Sister Tuttle's First Email - 3.20.13

Dear friends and family,
¡Hola! ¿Que tal? So we will have 30 minutes each Thursday (which is our
P-Day) to email home but since we just got here we will not be having a
P-Day tomorrow so we are emailing today (just thought I´d give you a little
background info).
So guess what... I´m in Spain!!!! Are you kidding me??? It´s gorgeous!!! I
know that may seem like way too many punctuation marks for one paragraph
but believe me, it doesn´t even come CLOSE to doing this place justice. The
temple is huge and gorgeous and like ten steps away. It´s kind of unreal!
So, my companion is named Sister Bracken. Mom and dad, she is one of the
sisters we met at the airport. Not the one that came up to me and that was
my "flight companion" but the other one in those pictures. She´s awesome!
We actually just got appointed to be the coordinating sisters for our zone
(which is pretty much like being relief society presidents or something, we
attend meetings, check on the sisters, make sure everyone is doing well,
and do nightly checks) which was a huge shock.
I love the people here. The MTC president and his wife are amazing. My
teacher is also really cool, he is from Spain and doesn´t speak much
English which is pushing me to communicate in Spanish.
I guess I should back up, the flight from Salt Lake to Dallas was actually
pretty fun. There were 10 of us going to Barcelona (5 sisters and 5
elders). Sister Noakes and I thought it felt more like EFY than a mission
but as we took our last steps on US soil as we stepped aboard the plane
headed for Spain things began to get more real. I had one of those "what on
earth am I doing?" experiences but it quickly passed as I remembered all of
the reasons why I KNOW I am doing the right thing.
On the flight to Dallas I had a really good conversation with the lady next
to me named Lisette. She asked so many questions about the church it was
incredible! She has been to Spain many a time so she also had great advice.
Sister Noakes and I ended up giving her a pass-along card. I have no idea
if anything will come of it but she was very impressed with the church and
it was a great experience to have right out of the gate. On the flight to
Madrid a man asked us a lot of questions about the church to but this
conversation wasn´t nearly as hopeful. Oh and thanks Mom for choosing a cute
outfit. I will have worn it for about 36 hours by the time I change
tonight.

Time is up but I will write again soon!
Love always,
Hermana Tuttle