First week in the Spain MTC

Well, it is pretty great to be here in Spain. I am really enjoying it here. We do all our practices in Spanish, so I feel like my Spanish is starting to get better.

The temple is really right next door, and we have an amazing view from our staircase. It is so gorgeous. We got to attend a session this morning, but because there are a lot of missionaries here this week, we did an English session. But it was really gorgeous.

We had to travel downtown to meet with someone about our paperwok. I´m not entirely sure what I signed, but I think that it is something that will let me stay in the country. (This from our daughter who wants to go to law school - ha!)

The temple grounds are mostly on the outskirts of the city, so we haven´t got the chance to really see all of Madrid yet. We are planning on going downtown after lunch, but I don´t really know what we are going to do.

The days here aren´t nearly as long as in Provo. In Provo, every minute of every day is scheuled, but here we have some free time, especially after meals and on Sundays. It is usually just 15 20 minutes while we are waiting for the next activity to start.

Going to the park wasn´t as bad as I thought it was going to be, especially since we had Hna. Bustamente with us, our native companion. We did all of the introductions and stuff, but she was able to pick up when we had used up all our spanish. But her visa came through, so she flew off to L.A.

This week we are getting a new companion, at least for a week, and she studied Spanish in college, so is pretty fluent. We are hoping she´ll be able to help us out this week. We don´t think she´ll be here very long because she already knows the language.

Every missionary going to Spain spends at least a week here. There is quite a bit of paperwork to take care of, so they like to keep everyone here to make sure all the paperwork is correct. Most of the elders that flew to Spain with us will be leaving tomorrow.

We took some pictures with the President and all the missionaries at the MTC. I´m not entirely sure how you´ll get the pictures, but I think you´ll get an email, or they will send them to me and I will email them to you.

The early rising hasn´t been as bad here as it was in Provo. I think the jet lag sort of took care of that. They let us go to bed at 7 on Friday after we got here to help us adjust to the time change, but now everything is pretty good.

It just started snowing outside...We asked the lawyer we met with earlier if it is unseasonaly cold right now, and he told us that it is freezing. It is pretty cold, but if this cold is not the normal cold, I think that I will be alright in the winter.

We are getting to a point where we can sort of communicate with the Portugese missionaries. They are going to Portugal and Cape Verde, and are all native Portugese speakers. We are supposed to be getting a district of missionaries from Italy in a few weeks. I didn´t realize that native Europeans came to the Madrid MTC if they were going to their native countries...rumors are that native Russian speakers are going to start coming here rather than Provo.

We play a lot of soccer here, it is how we have been spending our gym time. Apparently I´m not as bad as I thought. They have basketball courts all over the place, and all of them can be used as soccer fields. Occasionally the locals will come play with us.

Pres. Earl still can´t believe that Randy Webb is my grandfather, everytime it comes up he comments about how Grampa must have been about 12 when he got married. It´s funny to think that Grampa could travel half way across the world and still run into someone that he knows...

Well, I think that is about it for now.

Love, Amber