Os Quiero! [I Love Ye!]

¡Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año!

Buenos días mi familia (y amigos que siguen mi blog…) Estoy contenta. Hemos tenido un buen año aquí en la misión de Barcelona. No puedo creer que el tiempo ha pasado tan rápido. ¡Ya estamos en al final de Diciembre! Tiempo para fijar metas y hacer planes (suena como el Élder Scott, ¿no?). Espero que todos pongan en sus planes a irse MUY a menudo al templo. Cuando vuelva voy a poder cuidar sus niños para que puedan ir, ¿de acuerdo? La primera cosa que quiero hacer cuando salgo de aquí es asistir al templo. Los que puedan, vengan conmigo, ¿vale?

El día de la Navidad no hicimos mucho… organizamos nuestras carpetas de área (tenemos 4), fuimos a una cita para comer por mediodía y recibí un suéter de una miembro Brasileña (ella es la mejor), y fuimos a otra cita para comer y hacer las llamadas por la noche con una familia Colombiana. O, me encanta la Navidad. Aun que no podía oír muy bien durante la llamada, estaba contenta a escuchar las voces de mis queridos.

Nuevo traslado: sigo aquí en Valencia con la Hermana Oliphant (sí, su nombre es casi Elephant). Somos buenas amigas y caemos muy bien, entonces, estoy bien y feliz. Estamos enseñando a un español (¡por fin!) y él está progresando mucho. Y, aun estamos enseñando a muchos que hablan el inglés. Hoy no hace mucho frío y vamos afuera para disfrutar Valencia.

Os quiero, hasta la semana (y año) que viene,

Hermana Diehl

p.s. Gracias Cody por traducir mi carta, quería escribirla en el castellano hoy.

Here's the translation:

Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year!

Good morning my family (and friends who follow my blog ...) I'm content. We have had a good year here in the Barcelona mission. I can not believe time has passed so rapidly. We are at the end of December! Time to set goals and make plans (sounds like Elder Scott, right?). I hope that everyone puts in their plans to go to the temple VERY often. When I return I will be able to take care or your children so you can go, agreed? The first thing I want do when I leave here is to attend the temple. Those that can, come with me, okay?

On Christmas day we didn't do much ... we organized our area books (we have 4), we went to an appoitment for lunch at noon and I got a sweater from a Brazilian member (she is the best) and we went to another appointment for food and to make calls at night with a Colombian family.

Oh, I love Christmas.

Even though I could not hear very well during the phone call, I was glad to hear the voices of my loved ones.

New transfer: I am still here in Valencia with Sister Oliphant (yes, her name is almost Elephant). We are good friends and get along very well, I'm good and happy. We are teaching a Spaniard (finally!) and he is progressing well. And, we are even teaching many who speak English. Today it is not very cold and we are going outside to enjoy Valencia.

I love ye, until next week (and year),

Hermana Diehl Sister Diehl

PS. Thanks Cody for translating my letter, I wanted to write in Castilian (aka spanish) today.

Feliz Navidad! TWINS!!??

Oh Family,

I am so excited for the twins. My poor little Erin is going to be huge. I never did see how Stefani looked with so much baby inside of her... and Erin is even smaller. (come to think of it, I´ve never seen Stefani´s twins... and I didn´t even know Nate and Melissa were expecting a baby... what is this madness?)

I love Christmas. I have presents from Mom and Dad in my living room under my little tree. I did open one already ´cause I wanted to wear something new for the baptism... and I found a skirt! Que suerte.

We´ve been having a white christmas because there has been a lot of snow in Spain... just not where I am. There are some Elders in my zone who are serving in Alcoy which is up in the mountains and they showed me pictures of the snowman they built. Pretty snow! But in the other sense we have also been having a white Christmas of baptisms... there were 4 in Valencia last week. Like I said before, Hermann (from Cameroon), Vanessa (Nigeria), Fabian (Equatorial Guinea), and Francisca (Paraguay) all got baptized and, although it was a crazy baptismal service, I loved it. Para que sepais, there are Spaniards in Spain... I promise. Actually we are teaching a man right now who is Spaniard. His name is David and he already looks like a member. He comes to church in his white shirt and tie and the bishop asked me if he was an investigator or if he was baptized already.

The Christmas conference was so good. I love the Hinckleys and we have the best missionaries in the world! Ya esta. And Elche is beautiful. The chapel is amazing. Alyn, you should get on the internet and look at it (or anyone else who wants to see it). If I go there again I´ll take some architectural shots for you. Amazing woodwork on the inside and a huge garden on the outside (garden in the grassy-with-lots-of-trees sense).

Alright, the big call news. I will be going to visit a family for the evening/night time on the 25th, so I should be able to call between 11 am and 2 pm in Arizona time... not sure what time exactly because of the time difference and I´ll be eating dinner with them... so I´m not sure what time we´ll be free. I love the members here. This cute little Colombian women named Paula came up to be on Saturday and asked me where I was going for Noche Buena (Christmas eve) and I told her we had someone we were visiting, but did she have a fijo telefono (land line) in her house that we could use to call our families on Christmas day? And she said yes, of course and we had to come to dinner too. I love being a missionary. This is why Christ told his disciples to not worry about clothes or food or lodging. People take care of us!

Gotta go, I´m trying to be so obedient and not be on the internet too long- os quiero muchisimo!

Hermana Diehl

Navidad Blanca

Hace frio!

My fingers are numb as I type this, so don´t expect a long letter today. I am inside, but this locutorio doesn´t appear to have heating and it´s raining and windy today... cold, cold, cold. But no snow. My mission theme for this month is White Christmas or Navidad Blanca, so we will have a white Christmas of baptisms (clever huh? White baptism clothing) since we probably won´t be seeing any snow.

I had a good week in that we had a great baptism on Saturday with one of our investigators and one from the Elders´ (that used to be mine) getting baptized. It was a bi-lingual baptism again and I was translating. It was good. The Elders and Hermana Oliphant and I sang ¨Be Still My Soul¨ acapela and it was pretty (not because of me, because of Hna. Oliphant and Elder Jensen who can sing parts). I love baptisms. We have another one this Saturday as well. One of our investigators and 3 of the Elders (also people I used to teach... I sound so vain don´t I? I don´t mean to, I´m just pointing out how blessed this area is and how blessed I´ve been since being here with prepared people to teach.) I love the gospel.

Any of you who are observant may have been asking, Why didn´t Hermana Church sing in the baptism with everyone else? And the answer would be that on Thursday night we got a call from President Hinckley and he emergency transferred her to Barcelona to be companions with an Hermana who is from Chile who was waiting several months for her visa to come through to be able to enter Spain... I don´t remember her name, but she´s the first Chilean to serve in Spain... or at least the first Chilean hermana... I´ll have to find out. I´m so excited to have another native speaker in the mission and I hope I can be companions with her sometime! I miss Hna. Church though. She is a great missionary and we had a lot of fun together.

Tomorrow we have the Christmas conference and I get to go to Elche (I´ve never been there before). You´ll probably hear about it all first on the mission blog, but I´ll let you know next week how it goes.

I´m gonna have to know what you want me to do for calling home on Christmas day. I think it´s 8 hour difference? Or 9? I don´t remember. I can buy a phone card like on Mother´s day since they´re so cheap here.

Alrighty, I love you all and I am trying to work hard and do what my Heavenly Father wants me to. I pray for you everyday mi querida familia.

Con amor,
Hermana Diehl

p.s. sorry I didn´t attach a picture of the baptism. I chose poorly in the computer I am using today and the USB ports are all destroyed. Just imagine 4 really white missionaries and 3 quite black men and you´ll be seeing the picture I wanted to send you.

Bautismos

Wow Familia!

We´ve been inviting everyone to get baptized this week. We are inviting all of our current progressing investigators and all of the people in our area that used to have baptismal dates (but missed them) to be baptized before Christmas. It´s been great. There have been a lot of people who want to be baptized and a lot of people who don´t… so we´ve had to stop visiting them. We studied as a mission in Moroni 7 about how angels prepare these people and we are just here to teach them and invite them. We are not the ones who do the preparing. So we are looking for the prepared ones. And we´ve found a few. A lot of the people that I was teaching in the other ward (Barrio I of Valencia) are now being taught by the Elders and many of them are going to get baptized. I feel like I was a big part of the teaching process for at least 3 of the people in that ward that will be baptized soon. It´s so great. I love being a missionary!

Alright, Alyn is telling me I might have missed the deadline to request things for Christmas… but here´s my requests if I´m not too late:

I want that lullaby CD that Charlotte has (it´s approved)

Some thick tights (not patterned), black and grey please

Some stickers of Christ (nice ones from Deseret Book probably)

A fine point black Sharpie (I love them)

More brownie mixes! They were so good.

Reeses (I miss them mucho)

I also would like another dress… but I´m not sure how feasible it is… the skirt that you sent me fit fine, but the shirt was way too big… I´ve lost some weight on the mission. Maybe DownEast has something that would be long enough? I think I wear an extra small, but maybe check that dress I have in my closet at home (if one of my sisters hasn´t stolen it…) It´s not a big deal if it doesn´t work out. Most of my clothes are getting ruined anyway.

Alright, the only other thing I wanted to tell you is how blessed I am. I love being here in Spain. I really feel like I get to be a part of bringing the gospel to all the world since everyone I teach is from a different country. There´s a man named Hermann who will be baptized this Saturday who is from Cameroon. His country is a mess and our church is not allowed in right now because of the messy political situation and how dangerous it is. The gospel is going to every nation anyways, even if we can´t send missionaries inside their borders.

I´m also blessed to have all of you for my family. I know that all of the hard work to make it to the celestial kingdom will be worth it so that I can be with all of you there familia mia! Take good care of each other and thanks for your prayers.

Hermana Diehl