Familia familia,
¿Qué pasa? I successfully made it onto our flight to Madrid. They closed the gate but when we got there they opened it back up for us. The flight was pretty painless, but it was weird because everyone was speaking Spanish, and this is NOT the language that I learned in the MTC. It´s crazy listening to Spaniards speak. When we got out of the airport we were looking for someone to pick us up, and no one was there, so we exchanged our money, and were going to use a pay phone, but some members walked up to us and asked us what we were doing and they let us use their phone to call the MTC president, who had no idea we were arriving! Tender mercies, let me tell you. So there are only 15 of us in the Madrid MTC right now, and it´s pretty much awesome - 7 north americans, and 8 native speakers. The food is incredible (from the one meal that I had), the temple is pretty much the coolest building I have ever seen in my entire life, and I´m pretty much in the middle of a culture shock. I have to start speaking with a lisp now, and it´s crazy. It´s way difficult, but hey, I can do hard things. The MTC President here is really cool, and he´s letting us go to bed tonight at 5:30 because he knows how exhausted we are - and let me tell you, I´m pretty darn exhausted. You can´t sleep well on a plane, especially when your legs keep getting in the way. I´m sorry that I didn´t get to talk long in New York, but it was due to circumstances beyond my control. I will be in this MTC until Sept 8, when I will take the bullet train to Barcelona, have dinner with President Hinckley, then get sent off to some part of Spain. I love it here - it´s beautiful. The Spanish here is weird, but it´s easy on the ears. I don´t know if it´s as easy on the ears as Italiano, but it´s up there.
Well, I don´t know what else to say! I´m doing good, I´m happy, I´m tired, but I´m motivated to do good tomorrow. I just need to catch up on my sleep and all will be well.
Oh! So there´s this one elder here, Elder Tyson-Boice or something, and he´s from Hyde Park and knows Grandma and Grandpa Leavitt and Jessica. Small world. Well he used to live in Hyde Park, but now he lives in the South of Spain, and he´s lived there for 9 years, so his Spanish is pretty much incredible. It´s kind of intimidating talking to people when you barely know the language. It´s cool though. I´m excited to play soccer tomorrow with some nativos, and to go to the mall and contact and go to the park and contact. This place is like a deluxe hotel. One of the elders who had already been out a transer, Elder Redd, told me that he feels like he is cheating because this place is so nice. I´ll enjoy this while I can. Well, I´m going to go take pictures by the temple. Talk to you later! My new p-day is on Thursday, so make sure you shoot me back an email before then.
Love, Elder Pericle