Ups and Downs...

Hola Everyone!!

I have sooo much to say and so little time! Week 2 here at the MTC was full of ups and downs but mostly ups and awesomeness :) First off, no we do not have our VISAS. All of us four Hermanas got a notice saying we are not leaving any time soon. Spain is going through a lot of goverment issues and financial issues and they are reassigning all of the Spain missionaries until they get it figured out. The Church even has to send over some people to Spain to get our VISAS going. Two Elders that have been here 10 weeks are leaving tomorrow for Provo and Salt Lake missions...rough. Please pray for me!!! haha I really need to get out of the U.S. ASAP. We are all pretty sad about that over here. Other than that, the MTC has just been incredible. We have two official teachers, Hermano Doxey and Anderson. LOVE THEM BOTH! Our entire zone and even other zones in our buildings keep saying that we have the best teachers ever and that they are super jealous. Some other teachers come and teach and they are not nearly as cool as ours :) I am SO blessed!

On the down side...our favorite district ever left this last Monday. We miss them so much. It's been way different without them because they are so hilarious. I sent a picture of us 4 Hermanas and that district that just left for Mexico. On the up side...we got to see the Temple dedication of the Brigham City Temple!! It was so cool!! Elder Packer is so adorable. I loved it. Then Hermana Stark and I gave a Sunday School lesson on repentance to our district and it went incredibly well. It's in English, of course haha. The Spirit was way strong in the room and the 1st counselor in the Branch Presidency was there and he is super harsh and is always correcting us but he said that we did a perfect job and he was very impressed with how we taught!!!! YAY! So I'm not a bad teacher after all haha. Teaching in Spanish is a completely different story.

We have two investigators now which are both our teachers as Elmer and Pedro. We teach them seprately of course and they are pretty difficult to teach. Pedro whispers and mumbles in Spanish and is like SUPER depressed all the time. We have a really hard time trying to figure out what he needs and what we could teach him to make him happy. And we never want to ask him questions because he just mumbles and we sit there asking him to repeat 8 million times haha. It gets really frustrating for me sometimes because I feel like I should at least always understand what they are saying even I can't speak well. That was the only down part of the week was having a few rough lessons. BUT GUESS WHAT!! We did the TRC for the first time yesterday (thursday) and we taught two volunteers who just play as themselves as members. So it's like we are just having a home teaching type of lesson with an LDS member. Hna Stark and I were FREAKING out we were incredibly nervous to talk in Spanish with someone from the outside world haha. We ended up teaching an MTC teacher because there wasn't enough volunteers and it went super well. He was way nice and afterwards he said that we had awesome Spanish :) SCORE! The next person we taught was the greatest thing ever. It just happened to be KATIE WHITE from my ward this last spring summer in the Enclave!!!! I immediately like broke down in tears of joy haha I was so happy to see a familiar face. Both of us were like, "NO WAY!!!!" It was funny because I lost all of my memory of Spanish because I was just way too happy. So our lesson started out a little choppy because I forgot all of my Spanish and I'm usually talking more than my companion haha. I kinda take the leads in the lessons. Anyways, moving on...so we just read a scripture in Alma 33:11 and I asked how she felt about that scripture and she was super happy. She said she had never really read that scripture before and she totally loved it. It's a scripture about how no matter what afflictions you are facing, turn to the Lord and he will help you. Then I suddenly felt prompted to share my testimony about the Book of Mormon and how much is has blessed my life especially these last two weeks in the MTC. I got super emotional about it. It was an amazing experience to feel so much love for Katie and wanting her to know how much I loved this book and how it has blessed me. And it was all in Spanish! Never did I think I would already get emotional while speaking in Spanish. It was such a cool experience. LOVE the TRC :)

I have been learning so much here. It is just incredible. Our teacher showed us part of a video of Elder Holland's talk to the MTC missionaries a long time ago for a devotional and it was the greatest thing I have ever seen. Elder Holland is so passionate about his mission and the entire time during his talk he kept pounding his fist on the pulpit saying, "Do not go home ever. You have no idea what a great opportunity this is and you will never have it again. Don't you dare go home. You do not want to live with the regret of what could have been." It was so powerful. I have so much love for my mission and I haven't even really done anything yet!! Another cool experience...there is a Sister teacher here who is from Barcelona and served in Malaga! She wanted to speak privately to us four Hermanas so we had the chance to chat with for a little bit about Spain. She is so awesome! Her Spirit is so strong and so happy and I can't wait to meet more people like her. Fun facts that she said about Malaga: They barely used the lispy accent BUT they have the strangest accent ever. She spoke a little bit of the Malaga accent and it seriously sounded like German...NOT kidding! She said a simple sentence and I had no idea what the freak she said hahaha. yayyyyyy that is gonna be so fun! But, at the same time it sounded so freaking cool. She just kept telling us this, "you have the best mission ever. You have no idea what is ahead of you. My people are out there waiting for you and needing you right now. Please, work as hard as you can and don't waste time. They need you Hermanas more than anything." She also kept saying how happy she was that we were going to help her people. It was so cool. Love her. We also met a guy teacher from Malaga and he is so sweet!! MAN! They have the coolest spirits ever. I love them already haha. Ah! I gotta get going. I love all of you and thank you SO much for all of your wonderful letters :) My district is a little jealous that I get the most letters every day haha so thank you! It's like Christmas every day. It definitely makes a difference in my day when I get a letter. I love you and miss you all very much!!!!

love,

Hermana Daly