"Blow-upaba" (aka adjusting to Madrid MTC)

So I´m obviously really smart since I told you our p-day is on Wednesday and it´s actually on Thursday.  Oops.

We just got back from the temple.  It´s BEAUTIFUL.  And I did the session in Spanish, which was really cool.  This afternoon we´re going to the PRADO, so I´ll have to tell you how that goes.

This week has been a little more challenging for me.  Not only did I get 8 hours of my life sucked away on an airplane on Thursday, but I came to a really different place.  The Madrid MTC is pretty tiny.  I know almost everyone here and it hasn´t even been a week.  The way they keep the rules is different, the way we teach "investigators" is different, and the way our class time is structured is totally different too.  I had gotten really used to the Provo MTC and the way we did things, and I had come to really love my district, so it was so hard for me to leave and even harder to come to somewhere like this.  I´ve been a little frustrated because they´re more lax on the rules here.  I have such a testimony that strict obedience brings miracles, and I don´t ever want to block myself off from Heavenly Father´s help by being disobedient.  It was really hard the first few days to just get to bed on time because no one else was and I would just lay there with all the lights on and everyone talking trying my hardest to go to sleep.  But then I prayed about it and told Heavenly Father that I really wanted to be able to keep the rules and help others keep the rules without being rude or annoying.  And then last night the sister training leaders for our zone made a new rule that we have to be in our rooms by 10:00 and we need to be quiet and studying/writing in our journals by 10:15!  I was so happy about it!

Hna. King is super nice and gorgeous and she has a really pretty voice.  Both of us love to sing and harmonize, and so we serenade our roommates with a medley of hymns sometimes.  Our district actually has 4 REALLY talented singers, and if one of us starts to hum a hymn during study time, it immediately breaks into 4-part harmony.  It´s so much fun.  We´re doing a musical number in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday and apparently I´m also singing a solo in the devotional Sunday night.  I should probably decide what I´m going to sing...

On Sunday we had a fireside with some of the first missionaries to serve in Spain and the sister sings, so she sang "O Divine Redeemer," just as a solo.  I knew it from when we sang it with Bro. Tolk in choir before, and so I was sort of mouthing along the second soprano part that layers in one of the verses.  Pres. Sitterud (the MTC president) knew I could sing and saw me mouthing it, so he asked her if she would mind just singing that one part of it again with me after the fireside.  It was really fun, even though my voice is nowhere near as pretty as hers.  She´s going to get me a version of it in Spanish to sing, so I´m excited for that.

The coolest thing about this MTC is that on Saturdays we get to go to the park (I don´t know what park it is, sorry.  The really big one smack dab in the middle of Madrid) and teach people!  I went with Hermana Noakes, who is awesome.  We gave out one Book of Mormon and some pass-along cards and had some great experiences.  We talked to one young man (in English) who didn´t believe in God and he asked us a lot of questions about what we believed and why we were serving missions and at the end he said "It´s been really good for me to talk with you.  Most religious people are angry and trying to force their religion on me, but you have been so nice and happy."  Of course, we had to bear testimony that the gospel makes us happy and that it would bless his life.  He was the one we left a Book of Mormon with, and I really hope he reads it!  It made me so excited to share the gospel with others, because after maybe 10 or 15 minutes, this man could see how immensely happy we were.

 

Funny Spanish incident: 

We were practicing the imperfect tense by telling what we used to do when we were kids.  (The imperfect tense adds the ending "-aba" to any verbs that end in -ar.)  Elder Kinghorn (who is HILARIOUS) was talking about how he liked to play with fire and explosives and instead of saying "it blew up" which would be "explodía" (I think) he said "blow-upaba."  That word is now on our vocabulary list on the whiteboard. 

 

Things that are different in Spain (or at least in the MTC) : the lightswitches.  Those are wacky.  They´re probably a 2x2 inch switch that you have to press up or down.  They´re really easy to hit with your back when you´re leaning against the wall.  Not that I know that from experience. ;)

The doorknobs.  There aren´t knobs, actually.  All the doors have handles that you have to twist and pull down and then pull outward.  They´re a little hard to get used to.

Bathroom doors and toilets. The toilets are shaped a little differently (who knew, right?) and the bathroom doors have a lock that you twist to lock into place. Also the stalls are almost floor-to-ceiling.

My shower (we have a shower in our room).  It´s SUPER narrow and the shower curtain hugs you and clings to you the entire time you´re in there.  It´s kind of obnoxious.

Have a wonderful week and I will email you again next THURSDAY.  (which will be my LAST P-DAY IN THE MTC!!!!)

Con amor,

Hermana Lara Schaumann

 

P.S. I tried to play soccer yesterday and realized that the only sport I know how to play is basketball. 

P.P.S.  You should read "The 20 Mark Note" by Elder Packer.  (I think it´s "mark", it´s whatever the currency is in Germany.)  We heard the story from it in class and it´s AMAZING.  It answered a question that had been preying on me for a really long time, and it was such a blessing to have that lifted!!!