Hey everyone!
Sorry that it's been so long. Since this week was our first full week, today is the first day that we can email home. It's pretty awesome here.
So on the flight here, I flew by myself to Frankfurt which was kind of boring but I made it through eventually. It was definitely the biggest and nicest plane I've ever been on. Then in Frankfurt I transferred to a plane to Madrid where I ended up being with all the missionaries going to all 3 mission areas in Spain. There were probably like 40 of us. When we got to Spain we got picked up by a bus and went to the Missionary Training Center there.
Madrid is a lot like home; it's really hot and dry every day. It was cloudy one day but it was actually humid that day. Otherwise it's just been hot.
A group of missionaries who are serving in Russia had been here in the MTC for 3 weeks, so there's a group of Russian learners and a group of Spanish learners, in total there's 65 of us here. The Russian missionaries spent 3 weeks in Provo then they spend 6 weeks at the Madrid MTC, so they have a 9 week program.
Learning Spanish here is super intense. They're basically cramming 3 years of high school Spanish into 6 weeks, plus learning how to teach people about the gospel. On the first day of classes, our first Wednesday here, our first teacher came in and started speaking all in Spanish which was overwhelming at first but we're all starting to get used to it.
Instead of having one companion for my 6 weeks in the MTC here, I got put in a trio, so there's three of us who are together all the time. We have a lot of fun and everyone in my class of 7 people is super cool so I really enjoy it here. Sometimes it gets really funny but we learn a lot at the same time.
The MTC is right next to the Madrid Temple, which we see out the window all the time. It's so beautiful, I love seeing it every day.
Every Saturday we have the opportunity to take the metro to El Parque del Retiro, which is basically a huge park in Madrid, where we're each paired up with a Russian missionary and we go around talking to people there. It was a super cool experience because not only did we get to talk to a lot of people about the church, we got to talk to people from all over the world which I thought was super cool. My Russian companion and I talked to people from Spain(obviously), Germany, Romania, Ecuador, Mexico, and The Dominican Republic. Anyone who wasn't from Spain spoke English so we usually defaulted to that but a couple of the people we talked to only spoke Spanish and I was able to talk to them which was awesome, but it all really helped me to practice the language. Afterwards we all met up and sang hymns in front of a big fountain and more than a few people came and watched which was great.
Almost every day we get an hour of physical activity and my companions and we usually choose to play soccer. It's always really cool. In America where you would have basketball courts all over, there are smallish futbol pitches here, which I think is awesome.
For our preparation day today we went to the city center of Madrid to look around the city and do some shopping which was really fun. It was so pretty down there. A lot of stuff looked really old but there was a lot of new stuff mixed in like we saw a McDonalds and a Burger King and everyone went in this huge shopping mall for a bit. But the main thing was the Plaza Mayor which was a huge old city square which looked super cool. Anyway I had a great week and I hope you all did too. I love you all!
Elder Corey Dobbs
Sorry that it's been so long. Since this week was our first full week, today is the first day that we can email home. It's pretty awesome here.
So on the flight here, I flew by myself to Frankfurt which was kind of boring but I made it through eventually. It was definitely the biggest and nicest plane I've ever been on. Then in Frankfurt I transferred to a plane to Madrid where I ended up being with all the missionaries going to all 3 mission areas in Spain. There were probably like 40 of us. When we got to Spain we got picked up by a bus and went to the Missionary Training Center there.
Madrid is a lot like home; it's really hot and dry every day. It was cloudy one day but it was actually humid that day. Otherwise it's just been hot.
A group of missionaries who are serving in Russia had been here in the MTC for 3 weeks, so there's a group of Russian learners and a group of Spanish learners, in total there's 65 of us here. The Russian missionaries spent 3 weeks in Provo then they spend 6 weeks at the Madrid MTC, so they have a 9 week program.
Learning Spanish here is super intense. They're basically cramming 3 years of high school Spanish into 6 weeks, plus learning how to teach people about the gospel. On the first day of classes, our first Wednesday here, our first teacher came in and started speaking all in Spanish which was overwhelming at first but we're all starting to get used to it.
Instead of having one companion for my 6 weeks in the MTC here, I got put in a trio, so there's three of us who are together all the time. We have a lot of fun and everyone in my class of 7 people is super cool so I really enjoy it here. Sometimes it gets really funny but we learn a lot at the same time.
The MTC is right next to the Madrid Temple, which we see out the window all the time. It's so beautiful, I love seeing it every day.
Every Saturday we have the opportunity to take the metro to El Parque del Retiro, which is basically a huge park in Madrid, where we're each paired up with a Russian missionary and we go around talking to people there. It was a super cool experience because not only did we get to talk to a lot of people about the church, we got to talk to people from all over the world which I thought was super cool. My Russian companion and I talked to people from Spain(obviously), Germany, Romania, Ecuador, Mexico, and The Dominican Republic. Anyone who wasn't from Spain spoke English so we usually defaulted to that but a couple of the people we talked to only spoke Spanish and I was able to talk to them which was awesome, but it all really helped me to practice the language. Afterwards we all met up and sang hymns in front of a big fountain and more than a few people came and watched which was great.
Almost every day we get an hour of physical activity and my companions and we usually choose to play soccer. It's always really cool. In America where you would have basketball courts all over, there are smallish futbol pitches here, which I think is awesome.
For our preparation day today we went to the city center of Madrid to look around the city and do some shopping which was really fun. It was so pretty down there. A lot of stuff looked really old but there was a lot of new stuff mixed in like we saw a McDonalds and a Burger King and everyone went in this huge shopping mall for a bit. But the main thing was the Plaza Mayor which was a huge old city square which looked super cool. Anyway I had a great week and I hope you all did too. I love you all!
Elder Corey Dobbs
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| My district in front of the temple. |
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| My companions Elder Knaphus and Elder Simmonds. They're both from Utah. This is last week when we went to do some paperwork for a residency card |
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| Plaza Mayor |
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| Plaza Mayor |
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| Plaza Mayor |
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| Plaza Mayor |
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| Plaza Mayor |
Elder Dobbs! Thanks for the great photos. Excellent job on the blog! You will be an awesome missionary!
ReplyDeleteBro Byrne
There was an Elder Knaphus in my mission who was also from Utah. This is a great blog. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDelete