetings to them.]

Les amo a todos! Y besos para los ninos, por favor! [I love you all! And kisses for the kids, please!]
Hermana Diehl

Foto 1- flying from Palma to Barcelona last week. How pretty is my island?
Foto 2- Elder Archibald and I were really excited to see each other at the big zone conference. He´s one of my CCM [MTC] little brothers and a really good missionary.

Barcelona

Querida Familia [Dear Family],

Tomorrow my whole zone is travelling to Barcelona for a combined zone conference with one of the larger zones on the peninsula. I´m excited to visit my bags that have been sitting in the mission office since March with most of my stuff. I need to trade out a few things that I don´t need anymore and bring back a few essentials (like a new toothbrush and floss). I think I´m going to get to see my CCM [MTC] companion Hermana Brown! I´m pretty excited since we´re a little isolated out here.

I was so sad to read that my bird died. Thanks for taking care of her for me when I wasn´t there madre.

Thanks to all of my siblings for the great blog updates. I love the pictures so much. Que bonita es mi familia. Besos a los ninos, por favor. [How beautiful my family is. Kisses for the kids, please.]

It´s getting pretty hot here. Not looking forward to July and August!

Hey Alyn- one of my zone leaders is from Germany- from just outside of Hamburg. I was going to ask him for advice on where you should go when you were near his city... but it doesn´t sound like you´ll be there. But I must admit I haven´t studied my Germany-and-surrounding-area map in a while... so maybe I´m wrong. I´ve been trying to write a snail mail letter, I´ll ask him for some tips on the cities you listed on the blog.

Sorry I don´t have a ton to say today. La proxima vez espero que tengo mas noticias para compartir. [Next time I hope I have more news to share.] The only exciting thing to share about the missionary work is that a woman who´s been coming to church for several weeks now (she has some friends in the branch) finally stayed for all three of the meetings yesterday and she loved it. She also has a friend that she wants us to start teaching. It´s excellent. We´re gonna help her be converted and get baptized!

Love you all,
Hermana Diehl

a few more notes...

Buenos Dias Familia Mia,

What a good phone call yesterday! I wish that everyone could have been there, but don´t worry, I understand. Happy Mother´s Day to all... I really only wished MY mother a happy mother´s day... but I meant to tell everyone.

Hermana Henderson told me that I won´t really need my CD player because every piso (apartment) has one that belongs to the piso. So, don´t worry about sending the CD player madre. However lots of CDs would be excellent. Like I said any Tabernacle Choir is okay, any EFY before 2005 (not sure what happened to EFY music since 2005, but my mission president won´t have any of it), classical is good... and I´d really like that lullaby CD that Charlotte has (it was on my iPod before I wasn´t allowed to listen to my iPod anymore... and I miss it).

So, the phone card wasn´t really working for me... and it was probably my own fault for not figuring it out sooner... but since it´s really cheap to call from Spain to the USA (seriously cheap) I think I´ll send it to Alyn and Nathan in case they want to use it while they´re in Germany or wherever they go adventuring to. Unless there´s someone else who really needs it who will be leaving the country soon?

I told dad I would tell more about the island in my email today... but honestly, I think you could find out more on the internet than I could tell you... could one of my computer-savvy siblings look some things up for him? Maybe you could post it on the blog and all of my friends who read it can see where in the world Hermana Diehl is as well.

There´s lots of work to do here. Lots of miracles in my mission this month (´mes de milagros´ we are calling it). We´re working hard, teaching lots, and I love it. It´s also getting quite hot and humid. Yeah summer!

The only other thing I wanted to say is that I love you all very much and remember to give the ninos kisses from me, ¿vale? (vale means okay... and it´s very Spain-Spanish and I love it.)

Hermana Diehl

p.s. the picture is from last dia de preparacion... the puppeteers for the pinata are my zone leaders... and I did not meet with success in my efforts to free the candy.

Dia de la Madre

Hola Familia-

I have to be quick today because I have lots to do. We´re having a zone Cinco de Mayo (well EVE of Cinco de Mayo) fiesta for preparation day. Thanks for the blogs! I was glad to see Eliza looking so happy and smiley. What a sweetie.

Thanks for your updates in your letter, mom- you´re so faithful in writing! You´re the best mom. And just so you know, we have been eating with the members a lot more lately. I love food. They really like flan, I eat it at least once a week. I never used to like it that much, but I think it´s better here than it was in the states. I´m excited about the yard too- thanks papa for being such a hard worker. There´s so many people who don´t know how to work.

Yesterday was el Dia de la Madre here in Spain and I got to see two sets of Primary children sing to their mothers in church. There was one song that says ¨Madrecita¨ and it was really cute to see all of the kids sing and give their moms kisses. Speaking of Mother´s day, I´m going to be calling next week (we call on the day that our home country celebrates Mothers). I was going to ask for permission to call on Father´s day instead since I know that dad would love it so much, but I haven´t been able to talk to President Waddell about it and I feel kind of stupid making a special phone call just to ask for permission to change the day of my phone call... I´m sorry Pops. Which Sunday of the month is Father´s day? Maybe I can call next year (right before I come home) on el Dia del Padre. I think I come home on June 16th or something.

I need someone to do me a favor though- (maybe Alyn since you get up earlier than the rest of my family? Or mom if Alyn isn´t able to? Muchisimas gracias) I have the phone card that Kori sent me when I was in Provo, but I don´t have the country code to call FROM Spain. And to get it you have to call from within the United States. I´ll send an email just to Alyn and Mom with all the phone information so it´s not plastered all over the blog, eh? I´ll need help with this today since I can only check my email on preparation day. I´m going to come back just to get this information later today about 5:00PM Spain time (which is 9 hours later than Arizona... and I´m not sure what the time difference is with Georgia... sorry Al). I´ll be able to call next Sunday the 10th about 7:30-8:30PM Spain time. What number should I call? Someone write to me soon so I can get it later today, k?

Gotta go, love you all,

Hermana Diehl