Hannah in España: March 2017

PSA: I get to check my email everyday, I just can't reply until pday. Which is Thursday. Well it's Thursday for me. I'ts Wednesday night for you Americans. Any who... but do what you will with that information, I mean I definitely wouldn't hate it if I woke up to an email everyday. But that also means I have time to type a letter everyday so this is going to be one big long letter. Just a heads up.

Also, Let me just start by saying that us Madrid CCMers are SPOILED here and it is the best thing ever. I could stay here for the rest of my life.Just kidding, but seriously. One of my favorite things here is that right when the clock strikes 6:30 a hype rendition of Battle Hymn of the Republic blares from the hallway speaker. And yeah as I said before, it's hype. So there are about 24 of us new comers here in the CCM and only like 9 other missionaries who have been here for a week or two and that's all!!! It's so small and tiny and intimate here and I loooove it being so small! Everyone knows everyone! Those nine are all missionaries while transferred from the Provo MTC to this one and they're all serving in Russia. So we just refer to them as the Russians aha they're cool. Out of we 24 new ones, 2 are going to to Portugal, 4 to Barcelona, and 4 to Madrid. The rest to Málaga! So here is what my days have looked like since I've been here if yall cared to know

Tuesday, March 21st: I met mis compañeras y more of mi distrito! I live in the same room with all the Hermanas en mi distrito. Mi compañeras are Hermana Dos Santos y Sister Pires. Hermana Dos Santos is half portugués and half Angolan but she lives in London. So all in all she was born in Portugal and like spoken portugués there and then she moved to London and learned English so yeah she has a British accent and she is lovely and says everything you'd think a brit would. And I'm in a trio so my other companion is sister Pires and she is from Brazil and going to serve in Portugal! She isn't learning a language so she isn't in my district and kinda has her own classes and what not. So we're not with her a lot but she is a little Brazilian fireball. So both of my companions are foreign ( you were wrong Holly) and the other Hermana's in my district are straight swag. I love them so much. Hermana Sinclair from Indiana (who is going to Madrid and I'm dreading the fact that I have to say goodbye to her already) and Hermana Ruotsalainen from Finland(who's also going to Málaga! . Good luck trying say that one.

So the first full day I've been here we just hopped right into Spanish and everything missionary related. It was awesome. Our district only consists of 6 people and we have our own little classrooms and our own little desks filled with books and pamphlets and dictionaries and Spanish guides. I seriously love that it's so small here. All of the maestros know who we are and Presidente Packer somehow knows everything about each missionary hahaha. And his wife is the sweetest thing. Presidente Packer is such a guy I love him.

So my first Thursday was just about the best day of my life. The food in the CCM is actually phenomenal. The nicest little Spaniard women prepare it for us. And lunches are ALWAYS the best! So for lunch on Thursday we had marisco paella. SO GOOD. and Thursdays are our pdays so we get to go to the temple in the morning. The CCM is literally on the temple grounds. We have a beautiful view from like the above view through just about every window on our side of the CCM. Idk if that sentence made sense but anywho...I'm convinced that I am going to get married in the Madrid temple. It is seriously the most magical building. So after lunch on pdays we get to go on excursiones. So we rode the metro for 15 minutes to go into the plaza. Like it was the heart of Madrid it looked like it was straight out of a movie. And then we get to the plaza and IT SNOWED. IT SNOWED IN MADRID ON A THURSDAY WHAT. So yeah it's snowing and so we went and got the famous "chocolate con churros" which is hot chocolate (but basically a cup full of hot thick melted chocolate) with churros to dip in it(which is like an American churro but without the cinnamon on the outside) it was all right I guess. So that was super cool to spend a couple hours in the city. And after we came back and had the best devotional about the temple taught by President Packer it was so sacred and just absolutely incredible. I wish everyone could hear about it.

All I remember about Friday is that I spent basically all day in the classroom and my entire district went completely slap happy with exhaustion and boy it was insane. Ha. Also Fridays we do service at the temple and I mopped concrete for an hour. You should know that it was the strangest thing I'd ever done.

THE WEEKENDS ARE THE BEST. YALL ARE GONNA WANNA HERE ABOUT THIS. So on Saturdays we get assigned a different companion. And with that companion we go to Parque Retiro. Just for some perspective, this park is huge. It's about half the size of Central Park in NY. So pretty big. So AALLL of the missionaries go to Al parque and we proselyte for 2 hours. With a whole bunch of foreign people. Yep you heard that right, 4 days in the MTC and we are already proselyting in the Spanish language. And to be completely honest I was scared out of my mind. But it was amazing. So there we are, this whole army of missionaries marching towards the center of the park, and then we disperse. Super cool. My companion, Hermana Grover, and I talked to a ton of people from all over the world. Argentina, Israel, Italy, New York, Russia, and of course Spain. Our strategy was to say "quiere sacar un foto para usted?" I know that that is not correct grammar in the slightest but that's what we said hahaha and it worked! It's a beautiful park with many views to take pictures in front of and everyone was trying to take selfies so we were just helping them out. (Seriously look up the park on Google Earth it is breathtakingly beautiful. And huge) And then we would go on to ask them where they were from and most of them did speak Spanish. And if they weren't from Madrid and they were just there on vacation we would give them a pass a long card with the Madrid Temple and tell them to visit it and take pictures in front of it because it's a pretty building. Hahaha so yeah. With our broken Spanish that's what we did. And we were pretty successful! After we are done contacting we all gather as missionaries and sing in the center of the park 4 hymns in Spanish. And lots of people gather around to listen. So some assigned companionship s go and contact to those people. It's awesome. My companion and I were waiting in the metro station to go back to the CCM after the park and we went and said hello to a man sitting by himself. This guy spoke zero English. He was asking about our name tags and then said something about how we were in the group singing at the park. We told him that we were lds missionaries and he said something that I couldn't understand. So I managed to muster out in Spanish "would you like to learn more?" and he said yeah a little bit. So again somehow I mustered out in Spanish " we believe in this book and it testifies of Jesus Christ" he asked if it was the Bible and I said no it's another testament of Jesus Christ and bore a quick testimony. Anywho then we said "es un regalo para usted" and he took it and said he would study it and call the missionaries if he was interested! He didn't want a referral but hey can't win em all. And then he got on the metro and started reading it! Ahhhh #milagros

And Sundays are the best day of the weeeeekkk! We have 9 am church and then lunch. And then we have a devotional from Presidente. And then we have choir practice (¡!!!) I feel the spirit the most when we are singing. I love singing the hymns in Spanish. and then we go to the temple steps facing the city of Madrid and we sing these hymns as loud as we can. All in Spanish. Except this week was special because we sang called to serve in English, Russian, and Spanish. Dope. So basically I'm trilingual. But anyway, those walking by could stop to listen if they wanted. And then we get so have some time just to be on the temple grounds. Yes, it is the best.

So that was all last week, this week we have been busy teaching our investigator, Sara. The lessons are hard to plan and then translate and it's definitely stressful but I think we are getting the hang of it. We are inviting her to commit to baptism tomorrow. Wahoo wish me luck!

I love all of my teachers here. Spaniards are the best people I know. They're absolutely Insane 😂 they're seriously so funny and so sweet. Everyday between the 5 and 6 pm we have physical activity. Most of the time we play fútbol at this place a couple minutes away from the CCM called "the pit" it's a super sick place. It looks straight out of a movie too. Sometimes we play volleyball. Yesterday we played ultimate Frisbee. It's super fun. There is one teacher here named Sister Distante. She just got off her mission 6 months ago and she is from Rome and served in Milan. She usually teaches the missionaries that are going to Italy that come to this CCM. But there aren't any Italian missionaries here right now. But she is the sweetest person I've ever met. We always walk together to the pit and talk and she is great. She told me I could call her Sorella Distante because Sorella is the only word I know in Italian haha.

I haven't been able to watch women's conference yet! We get to watch it this weekend while we watch all the other ones too. I'm super pumped for that. It is pretty easy to be able to feel the spirit in this building which is great because I really have to rely on the Spirit for everything. I've learned to much about teaching lessons and it's been hard but I'm learning. I love being here . I've learned so much about my calling as a missionary and the power that comes with that. I've learned so much about gifts of the spirit and the gift of tongues. This stuff is awesome and it keeps me going. It kinda feels like I'm going to be here for the rest of my mission haha I don't know why. But I fell like I've been here for 2 years already its crazy. I don't know what else to say so I'll just send some picture. Also I get to go to the temple right after this. #blessed.

All the love, Hermana Rust