MTC Life

Hola mi familia y amigos!!!

First off I would like to start by wishing my beautiful, crazy, and awesome sister a happy happy birthday!!!! I love you so much and I hope you had a great dayyesterday! Hopefully you eat lots of white cake with rasberry filling and Red Iguana or something tasty!:) I love you so much and proud of how you have grown up and turned into such a responsible great example for all of us!!

-Last Thursday I go to go to the Center of Madrid where there are a bunch of AWESOME old architecture and small European roads! I visited a really cool old Cathederal and got myself a super cool long sleve white REAL MADRID Ronaldo jersery! By the way Real Madrid just beat Barcelona for some championship and the whole town was going crazy that night! We heard celebritory gun shots and many hoots and hollaring. Today we are going downtown again to have lunch and sight see again, a lot of stuff will be closed for the Samana Santa which is supposed to be THE biggest holiday here in Spain. Lots of Parade type stuff going on later tonight. P-Day is on Friday today because yesterday we had a general authority come talk to us he was Elder Evans who is an area 70.

-On Saturday I went to the Park again and I was partnered up with an Elder from Portugal who spoke very little english. Portugese is similar to Spanish so he was able to understand most of what was being said at the Park and converse back with people pretty well. At first I was a little worried we wouldn´t be able to converse with each other very well but we had a GREAT experience at the park. If we went up to talk with someone and they spoke Spanish Elder Andrade would take the lead and I would bear my testimony to them in Spanish, if the spoke Portugese he took over and would talk to them, if they spoke french I would talk a little to them, and if they spoke english I would talk to them. We had some awesome conversations with people and met quiet a few people who were really interested in the gospel and wanted to know more so we got there info for missionaries in the area and also place a few books of mormons. It was amazing how know matter what language we spoke we felt the spirit and I know our investigator felt it as well. Elder Andrade has been serving for a year and a half because he got 3 mission calls. He served in Cape Verde where he is from, brazil, and now he just left for Portugal. He complimented me through a translator at our devotional saying I talked to people at the park as if I had been out in the mission field for a year. He was really nice and said he learned a lot from me and my testimony I shared with people.

- This week everyone pretty much left the MTC for a couple days there were only 7 of us! haha. We just had some Russians come in on Wednesday though so there are like 14 of us now. I love how small and family like this MTC is. I have started to become really close with my district!

-SPANISH! I love spanish! I was told by one of the MTC teachers I study more than a nerd! I can now converse about gospel topic in spanish, understand most conversations, pray, and bear my testimony in Spanish!

-I know we aren´t supposed to keep score when playing sports but my district totally beat the local teenagers in soccer this week for the first time! It was awesome I scored 2 of our 3 goals!!

-I went through the temple in Spanish yesterday!

-I got a haircut!

-I can not believe how much being out here on my mission has strengthened my testimony, I can not speak spanish but when I am with investigators I am able to share what they need to hear and I know they can feel the spirit. I am grateful for my family and all of my friends back home who are supporting me. It has been difficult leaving everyone I love back home but I can already see the blessing of this mission coming into my life.

I love you all SOOOO much,

-Elder Saltzman