I can't believe I've been here in the CCM for two whole weeks now! Sometimes it feels way longer than that. After my first week, I felt like I was getting the hang of stuff, but then, last Friday, everything got cranked up a notch. "Jaqueline" is actually not Jaqueline (gasp!) but is now actually our teacher in the afternoon. Her real name is Hermana A. So in the morning, we get taught by Hermano G and Hermano T (G's assistant), and then Hermana A teaches us in the afternoon. Hermana A is pretty much the complete opposite of Hermano G. She's really really strict, and she makes us do these insane assignments. It's definitely hard. When other teachers found out that she was our teacher, they said, "Oh...I'm sorry." But, she supposed to be one of the best teachers in the CCM and her students always leave being able to speak really really good Spanish, So, we'll see. I've been blessed to have experienced teachers. Along with Hermana A, Hermano G is actually the teacher who teaches and trains and hires all the teachers here at the CCM. He doesn't actually teach often; we are the first district that he's taught in over a year. But we are learning a ton from our teachers.
The first two days of being taught by Hermana A were pretty hard, so I needed Sunday to be a good day. And it was! Presidente S, our branch pres, is totally awesome! During priesthood, he gave this awesome lesson about the symbolism of olives, and what Olives meant for the people of Palestine. He also talked about how "Gethsemane" means "olive press." To make an olive usable, it has to be pressed to remove the bitterness, just as Christ, was pressed to remove the bitterness of the world. When we use consecrated olive oil to heal others, it represents the blood of Jesus Christ. Awesome lesson! District meeting and Sacrament meeting went really well too.
On Sunday, I probably had the weirdest and best meals that I've had so far here. At lunch, I had pork tenderloin with walnut sauce (Yeah. WALNUT. Like, there were bit of diced nuts still in the sauce, super weird.) But then at dinner, they had this mesquite chicken, that was pretty much like pulled pork...except it was chicken....and there was no BBQ sauce, but it was really good! I ended up going back for thirds. They also had mashed potatoes! It was the first time I've had them since leaving!
The devotional on Sunday was super good. We watched an old talk from Elder Holland, and it was super powerful. The spirit was working on me, I can tell you that. He talked about a lot of stuff, but just spoke in a way that only he can. He just talks with sooo much power. He started by saying that we need to become Preach my Gospel missionaries, and that we need to be better missionaries than he ever was (hearing that from an apostle was just like, wow). He told the story of a missionary in 1928, who knocked on a door of a woman who had just lost her young child. The local priest had told the woman that her child was in Hell because the child was not baptized. Instead of just going off into some preplanned lesson, this wise missionary opened to Moroni 8, and told this woman where her child was. We teach people, not lessons.
He also told the story of how Peter became the great apostle that he was:
After Christ was resurrected, and appeared to the apostles, they apostles didn't really know what to do. So, what does Peter do? He goes fishing! They fished all night but didn't catch anything, Christ, waiting at the shore for them, told them to cast their nets on the right side, and when they did, they could not even haul in the catch for the amount of fish in their nets. From here I´ll try to paraphrase Holland:
On the shore, Christ asked Peter, "Do you love me?" Peter answered " Yea, you know I love thee." Christ said, "Feed my sheep." Christ asked him again and Peter said a similar response. Then Christ asked a third time, and by now Peter (who's not fond of threes right now) is getting nervous. Peter says, "Yes Lord, I do love thee." Christ said, "Then Peter, Feed. My. Sheep. This was not temporary, when I called you to my work it was for FOREVER. You cannot go back to your old nets and just return to the way things used to be." It was in that moment that the sweet, humble, ignorant, ear-slicing Peter left those things, and became the Legendary Apostle that he was destined to be.
It is the same with us. Our missions don't end after two years, they are for forever. We cannot go back to the way things were, and if we ever were to fall away from the church, it would break the heart of God.
Now just imagine Elder Holland saying that and yeah...it was awesome.
Anyways, Monday came. Remember how I said everything got cranked up a notch? Well, now since we have two teachers, we have double the amount of assignments, double the lessons, and now, double the investigators. We are now teaching both Adrían y Nesha. Our lessons with them have gone pretty well so far. We've taught them both about the restoration, and I'm starting to get better at not having to use a script. Spanish is still hard, but I'm beginning to understand more and more of what the investigators are saying, and how to respond to them. Let me tell you a funny story: yesterday, we were teaching Adrian, (aka Hermano G) and we invited him to go to church. But then, he asked us where the church was. We had no idea what to tell him! We didn't know where the church is in Mexico City! So, I ended up telling him he could google it. It was pretty funny.
Gym time has been pretty good. We've played some b-ball (and yes, I take off my glasses for gym time). Elder B (my companion) can't whistle, and I can't dunk, so Elder B has vowed to get me to dunk a basketball if I can get him to whistle. Also, I got to play some Ultimate Frisbee this week! I was so pumped. I haven't played since April, and it was just so much fun. I had probably had the best throw of my life too. I was being guarded, but I got him to shake enough to give me a tiny window to throw in. I saw one of our guys running to the endzone, so I flicked the disk about 50 or 60 yards down the field, and it ever just curved so slightly to hit him perfectly, and Elder Stout caught it for the score (ironic, because it wasn't Josh Stout, different Stout). It was awesome.
Classes are going well. The days are going by and I'm learning a lot. I've been able to memorize the First vision, My purpose, Moroni 10:5, and Abraham 3:25, all in Spanish. I hope all is well at home. Here comes week three!
Love you all,
Elder Mitchell
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