Week 1 at the MTC

Hi everyone! Its been a crazy week here at the MTC. so much has
happened. I love my companion and I love my district. The elders in
our district are foreign, one from Austria and one from Finland and
they´re the best, also one from Canada. We teach lessons to our
´´investigators´¨ everyday. Hugo and Juana. They are actually our
teachers. It´s really a good experience and my spanish is improving.
We study all day long and do Spanish study. Its really busy. The days
go by pretty fast though but I feel as if I´ve been here for a month!
I am surrounded by great people. Spain is so different than America. I
had to go to the farmacia to get some toothpaste and it was so
expensive and it was a tiny little pharmacy. Also there was a whole
cow leg, complete with hoof, in the grocery store. The people here in
Spain dress so fashionable all the time. On Saturday we went to the
Parque Retiro and I placed my first Book Of MORMON!! It was great. We
rode the metro there which was cool. I contacted a guy on the metro
and then ended up seeing him again at the parque. He liked the temple
but wasn´t interested in our religion. But he was really nice and
helped me with my Spanish as i was trying to communicate with him. He
spoke very little english. then me and my comp, hermana whittle, went
up to these two girls. we started in spanish but they actually spoke
english, I was so happy!! I gave them a Book of Mormon and they were
really nice and I taught them all about the history of the BOM. One
thing i´ve learned since being here is that it is really hard. It´s
not what I thought it was going to be and it´s mentally and
spiritually draining. But we had a devo yesterday with the MTC
director and he said ´¨that nothing worth doing is every easy, easy
things are devilish¨ I think it´s so true. I had a hard time this week
beause my companion, Hermana Thorpe was crying like all the time. She
wanted to go home so badly. I felt so bad. I didn´t know what to do.
We prayed togehter as a district for her and she received a blessing
from our DL Elder Baumann from Austria and she talked with the mtc
pres. alot and now she has a great attitude and we´re working great
together! I´m really grateful for that because her sadness was rubbing
off on me and i was doubting whether I was going to be able to do this
or not. It´s really different working with a companion. We have
different ideas about how we should teach the lessons and etc. also we
go everywhere together. It´s different. We go to the temple every week
here at the Spain MTC so we went again today and we went last week. It
was good. My teachers here are all native spainards, except for one,
but he´s from portugal. There are so great and have all served
missions and are the bestI love my teachers. I love wearing my name
badge with Christ on it. I love playing soccer with all the
missionaries here everyday for physical activity. . I love you all and
I wish you a Feliz Navidad!! love, Hermana Birch