July 15, 2009 First day in Spain

I am so glad that we are able to email you today. It has been a crazy day, very long and getting longer. We finally got to Atlanta and I called you there, which was awesome, and then I stepped off American soil and endured the 8 hour, or so, flight to Spain. It was long and hard to be productive during, but nonetheless, I am glad to be in Spain. It was awesome landing in the country and area that I will be living and preaching in for two years. I love the people already, and there are a lot of them too! Right when we landed, all the Spaniards clapped, and it made me realize how much I love my homeland. I love patriotism everywhere. It was cool finding our way around the airport trying to get through immigration and then finding our bags, with everyone speaking Español. I love it, and the zeta ¨theta¨ sounds sooo cool. I can´t wait to learn it and use it better.

Our MTC, or CCM, president, President Hill and another man met us right outside the baggage claim and put us on a bus to head towards the CCM. It is about 15 minutes from the airport. There are three airports in Spain and I think that ours was the Carrabas or something, I can´t remember. Anyway, we were all excited but very tired too. Right when we got on the bus he told us, as nicely as possible after being awake all day, that he wanted us to stay awake until 7 PM there time which is, I think, 11 AM your time. Remember that we awoke at 3 AM yesterday, so that is crazy. I am really tired right now but it is so AWESOME here. I finally think it is hitting me. There were 12 missionaries here in the CCM today and four left before we got here with our 17, so we basically tripled there capacity today with our arrival, and I think that I am going to learn and grow much quicker here. The Lord surely has played a role in getting me here and I know that this is where He wants me to be, to do my best, to grow the most, so that I can preach what He wants me to, where He wants me to, and to whomever He has prepared. The Lord´s hand is evident in all of our eyes, we just can´t look with our temporal eyes. These tender mercies our seen with our spiritual eyes. Yo sé que el Evangelio de Jesucristo es verdadero.

Right when we got to the Spain CCM, we were all astounded at the grandeur of the temple. It is sooo beautiful! and we get to go tomorrow. So that will be a bunch of fun, hearing it all in Español. After we saw that we walked in and took a test to see where we were compared to the other missionaries so that we could be placed in homogenous groups of similar abilities. I was placed in the higher out of the two, with only 5 missionaries rather than the other district which has 8. So it is a very intimate group and the first teacher we met is a girl. She speaks wonderful spanish, obviously, and really fast, so I´ll keep you posted. She basically only speaks in Spanish which I like. However, in this group I am no longer at the top of the class as I felt I was in Provo. I feel like they are all a little bit above me, but I don´t know. My companion lived in Spain for 6 months a couple years ago and his Spanish is great too. So hopefully we can work hard together and learn much, spiritually and culturally. On Saturday we get to go to a big park nearby and actually try to teach people that are there in SPANISH, so that is also really crazy. Luckily, we get to go to bed at 7 tonight because I am really tired. President Hill, who he and his wife are really good friends with the Thomas´in our ward, said that the best way to overcome jet lag is to stay up longer like until 7 and then sleep until 630. So hopefully it works, because I don´t like being tired. I love everyone here so far, and it is not like the Provo MTC where we were pretty much confined to the bounderies. Here we have time set aside to go to the grocery store and other places to get stuff.

I can see the temple outside as I am writing. Go to the temple oft because it is great and the blessings are remarkable. I love you and miss you but love the Lord the most.