1st email from Spain

Hi mommy and daddy

It´s ok about the phone call....I was pretty disappointed. But, it happens and there´s nothing we could have done about it anyway. It just didn´t help much that elder rodriguez was calling every relative he´s ever had. haha

Anyway, my entire world has been flipped upside down since I last emailed you. Considering I no longer have a countdown clock on my computer I think I´ll take my precious time telling you too :) So last friday I left the MTC at 5 am after not sleeping all night long because I had to pack and such. Then we landed in Madrid at 7am on saturday. The flight wasn´t too bad...it was just Elder Rodriguez and I flying together. That felt kinda weird but whatevs. A nice couple we met in salt lake took us to tgi fridays when we got to atlanta. But on the flight to Madrid I had two seats to myself...so I had no problem sleeping. I´m rather used to sleeping on airplanes. haha Elder Rodriguez wasn´t as accustomed as me though.

So we got to Madrid and I was SOO excited to be here!! I was squealing from the moment I saw the temple. I´ve seen so many pictures of it so it is awesome to be here in real life. I got to go to the temple this morning and it is so beautiful inside! I love it. Anyway, so my first two companions were sisters vanhulst and kusseling. Sister Vanhulst is from Belgium, only speaks french and left for her misson in switzerland on tuesday morning. Sister Kusseling is from paris but left this morning for her mission in Russia Moscow West (sasquatch!) She was only here for a week to get her visa. She speaks really good english but it was a pretty interesting and unexpected experience to come to spain and only hear french all the time....haha but esta bien. They were really fun and I loved being with them. What was really hard about having french companions was that after an hour of being in spain I went with all of the other missionaries to the park (which is BEAUTIFUL! Not like anything I have seen before) and we were supposed to go contacting. Which is awesome! but it´s like ten million times more scary when my companions can´t help me. at all. not to mention it was my first time anyway. haha oh the adventures i´m having :) I did talk to a guy in spanglish though....luckily he spoke spanglish too. I was SO tired that day. It was crazy.

Easter wasn´t very eastery. Made me miss being home and doing easter egg hunts (brent-I heard you rocked it this year. But I feel your pain...there is no mercy in this family for people who are awesome at egg finding. similar to the no mercy for when you mess your words up) But I celebrated by wearing my most eastery dress, the new earrings mom gave me and eating the cadbury eggs sister richards gave me for the airplane, and reading about jesus :) good enough for me!

When I got here there were like 16 missionaries here: me, the district i´m in now (three american elders) elder rodriquez, a french district (sister kusseling and vanhulst, one french dude and two tahitians) and one north american district of nerdy funny white boys. but all of them left and and now a ton of new missionaries came yesterday. So now there are 24 here. about half north american and half native spanish speakers. My companions are hermana pulgar from Valencia, Spain and Hermana Farias from Argentina...and neither speak english :) but at least this time it is the language i´m trying to learn haha Pretty sure Hna Pulgar thinks I understand her more than I actually do....but I only understand like 30% at this point. Ojala it will be more than that next week!

I really feel like I've been here for forever! But it hasn't even been a week. weird. It was super weird at first to go from being around over 2,000 missionaries to just like 15. Not gunna lie, I miss the provo mtc. But the nice thing about being here is that it is very laid back. We can go out and about around madrid and it's no big deal. Also, because of all of my weird companion situations I've been a solo sister for a lot of the time...and no one even cares. In provo they have all kinds of rules for that. I can't wait to get out into the field. Watching all of the elders leave for málaga on tuesday made me so excited!! I would like to be a little better at spanish first though.....haha

Anyway, this has been the longest email of my life. Oh also, now that my time isn´t super limited if my brothers and sisters want to email me that would be alright. Especially since we don't get dearelders here. lame. Mail is much more scarce here...I got letters from trey and matt a couple days ago. it made the elders who have been here for weeks pretty jealous :)

Pues, I love you tons and tons. I hope everyone is doing well. The church is true. You know.

Olé.

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Casey Ross