Hola! 

WOW!! A lot has happened in just two days! I love the CCM (MTC in spanish) but boy is it very overwhelming for a new comer! When I arrived and walked through the gates on Wednesday I received my tag, a thousand pounds of books, and went straight to my first spanish class! My teacher, Hermana Avery, is very nice and she is an awesome teacher, but NO ONE is aloud to speak english, not even the teacher. Soooo, it's a little confusing to know exactly what we are doing sometimes and it is VERY frustrating! But we all know how to pray in spanish now and introduce ourselves as missionaries and we are working on learning how to bear our testimonies in spanish because when all else fails, bear your testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel. My companion, Hermana Humphrey's, is great and she is also going to the Nicaragua Managua north mission! In fact all the sisters in my district (two sets of sisters, Hermana Humphrey's and I included) are all going to the Nicaragua Managua North mission AND we are all roommates! That is truly the tender mercies of the Lord! We have lots of fun together and we try to speak spanish to each other as much as possible. I am still trying to get used to being called "Hermana". Also the biggest challenge for me is not saying "you guys" as a universal term! Haha! As missionaries you have to call everyone Elders or Sisters and that has been a challenge for me! I really do love the MTC though! Everyone is so friendly all the time! My STL's (sister training Zone leaders) are amazing! They are like my big sisters! We play basketball and volleyball during gym time together and they always stop by our residence room at night and just make sure we are doing ok and handling everything well! I got my first calling in our Zone! I will be the Branch music coordinator until they reassign all of the callings when the STL's and Zone leaders and the first district leave next week! I am very sad about that because I have gotten to know all of those people really well! This morning we got to go to the temple as a zone and do a session. It was a whole different experience being there with a bunch of missionaries and the Provo temple is so pretty! Tonight Hermana Humphrey's and I are required to give our first lesson...IN SPANISH!!! We are teaching the plan of salvation to an "investigator" named Carlos, who is really just a teacher here at the MTC who speaks spanish! We are really nervous and very scared since we don't know spanish hardly at all yet! I mean we have only been here for one whole day...how could we! The Hermanas in my zone say it will get easier as the weeks go by so I trust them. We just have to pray to our Father in Heaven for comfort and guidance...and for the gift of tongues...PLEASE!! I hope all is well back at home and everyone is doing great! Especially those who had finals this week! My zone has a motto here that we will pass down to all Missionaries as they come to the MTC for spanish speaking missions, "La lucha es real"...The struggle is real!! That phrase bounces around our classrooms and residence halls! It's really funny actually! We say it joking though because we do know this work is hard and that learning the language is hard, but it is the most important thing we can be doing with our lives and I already have come to a greater appreciation for missionaries and the work that we do, especially if we are required to learn a language! I love being a Missionary, I put the subject of this email as "My favorite Accessory" because when I get to wear my name tag with Hermana Dickey written on it, I know that I am a servant of the Lord. It reminds me to think like one, act like one, speak like one, and work hard like one. I love you all and I already miss you. I keep you in my thoughts and prayers constantly! I hope you have a wonderful weekend and a wonderful week next week!

Love, Hermana Dickey