I love Mongolians

My Dear Family,

We went to visit this older lady here in Valencia for Preparation day (I now know how to make the famous tortilla de patata!) and we spent many hours there... as a result I have not left myself any time to respond to letters... nor to write a very good one to all of you.

First, Happy Birthday last week Kori!  I wrote you a little card... and never bought a stamp... it will arrive soon.  Happy Birthday this week dad!  I love you!

We had the baptism of Bulgan´s son Chinzo this last Saturday.  It was really cute.  He was nervous and excited and his little sister was super excited.  She´s getting baptized in May when she turns 8.

I loved the blog entries.  Erin- my guess is 2 boys.... and uh Jesse.... I found out via Erin´s blog that you´re baby is a boy... I feel left out.  But those were really cute pictures Mindy put on the blog of your 2 already born children.

I love you all, more next week-

Hermana Diehl

New email?

Hola familia!

I think my email address is probably different because they had us update our email accounts.

No importa. [It's not important] My only request is that Erin send an email to all of the contacts in my gmail account and tell them about it. I´m still allowed to recieve emails from people, just not reply to those who aren´t direct family. Gracias mi hermanita pequeñita. [Thanks my little bitty sister]

The great part about the new email is that it´s gmail/myldsmail together. Yeah! No more lost emails!

Bueno. Una semana buena. Mucho trabajo como siempre. Tenemos 2 metas bautismales que van bastante bien. Chinzo es un niño muy bueno y su hermana Minjirmaa tambien. Hemos enseñado la palabra de sabiduría con debujos y una cara y una basura para poner las cosas buenas (como frutas y pan) en la boca y las cosas malas (como drogas y alcohol) en la basura. Fue un poco dificil a explicar a 2 niños de Mongolia que son ¨drogas iligales¨... y bastante gracioso tambien. [Well. A good week. A lot of work like always. We have two baptism goals that are going quite well. Chinzo is a very good kid and his sister Minjirmaa too. We have taught the word of wisdom with drawings of a face and a trash can, to put the good things (like fruit and bread) in the mouth and the bad things (like drugs and alcohol) in the trash can. It was a little dificult to explain to 2 kids from Mongolia what 'illegal drugs' are...and very funny too.]

I wanted to send a note to each of my sibling´s families today instead of writing individual emails to each (lazy? Yes. But much faster.)

Mom and Dad- I love the stories about the grandkids and the missionary efforts you´re doing. ¡Tengan animo! [Have enthusiasm!] Keep sharing with everyone. Angels really do prepare people. I got the card with the pictures you printed me mom. Thanks so much. It looks like the Rhoda´s gave you some furniture or something. I´m sad they don´t live close anymore. I always liked visiting their family. I have another picture request (not hard copy, just email)- I want to see the new barstools... I think you mentioned barstools once... I also got the medical information. Oh mom, I asked Chelsie Draney to help me a bit in getting things organized for going back to school in the fall... could you send her some information from that green folder I left you? Her email is in my gmail account (I also think she is a ¨follower¨ of the blog where my letters go... if that helps). She´ll need to know the classes that I´m lacking. Have you been able to do FAFSA stuff or anything like that? Thanks for all you do for me. I wish I could help more... let me know if you need me to do something... and I´ll do what I can.

Alyn and Nathan- thanks for the blogs you send so faithfully Alyn (don´t worry about not sending one every week, you do a ton), I´m glad you liked the letters I sent. They were fun to write. Nathan asked a lot of good questions and made it easy to reply. I hope Lia liked the story I wrote her... it was a little lame... but I liked it okay. Make sure Charlie doesn´t forget how to say my name.

Kori and John- oh my goodness your boys are getting big! I couldn´t believe how long Tanner´s hair was and how tall Spencer is (although I still don´t know for sure since I haven´t seen a counter picture... :-) How is work going, John? Busy season again. I hope Kori´s not going crazy being at home too much. Enjoy the nice southern Arizona weather for me. It´s been cold and rainy here. How´s the primary calling going? How many are there in your Primary? I´m losing my sense of what a big ward is like.

Jesse and Mindy- bueno. Most of what I know about your family mom tells me... but I know you have 2 crazy kids and I won´t hold anything against you. How´s the pregnancy Mindy? When do you find out the gender? Anything new with work Jess?

Cody and Emilee- I printed some of the cute pictures of Eliza. She´s a doll. What´s going on in your lives? Work wise? Temple attendance? Everyone loves the San Diego temple picture I carry in my scriptures. I tell them how you can see the angel from your door.

Erin and Matt- tell me the baby names. I won´t tell anyone I promise! I hope you´re not sick sister. Take care of my hermanita [little (in the physical sense) sister] Matt.

Okay, gotta go. Kiss the kids from me. I love you-

Hermana Diehl

I'm old

Birthday party with the Mongolians (Chinzo = 10 and Hna. Oliphant = 22)

Bulgan´s baptism

The building where I live here in Valencia

 
Hola,

I remember talking with Hermana Henderson and Hermana Grant about how the longer you´re in the mission the more worn out you get (and the greater your appreciation for elevators... instead of having to take the stairs)... well, I was feeling old this week. Yesterday was the first day of my 9th transfer (since we measure time in ¨transfers¨ in the mission... 1 transfer= 6 weeks), and I was sad that my time left is getting shorter and shorter. But let´s not talk about it, okay? We´re just going to pretend that the mission never ends.

Good news this week:

I stayed in Valencia with Hermana Oliphant! I love Valencia and I love being able to stay in one place a long time. We continue to see miracles. We´ve been teaching Bulgan´s children and they´re super smart. (Hermana Grant- we played your jumping game for lesson 3 and they loved it muchisimo!) We taught them what prophets do like this: before the lesson we hid a bag of chuches (uh... candies) in this park where we knew we would be teaching them. When we got to the part of explaining what prophets do we told them, ¨There´s something tasty hiden somewhere near here... and you have 1 minute to find it if you can. Go!¨ They ran around like crazy looking in all of the bushes and things while we sat and laughed with Bulgan for a minute. Then we told Bulgan where we had hidden the chuches and she told them... it still took a few tries for them to get it right, but they said in the end, ¨So, the prophets tell us where to find the good stuff from God.¨ Exactly! I love kids.

There was a broadcast stake conference on Sunday for all of Spain and Portugal. It was so good. 2 members of the first quorum of the 70 spoke a member of the Primary General Presidency and Elder Nelson of the 12. They talked a ton about the family and Elder Nelson pronounced a beautiful apostolic blessing on all of the people of the Iberian peninsula. I don´t remember all of the blessing right now because I don´t have my notes with me from the conference, but I loved it.

And the sad news:

As Hermana (Melanie) Grant was saying, there are 4 Hermanas going home this transfer and we´re only getting one new one. There was a trio in Zaragoza last transfer so President had to chose 1 hermana area to close... and the time finally came to close my beloved Palma. There are now no Hermanas in the islands... well, that´s not entirely true, since they put a senior couple of missionaries in Inca...but it looks like I won´t be returning to Palma to finish my mission like I wanted to. It was a small area and it will be easy for the Elders to take over it... but I loved it there and I´m sad that it´s closed.

Well family (and friends), I´m going to close for now. I love you all. I´m so glad to be a missionary and to be serving in the Lord´s work. I read several times in my studies this morning that all we have to do is obey the commandments and we will be well. I know it´s true because I feel it. It´s so clear to me now, and I wish everyone could understand it. Be good. Take care of each other. I loved the pictures of Eliza´s birthday, Charlie´s mismatched shoes, and Cai in the dog food bag (he´s getting so tall!). Give those neices and nephews kisses from me.

Love,

Hermana Diehl

Our snail mail from Marti

Marti was in Palma 6 months.  (5 transfers)
Now in Valencia 4 months.  (3 transfers)
She has 5.5 months left until her transfer home. (Which is 24 weeks or 4 transfer periods.)

So, after Melanie's mention of several sisters departing, perhaps she'll transfer this month or next. The areas she mentioned as "sister areas":  Sabedell, Barcelona, Hospitalet, Zaragoza, Palma, Valencia, Benidorm, Elche, Murcia, Torreviieja.  I'll plot them on the map in blue.

  We received letters from Marti in recent weeks. 

The back of the photo says:"This is me at a bull fight with an Elder from Cadis, Spain and an Elder from Sevilla, Spain.

Woo!  Spain!

 This is some of Lia's letter, in which she requested Marti to write her a story and draw her a floorplan.  So you can see the layout of her current apartment:

We thought her letter to Nathan contained lots of info that might interest everyone.  (I didn't scan the 4th page because it was just a couple lines closing the letter.)

 

 

 

Bulgan's Baptism and HAPPY BIRTHDAY FEBRUARY PEOPLE!

Hola Familia,

Bulgan got baptized! I love her so much. She´s such a sweet person and is so happy to be able to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. She wants us to teach her children and she´s talking with her husband as well... he just really doesn´t understand any languages we speak... all 2 of them. The service was beautiful and I got to give her a hug when I handed her the towel afterwards (my tradition apparently... I did the same thing with Maria back in Palma).

I don´t have anything more exciting than a baptism to report. Next week are transfers and I´m hoping to stay in Valencia with Hermana Oliphant. Pero, ¨A donde me mandes ire¨. [But, "I'll go where you want me to go."]

Thanks Alyn and Erin for the emails and blogs. I enjoyed the news and I laughed quite a lot. I´m excited to see more counter pictures (just missing Kori´s boys, Charlotte, and Eliza).

Happy 1st Birthday to Eliza! It´s so crazy that I´ve officially missed her first year of life. Hombre! [Man!] I love her anyways. And happy birthday this week Emilee! I know that dad and Kori will have birthdays in February as well... falta alguien? [...missing anyone?] I can´t think of anyone else... Sorry...

I´m so sorry that I didn´t send pictures again... the USB ports in this computer are destroyed... how do I always find this computer?

The only other news is that in July they are going to realign the missions in Spain and dissolve the Bilboa mission (so there will only be Barcelona, Madrid, and Malaga). Not sure of all the details yet... watch for an article in the church news about it.

I love you all-
Hermana Diehl