Hola everyone!
I have officially made it over a week here at the CCM
(Spanish for MTC, pronounced say-say-emay). Wow, there is so much to tell,
hopefully I have enough time. Well, today is P-day, and we didn't get p-day
last week, so I have plenty to say. The flight to Mexico was interesting. On
the plane from PDX to Salt Lake I actually sat next to a couple who was flying
to a wedding for his LDS sister. So we got to talk about the church a bit.
There are missionary opportunities everywhere!
In Salt Lake I met up
with about 30 or so other missionaries. I was pretty tired so I mostly just
slept on the plane. Getting through immigration was fine, but none of us knew
where to go after we picked up our luggage. Eventually the greeter found us,
and we were able to get loaded on the buses. Mexico City driving is insane!!
There's no such thing as "right of way" you just kinda go when you
want. Plus people will just stand in the street trying to sell stuff when the
cars are stopped. Yet, we made it safely.
We had some meetings, and unpacked, got situated. If it
weren't for the palm trees, you would totally think that the CCM is in the US.
But then you look at the mountains and you're like, "oh yeah, I'm in
Mexico!" Also, there’s soooo many mosquitos here! They’re only out during
the night, but they are very prevalent.
The first day or two was reaaaallly sloooow.... felt like a
week between Thursday and Friday. Lots of meetings. I got to see some friends
from BYU here. Robert, who I used to play Ultimate a lot with, and Sara, who I
used to home teach. They both left for the field on Monday.
My companion is Elder B, from St. George Utah. He's a
good guy. He works real hard, is diligent, and wants to be as obedient as he
can. He's also super athletic! He played Soccer in high school and his team won
State 3 times! HE CAN ALSO DUNK! Yeah. He's pretty good at basketball too. He's
sworn to get me good at basketball before we leave the CCM.
We live in Casas (houses) on the south part of the campus.
In our room, there are two other Elders: Elder Ah and Elder An. Ah is
going to Mississippi, and An is actually from Sherwood! They're both pretty
cool, but we only see them during the morning and at night. On Thursday (30th)
we met our CCM district. We have ten people. Along with Elder B and I,
there's 4 Elders going to Salt Lake South: Elders C, B, S, and O (the DL). We have one Elder going to Eugene Oregon:
Elder D. Then we have Elder W, who will be going to Nashville with
Elder B and me. And then there's the Hermanas: Hermana P (going to Las
Vegas, and who is actually from Tennessee), and Hermana W (going to
Ecuador, but speaks fluent German). Our district is super close already; it
kinda feels like a family.
Our teacher is Hermano G. He's an excellent teacher,
and he really cares about us a lot. Occasionally we got taught by Hermano
R as well, and he is an excellent teacher as well. The first few days were
long, a ton of meetings. But now we are getting into the flow of things here.
We didn't have hot water for the first few days. That was fun. But, we got it
now. Just makes you appreciate it more. The food has been good, I've been well
fed. There’s always something for me to eat at every meal if I don't like what
they're serving. I've had all sorts of different kinds of pork and chicken.
They also serve lots of weird stuff. I will try to explain more about the food
here next week but it's good! BTW, Elder C will eat anything. They have a
store here as well with all sorts of stuff. I found Mexican chips-a-hoy called
chokis.
Friday was interesting. We had only been in the CCM for 2
days, and Hermano G started class telling us, "Today you will teach
your first investigator, Jaqueline." I was thinking, "What, how!! We
don't know any Spanish!!" We spent the afternoon trying to translate our
lesson from English to Spanish. It was rough. Our lesson went ok, but we
couldn't understand anything she said to us. We tried to teach her about the
Restoration, but it was very difficult. However, the next few lessons would get
better...
A typical day kinda goes like this: wake up, get ready,
personal study in our classroom, breakfast, then Language class with Hermano G,
then we study the Book of Mormon or other things as a class, then gym time (we
usually play basketball), and then lunch. After lunch we have some additional
study time, and then we spend an hour on TALL. TALL is a language software
program that’s designed to help us learn grammar easier, but my account
currently won't work (Hermano G is working to fix that). I've been able to get
stuff done on guest accounts so far. After TALL, we spend the rest of the
afternoon prepping to teach Jaqueline. After that, we have our lesson with her,
and then dinner, and then we spend the rest of the night studying.
Sunday was awesome. Our branch Presidency is super awesome.
Presidente S and Presidente A are such good teachers. Presidente A taught us about the oath and covenant on Sunday, but he also taught us how the
Gospel is proclaimed by the weak. Sometimes as missionaries we need to be made
weak before we can teach. I know that's why Nate was sent to Russia, and why
I've been sent to learn Spanish. We had fast Sunday this last week, and I
actually bore my testimony (IN SPANISH!! WHAT?!). We had an awesome Devotional
that night. We watched an old talk by Elder Bednar about the character of
Christ. It was brutally honest, and I loved it :) Oh! And in a week or so we
are going to be visited by D. Todd Christofferson!! Sunday was awesome. I just
felt the spirit all day.
Our lessons with Jaqueline progressively got better. Our
third lesson was great. During the second lesson, she said she felt something
in her heart, but we didn’t know how to explain to her that it was the spirit!!
So we dedicated our whole third lesson to the Holy Ghost. It was awesome! The
spirit was there, and I actually understood about 75 percent of what she said
to us! Our 4th lesson was hard. We tried to teach her about the Plan of
salvation, but it was just so much to cover! Our 5th lesson was excellent
though (bounce-back). We taught her about the Gospel, and when I bore my
testimony, the Spirit was just super powerful. It was an incredible experience.
Spanish has been really hard to learn, but every day it gets
better. I've learned that if you want the gift of tongues, you have to work
like everything depends on you, and pray like it depends on Him. It's really
hard but, "es possible."
Something I'm coming to realize is that every day is a
spiritual experience. I can think of distinct experiences in my youth when I
felt the Spirit. Here I'm learning that we can, and should, feel the spirit
every single day. It just keeps getting better and better here.
I will try to send pics sometime, but I don’t think the
computers here have SD card slots. At least, I haven’t found them. Sorry about
the typos, I'm trying to type fast! Wish that I could write more but my time is
just about up!
La Iglesia
es Verdadera! Yo se es! (The church is true! Yes it is!) Love you all!
Elder Mitchell
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