March 31, 2011

Hey how are you?

So pretty much Spain is the coolest place on the earth.  Everything about this place is better besides my old teacher Hermano Toone. 

But I will tell you about the temple because I just barely got back from it.  We did a session today in English which was cool and it was of course amazing.  The celestial room is gorgeous, much better than Provo (no offense anyone).  But this is my temple because it´s in España.  The ceiling in this temple is super cool, and we get to look at the temple through all the windows in the CCM (MTC).  So after the session President Earl said we could go look at the baptismal font down stairs.  So Elder Peterson and I go to walk out of the dressing room and a worker corners us and asks us to be witnesses for the baptisms for 30 minutes.  So we are like okay cool no problem.  We get there and there are 13 people and they are going to do 15 baptisms each....so we got to sit there for an hour and a half and got to participate in 3 confirmations by putting my hands on the kids head.  It was actually a really cool experience and it made me excited to baptize people. It was cool; this is what Elder Peterson and I got for going to the temple together prior to the mission.  Yes mother that is Elder Peterson, the tall skinny lurp in the picture next to me.  Haha I love Elder Peterson I hope I get to serve with him in the field.  Elder Peterson is our district leader.

Madrid MTC Building

Mmmm, delicious!

So the CCM de Madrid.  It is awesome here, like a heaven compared to PROVO.  I am now 12 hours away from family and mi novia which feels a lot better than being 5 minutes away.  Here in Madrid we get nap time for 2 hours on Sunday, we get snack time at 9:30 every night, better beds, much better food, and our President is ridiculously awesome.  I don´t really participate in snack time, because I don´t want to get fat.  Snack time usually consists of juice, bread and nutella.  I stay away from the nutella because the food they feed us here is simple carbohydrates cooked in oil.  Somehow I am not getting fat, probably because I watch what I eat and wash it down with a lot of fruit so it cleans me out!  Yesterday we had a weird little fishy with eyeballs still attached to his skull, but I didn´t eat it.  I also do at least 100 push ups a night so I can get in shape.  We play soccer a lot!  Oh so there is like 7 Italians here and we do Italians versus USA and we always win haha.  I am the only one that has played soccer.  

My companion is Elder Hunt, he is pretty cool. He is from West Virginia but they move like every 3 years or less, his dad is some secret military dude.  I love my teacher here too, she is a sweet heart and doesn´t speak much English but her testimony is amazing.  She loves us.  She cries whenever she tells us she loves us.  Our other teacher is on vacation right now but apparently he is super awesome too.  In this MTC we have to teach in Spanish every night.  We have practices every night besides Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  Tuesday and Thursdays we have to teach an investigator from the ward or another teacher or something.  Saturday’s are when we do contacts.  Haha so contacting in the park was terrifying, but a good experience.  Elder Hunt and I paired up with an Italian.  The Italians are Italians going to Italy on their missions so they only speak Italian.  But Elder Hunt and I would do the "We´re missionaries from the Church etc..."  and hand it over to the Italian because we would freeze and not know what to say haha.  But it was good and I am super excited to contact on Saturday again; because I know a lot more Spanish now and can understand more.  But still no where where I need to be! I am super hard on myself, but I need to remember I am called of God to do his work and I am in his hands.   

Oh yeah about the food, I am pretty sure we ate a horse burger which is cool right?  It tasted okay but I prefer American fast food.  Everything here is greasy but it isn´t real Spanish food most of the time.  So when I get out in Málaga it won’t be this unhealthy I hope.  So the people in Málaga talk more with a lisp and faster, they have their own accent!!!  I like the pastries but I don´t really like bread stuff so I would rather not eat it.  I have taken a lot of pictures and want to send it out with a package.  So send me the card, and when I get it I will send the package.  Hide it in something so it won’t get stolen, PLEASE!

Tell people about dearElder people are getting letters from it, it costs like 98 cents to send it here and it gets here in like 4 days.

Thanks for everything. Thanks sooo much!

I love you all and I get to go to museums or something today so I will have cool pics.

Cody