This is where we live, in the Madrid MTC.  We live on the 5th floor (see our room in the last post) and have a beautiful view of Madrid.  We love watching the sunrises (the sun does not rise until around 8:15 a.m.) and sunsets.  The training classrooms are on the 4th floor and the cafeteria is on the 6th floor.    The temple missionaries live on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors in apartments.  The MTC starts on the 4th floor.  You can only enter the 4th floor if you are in the MTC and have an access key.  

The Temple is only 60 steps away from the MTC building.  The Madrid Temple is absolutely beautiful!!  We attended the temple this morning with our Mission President and all of the missionaries that are currently serving in the Madrid area.  It was my first time being in a session that was in spanish!  The inside of the Temple is full of marble and beautiful spanish fabrics!  We loved every minute of it!

We get to sight see a lot because we are just waiting for our residency papers.  So here we are at the Royal Palace.  We take the metro every day to get around Madrid.  It is a beautiful metro and we were so confident about finding our way around that is after we finally found our metro stop on the map. We couldn't find it for a while and one of the cashiers in the ticket booth at our stop was laughing at us and finally came out and showed us where we were on the big metro map.  When we came back that night we thanked her and she gave us high fives that we actually made it back!  I don't think she had much faith in us making it back home!  

We found this very little smart car that said "rent me and love me" but I guess the reflection of the sun didn't let the sign come out in the picture.  We thought the car was so cute!

Here I am in front of the Royal Palace at the big fountain.  I was rather excited to finally have arrived in Madrid, so I am showing my enthusiasm!

We finally made it to Madrid!!  We arrived Saturday morning and here we are right after we arrived with our mission president, President Jackson and his wife Sister Jackson.  We are at the mission home after a long night on the plane (I promise we will try and look better on future photos!).   President Jackson and his wife are so wonderful!!  They have made us feel right at home, fed us a delicious lunch, orientated us and then took us to the big main park in Madrid to watch the missionaries sing and contact people.

Here the missionaries are singing in the park.  These set of missionaries that are in the MTC this week are native speakers from Russia and Italy.  They were all singing in their own languages the same hymn.  Two Sister missionaries that flew over with us were also singing in spanish.  It was pretty impressive to hear all of the languages being sung!  

We are now living in the MTC.  Here is a picture of our room.  Yes, these are two sets of bunk beds!  We each sleep on a bottom bunk.  I guess we are true missionaries!!  We are here for only a little more than a week.  We leave next monday, February 4th for the Canary Islands.  We have to stay here and get our residency papers before we can go to the Canary Islands.  The MTC has been the best experience!!  The MTC President and his wife are great to all of the missionaries.  The Elders and Sisters from Russia and Italy are the best!!  English is the common language but there is a lot of translating going on in all of the meetings.  They have made us feel so welcomed!  The spirit is so strong here and you realize that this is a world wide church!!  Also, they Elders from Italy can really play soccer!!  It is so much fun to watch them play!!

I need to go to dinner now but I will post more later tonight.  Hasta Luego!

This is Edward one of our teachers at the MTC.  He is from Honduras and is awesome!!

The second picture is of our scheduling coordinator and she was so much fun and made our life in spanish immersion great!  The third picture is of our teacher Sister Keller, the Sullivans and Sister Smalley who were all in one of my spanish classes.

TODAY I RECEIVED MY VISA TO SPAIN!!!  This is a monumental day!!  Reed received his visa from the Spanish Consolate last Tuesday, but my visa was not processed at the same time so today I met with the Spanish Consolate.  Here I am with the Spanish Consolate with my visa!!  He works at UVU and we are in the lobby to his office.  He was the nicest man!!  We fly to Madrid first thing in the morning!  Can you tell that we are excited?  We are a little worried about the Salt Lake City airport being closed.  Today we received freezing rain and the airport closed for a while because a jet landed and then proceeded to slide off the runway.  Tonight they said that 2 out of the 3 runways were already opened so we hope that we have a plane and a runway to take off on!  We are flying through Atlanta and then on to Madrid.  We are flying with another senior couple, the Sullivans.  They are the medical couple for our mission and are so much fun!  There will also be two young sisters flying with us.  We were able to meet them today at the office of the consolate.  One of the sisters was temporarily assigned to the Pocatello Spanish Mission and the other sister was temporarily assigned to the Provo Spanish Mission while they were waiting for their visas.  One sister has never been outside of the United States, so she is excited but nervous.  The consolate explained to us that we will have to spend a few days in Madrid while our residential papers are obtained.  Then we will be off to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria!  We are all packed and ready to go.  All of our suitcases weigh exactly 50 pounds (according to the luggage scale that we have) so we hope the airline scale gives us the same number!  I can't believe that we are finally on our way!!  Our eternal mission call is finally happening!!  Hasta luego en Madrid!!

We finally received our visas!

TODAY I RECEIVED MY VISA TO SPAIN!!!  This is a monumental day!!  Reed received his visa from the Spanish Consolate last Tuesday, but my visa was not processed at the same time so today I met with the Spanish Consolate.  Here I am with the Spanish Consolate with my visa!!  He works at UVU and we are in the lobby to his office.  He was the nicest man!!  We fly to Madrid first thing in the morning!  Can you tell that we are excited?  We are a little worried about the Salt Lake City airport being closed.  Today we received freezing rain and the airport closed for a while because a jet landed and then proceeded to slide off the runway.  Tonight they said that 2 out of the 3 runways were already opened so we hope that we have a plane and a runway to take off on!  We are flying through Atlanta and then on to Madrid.  We are flying with another senior couple, the Sullivans.  They are the medical couple for our mission and are so much fun!  There will also be two young sisters flying with us.  We were able to meet them today at the office of the consolate.  One of the sisters was temporarily assigned to the Pocatello SpanishMission and the other sister was temporarily assigned to the Provo Spanish Mission while they were waiting for their visas.  One sister has never been outside of the United States, so she is excited but nervous.  The consolate explained to us that we will have to spend a few days in Madrid while our residential papers are obtained.  Then we will be off to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria!  We are all packed and ready to go.  All of our suitcases weigh exactly 50 pounds (according to the luggage scale that we have) so we hope the airline scale gives us the same number!  I can't believe that we are finally on our way!!  Our eternal mission call is finally happening!!  Hasta luego en Madrid!!

This is Edward one of our teachers in the MTC.  He is from Honduras and is awesome!!