Sept. 24, 2014 RUSTON, La. - What happens when an Iceland native and a Puerto Rican, both who do not speak English, walk into an American dorm room in Houston, Texas?

In 2012, the answer was unclear for Helena Gunnarsdottir and Adria Morales, now members of LA Tech's volleyball team, who were both recruited to play the sport they love for Lee College 30 minutes outside of Houston.

"We roomed together our first year, both of us speaking no English," Gunnarsdottir said. "Adria spoke Spanish and I spoke Icelandic, so there wasn't a lot of talking going on between the two of us at first. We spoke with our hands."

Both Gunnarsdottir and Morales began playing at Lee College in 2012, but while most students going off to college are away from home for the first time, the two girls had more than a few miles between their new dorm room in the United States and their native lands.

Morales hails from Juncos, Puerto Rico near the eastern coast of the Caribbean island where volleyball and basketball rules. In high school, she starred as a setter at Colegio Adianez and received MVP honors for her all-star efforts on the court before being recruited to play volleyball at the next level.

Her counterpart, Gunnarsdottir, was recruited to Lee College from a tiny town in Iceland that is located on the eastern part of the island, which has a population of approximately 325,000. The outside hitter's hometown of Neskaupstaður is home to just over 1,500 residents at the base of a mountain and on the coast of the country, which is right in the middle of Greenland and Norway in the Atlantic Ocean.

With neither of them having any previous experiences or grasp of the English language, both Gunnarsdottir and Morales picked up and made the long trek to America with dreams of competing at the next level.

The two stood out immediately at Lee with not only the pressures of competing on the court, but a language barrier to break through in a foreign country. However, the bond formed between Gunnarsdottir and Morales as roommates helped the two girls adjust to life in the U.S.

"I came to Lee without knowing the language at all," Morales said. "I just told myself I needed to learn it as quick as possible because it was necessary. There were a lot of hand signals between me and people who had trouble understanding what I meant. Whenever I went to Lee, I regretted not learning it when I was younger because now I am here and I need it. On the court, I was the setter and I needed to learn the language quickly because we have signals and I needed to talk more than the other players."

After taking about seven months to learn English, Morales and Gunnarsdottir could focus solely on being a student-athlete and immediately began to impress college coaches with their play on the court. With a camaraderie already built as roommates, the girls formed a bond as an outside hitter and setter for the next two years at Lee, a combination that caught the attention of LA Tech head coach Adriano de Souza, who successfully recruited the two all-conference honorees to play for the Lady Techsters in 2014.

"The entire process was really good for both of us and we eventually made the decision to sign on the next day," Gunnarsdottir said. "Coach de Souza called us both several times during recruiting and explained everything about the program really well. He talked about wanting to change the culture of the program and we were really into the fact that he wanted to improve the volleyball team here at Tech."

Once the junior college transfers arrived in Ruston the summer prior to the 2014 season, Gunnarsdottir and Morales adjusted almost instantly and developed an appreciation for de Souza and his team, along with Louisiana Tech as a whole.

"The knowledge that the coaches had and how people treats each other stood out," Morales said. "The team was great and we both knew right away the players could help us maintain our volleyball skills here. The coaches always give 150 percent to make sure we work and learn how to be more mature players on the court. In this program, we are real STUDENT-athletes and that is an awesome feeling."

These days, Gunnarsdottir and Morales are fully adjusted to life in the United States and roommates, even though the two do not always see eye to eye and may clash on with their differing personalities.

"We are pretty much together 24/7, but we are both really different," Gunnarsdottir said. "I am really quiet, shy and like to stay in and go to bed early, whereas Adria is the opposite. She is really loud and more open. She would much rather stay up late and sleep in. Sometimes we will go hang out with all of our teammates and split into different groups, so we can kind of have our space and own time."

Morales echoed her friend's feelings on constantly spending time with a teammate.

"Sometimes we need our space, but it is good to have some here that is international," she said. "It works because she brings something to the table from where is from and so do I, so we just mix it all together."

While Skype calls and live streaming of LA Tech's volleyball matches, keep the two teammates' families in the loop for the time being, both Gunnarsdottir and Morales are looking forward to returning to their native lands of Iceland and Puerto Rico once the Christmas break commences at Louisiana Tech.

The answer to the original question is, eventually, Gunnarsdottir and Morales became best friends, but they had to be on speaking terms before that could occur, something that took time, but was well worth it in the end for the LA Tech teammates.