The biggest adjustment.......

....is apparently the light switches.  :)

Here is Lara's email from last Monday.  (Obviously her mother is kind of slow in updating.)  She is now serving in her first area, Torrejon.  It is a suburb of Madrid, and the location of the National Space Agency headquarters and a military air base.  They had several holidays last week--Labour Day, and The Fiesta de la Comunidad de Madrid  

We emailed her a list of questions we could ask her during the call, so she would have time to think them over beforehand.  But she misunderstood and answered them ALL in her email.  I don't know what we are going to talk about now. ;)   

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AGH I have never seen so many questions in my life. I´m going to TRY to answer them all but I don´t know if that´s even possible.

 

How many members in your ward/branch? 

probably somewhere from 100-120.  They´re almost all from South America.  There are maybe 4 or 5 Spaniards in the entire ward.  They´re super nice and really supportive of the missionaries. 

What is the church building like? 

ít´s pretty small (at least smaller than I´m used to) and only our ward meets there.  It´s in a good location pretty close to the train station and is pretty convenient for almost all the members

What is the town like? Rural, small town, small city, med. city, large city? 

I have no idea. It´s like...Europe. I have yet to see a "house" because everyone lives in apartments above the stores, etc. There are a ton of cute little parks and fountains and things, and the plaza is super awesome.  This week was "festivo" (holiday) for something and so everyone was out of school Wed-Fri, and on Saturday we had a lesson in the plaza and we were there a few minutes early and we got to see this huge parade with everyone all dressed up in flamenco dresses with giant flowers in their hair and all that stuff.  There were even oxen pulling some cart with white flowers and glass chandeliers.  It was super fancy and SO Spanish.

What does the area look like? flat? rolling hills? A lot of trees? 

It´s pretty much flat, a few hills (enough to make it interesting) and sort of dry-ish. We live in Alcalá de Henares which is two train stops away from Torrejón and so we ride the train in and out every day.  The landscape is super pretty--there are a bunch of wildflowers.  The poppies are especially beautiful.  There aren´t a ton of trees, no.

How hot is it? How cold is it? How often does it rain? 

It was FREEZING and rainy the first few days, but now it is just about perfect.  Short sleeves with maybe a light jacket.  I´ve heard it´s going to get REALLY hot soon, which I´m not really looking forward to.

How is your companion? How long has she been out? Is her family LDS? Do they support her with letters? Life member or   convert? 

Hermana V is from France and she speaks NO ENGLISH.  Fortunately, we both know enough Spanish that we haven´t had problems yet communicating or teaching.  She´s been out for 8 months and I´m her first trainee.  Her mother and grandmother are LDS, but her father was not (he´s no longer living.)  Her grandmother faithfully sends her a letter EVERY SINGLE WEEK.  She´s technically a convert, since she got baptized when she was 11 or 12, but she´s been in the church her whole life.  She has one brother who´s 19 and is thinking about preparing for mission.  She looks almost exactly like Freema Agyeman (sorry if I spelled that wrong), the actress from Little Dorrit and Doctor Who.

Are you sleeping well? 

Yes.  I´m so tired when I get home that I can´t help but sleep well. :)

How is the food? What is the best food you've eaten? What is the weirdest food you've eaten? How many dinner appts do you get? 

So dinner appointments don´t exist.  We have lunch appointments, and we get a bunch of them.  They feed us SO much.  Holy cow. But the good thing is that I´m not hungry when we get home, so I usually just eat 2 meals a day.  All the food has been REALLY good.  I haven´t yet encountered anything questionable.  We eat a lot of chicken and potatoes and rice and salad/soup.

What do you usually eat for breakfast? Lunch? 

Breakfast is whatever we want, so the same as in America. Cereal, toast, yogurt, fruit.

How are your clothes? Shoes? Socks? 

My clothes have been fine so far, although I hate having such a small selection to choose from.  My shoes are super comfortable and I found some AWESOME socks at a store called Primark which is the CHEAPEST place in the world and has a ton of really cute stuff. I´m going to try to get some more maybe next P-day.

How are your feet? Any problems? Do you need more toothpaste? Deodorant? Vitamins?  

I´m fine on all that. My feet sometimes hurt just because I walk 500 miles (and I would walk 500 more), but that´s just going to happen.

What is your apt like? Is it in a big building? Are your neighbors friendly or scared of you? 

So I thought our apartment was super nice until today, when we went for P-day to Léganes to visit some other Hnas for a Cinco de Mayo party (because we´re Americans and we think we´re cultured when we celebrate Mexican holidays) and their apartment is SO nice and colorful.  They have a spiral staircase and everything.  I´m kind of jealous.

But ours is fine. We live with two other sisters who are serving in Alcalá and they´re really nice.  I have yet to meet our neighbors since we´re rarely in our apartment and we don´t get back until 10:30 at night.  The building is normal size, 3-4 floors with 4 apartments on each floor.  ALL the buildings are the same size here.

How far away is the Mission Office? How many in your District? 

Well, I have no idea because we never go to the mission office. There are 12 in our district.

Where are they from? Who is the District Leader? Zone Leader? How often do you have Zone Conference? 

They´re all from the US (except Hna V, obviously) and almost half of us are brand new.  DL is Elder Cardwell, who is also serving in Torrejón with Elder Weixler, who worked at Hatch Family Chocolates. Funny the way things work out.  I don´t remember who the zone leader is and I have no idea how often we have zone conference.  We haven´t had it yet.

 

What do you usually do on P-day? What service do you do? How often? 

As I already said, today we´re having a 5 de Mayo party.  I have no idea what we usually do, though.  I guess I´ll find out. :) We do service every week.  Last week it was and this week again it will be a ward service activity.  Last week we made pillows for a children´s hospital (I think.) And I have a picture but I forgot to bring my camera when we left this morning.  I´ll send pictures later.

How many investigators? 

5 who are coming to church, but we just got like 6 new ones this weekend.  We have one who just got baptized a couple weeks ago.  Mostly we´ve been trying to contact new people.  We found a Peruvian man on Saturday and taught him the first lesson yesterday and it went really well.  He has a ten year-old son who is really interested in what we´re teaching.  When we left, he was devouring the Book of Mormon and asking us who all the people are in the pictures and everything.

 

As to how I´m adjusting to Spain, the answer is pretty well.  It´s not TOO different, just a different structure to things, and I really like it.  The things I can´t adjust to are 

a) the milk.  It´s not usually cold and it´s super creamy and sweet.  I don´t like it at all. 

b) THE STINKING LIGHT SWITCHES.  I have come to realize that there is some unstated law in Spain that you can´t put a light switch IN the bathroom, it has to be outside.  So basically every time I go into a bathroom, I have to come back out and turn on the light. Hopefully I will get used to it eventually. 

c) the doorknobs, which are sometimes smack dab in the middle of the door.  What is up with that?

Tell Sam CONGRATULATIONS from me.  That is AMAZING. He´s going to love it!

 

Thank you for the quotes from Elder and Sister Bednar.  I have really grown to LOVE Elder Bednar from the MTC.  His "Character of Christ" talk that I watched the first Sunday in Provo has absolutely changed my life. I think about it all the time and it has shaped my decisions, goals, and actions.   We watched another talk from him last week in Madrid about recognizing the Spirit, with the 20 mark note story and a few others. I love his simple way of explaining the gospel, and the way he just answers my questions straight away without any hesitation.  

I have loved having real study time every morning and being able to discuss the things I´ve learned with my companion.  I am up to 2 Ne 11 in my paperback Book of Mormon, and I highly recommend that everyone study the Book or Mormon concentrating on a certain theme.  It´s awesome, and I have learned a ton.  Granted, it takes forever, but es vale la pena (it´s worth it.)

 

I love you guys.  Good luck Jare Bear on your AP tests! Is school almost out for you?  Here the kids still have a month and a half to go!

 

Pues, I think that´s about it. ¡Os amo muchisimo!

 

Con amor,

Hermana Lara Schaumann