Last Week to Come in the CCM

Fooseball update: we played another tourney today still holding the crown. ;) This week my Mexican amigos left which was really sad but cool to see them leave to serve. This week we found a massive spider that was the size of the bottom of my pringles can. It was on my towel and crawled over my foot when I got out of the shower. I caught it and some fun out with it with the Hermanas, haha, I'll just leave that story there... ;) My roommate was sick one day this week so I skipped eating breakfast and got to sleep in - that was glorious! 

Cool thing from Sunday. First I was blessed with the opportunity to bless the sacrament in Spanish, which was super cool! But the greater blessing was later. Elder Stewart and I were called out of the meeting to go check on some rouge members of the zone. When we returned, the branch presidency called on me to talk. Well this would make three weeks in a row I've done so which wasn't supposed to happen since others hadn't spoke. Well we had been so sure I wouldn't be called on this week that myself and Hermana Smith didn't prepare talks.... I will never do that again! I quickly grabbed my companion's talk. His talk was in his writing, in Spanish (they all are) and I'd never even glanced at it before. Well I stood up and delivered the best talk I´ve ever given in the MTC and bore testimony at the end and it was wonderful! I could read it, speak it, and understand all of it perfectly and speak beyond the talk itself. Let me assure you I am not anywhere near good enough to go for 5-10 minutes like that on my own in Spanish. It was clearly the gift of tongues and Heavenly Father was blessing me big time! It was a super cool experience! 

We´re also working with a less active member and helping her to return to church. It is so amazing how the Spirit can touch someone who is so against coming back to the church she once loved and helping her to find more love and purpose in her life! We watched a devotional by Elder Bednar and he told us "Get over yourselves" and "Christ always turned outwards and never inwards" so those are my two new motos and how I plan on going about everything, especially as I go into the field next week! Love you all and please keep the love and letters coming I love them! 

Ode to The Beatles

Our classroom building

District fun

Beautiful Mexican skies

Start of Week 5

Hola! This week has been pretty great. The week feels so long here! Ok fun thought: we have one elder who always replies "mas o menos" for when he is asked how he is doing. Well our teacher this week said when you get to the judgement bar and God asks you did you obey the commandments are you going to say "mas o menos" because I don't think that will count for an answer. It was the funniest thing! 

Ok so today is p-day and I drew up a bracket for our district and some others and we held a fuzzball tourney will pig tails and the whole thing it was so great!! Hermana Smith and I have yet to be defeated - it is great. Our team name is Alpha and Omega it's pretty fun. The key is to wear my Roseburg Wrestling t-shirt and the competition runs screaming. ;) 

This week our teachers have been riding us hard about solo Espanol so it has begun they just say huh? if we use English. haha It makes you slow down for sure but it's all going well. Also all our investigators are on date to be baptized now which is sweet!!! Definitely cool to watch Jorge who has been so skeptical and against the message but the spirit has touched him and the change is amazing to watch! This last Sunday we watched "Meet the Mormons" which was cool because I had not seen it before and it was amazing! But for the first time I was homesick for a wee bit with the son leaving and the mom's story - seems like one I've heard before ya? The best part was that everyone was so different and had different testimonies but all said this gospel changed their lives and makes them have so much joy! 

Sorry for the shortness of my email, we had some tech probs again, Love everybody see you next week for the last p-day in the CCM! 

Comps ready to head out to McAllen, TX

Women = danger?

Best to stick with the pringles.

Half Way!

So this week feels like it has been a month long! The biggest news is that I scored the goal of a life time on the Latino team in cage ball this week!;) They call me "Greengoa"l and every game is more entertaining than the last. The Mexican people are so funny; I have never met a people that smile more or laugh so much! 

It was so great getting letters this week they make life soooooo wonderful! I feel bad though for the rest of the district. So far everyday we come into the mail room and they crowd around it and it ends up being for me. One guy got a package this week so that was sweet! I think they will get more this week. 

Yesterday was hump day so that was the half way mark to our time here. The oldest district in our zone left which was sad and weird and it's quiet here. We get a full zone again on Wednesday some time. We'll probably bring them each some Mexican candy to help them settle in. 

Best moment of the week came with TRC this week. TRC is once a week and we get to have a real lesson with a real person that we haven't met yet. So Elder Stewart and I had the opportunity to teach a non member!! It was super cool because we really had to rely on the Lord because 1) she doesn't know English like the people here. 2) It's for real and is not a training run anymore. 3) she is a native so lets just say her Spanish is not the Spanish we learn here at the CCM. ;) So we started off just getting to know her. She was such a sweet lady I loved her! As we went from basic stuff about her we started asking more about her religious background to get to know her. She had one friend who is Mormon and tried out our church once last week. I asked her if she'd prayed before and she told me everything concerning prayer with her. It quickly became evident her relationship with God was zero. She even told us she would not be praying and we didn't even ask. I felt prompted to ask if we could share a message with a song and she said yes. So we sang to her in Spanish the first and last verse of I Need Thee Every Hour (hear it here) and it was amazing!! We don't usually sound good but this time it was like having angels in the room singing with us! I've never felt the spirit that strong in a lesson before. It turned the whole thing around. She ended up praying at the end and asking God if He loved her. She said she felt an answer and she felt feliz y paz y mucho (happy & much peace) She said other things with teary eyes and a smile that I don't understand yet. She wants to know more now and can pray any time she likes! I love that lady it was such an amazing moment!  

Otherwise I got a haircut today in here and it turned out petty good which was lucky because some come out reallllly rough! This place is tough and way more emotionally challenging than I ever realized but the blessings are amazing when we do what is right! Love you all!!

Literally climbing the walls - a Harker misionary tradition.

Typical fare in the CCM.

Practicing my bicycling skills.

Me & my comp after a day of service.

A Day in the Life

Today is my p-day (preparation day) and the only day photos are allowed to be taken. A basic day here goes like this: wake up at 6, get ready by 6:45,study till 7:30,eat breakfast, study till 9 on our own again, then we do language study and Book of Mormon study and coaching with our teachers until noon. Lunch, work out, shower, back to the books or teach our investigators, more language, dinner,  TALL (language program online), then daily planning for tomorrow and more studying until 9:30. Go back to casa verde and change, more personal study and lights out at 10:30 and repeat. A quality 16 hr day every day, LOL. We get to mix it up with a service project on Mondays and church on Sundays and Tuesday is pday so we have part of the day to clean do laundry shop or take pics or whatever else we can come up with.

The food at breakfast is normally a no go so cereal usually reigns supreme. Lunch is the big meal of the day which sucks because we need to eat the majority then but we work out right after so there is kind of an art to it. ;) Dinner usually they try and give us a gringo food every once and a while to make us feel at home, like pizza Tuesdays or when they feed us burgers instead of Mexican food which is great - a burger never tasted so good! There is a mini soccer court in a cage called cage ball and we get to play the Latinos every day if we want - they are soooooo good!!! The two best feelings are: 1) getting passed to by them and being called hermano and not gringo and 2) scoring on a Latino keeper. LOL

My companion for the CCM is Elder Stewart and he is great. He was called as district leader (DL) and I’m the senior companion so we`re the district leaders and basically are in charge of each other pretty equally.  I love him. I got really lucky with him and my roommates and my district – they’re great. We have me and Elder Stewart rooming with Elder Shearer (queen B) and Elder Jacobson, who I love! Elder Swinehart (I wrestled him when I won free style state and he won a title this last year, he’s super cool but they won’t let us wrestle on p-day). His comp is Elder Child who is the funniest guy I’ve ever met. Elder Spencer who helps me out mad time on my Spanish and (my twin) Elder Nelson may just be the other funniest guy I’ve ever met - he is so fun! There’s also Hermanas Smith and Homer who have us do a challenge every day like a fashion walk or best tie or best first impression or best high kick etc. I’ve got the most wins right now at 2 no big deal. ;) We all know "hermanas are perfect" our branch president told us that.

So life in the district is pretty great! The first week was awful but now it’s all turning around and I’m learning a lot and God is helping us each out like crazy on speaking Spanish. I’ve been struggling with feeling inadequate as a missionary but this last weekend was General Conference - I hope everyone watched every session it was so wonderful!  I was really in the dumps about the language and struggling with lots of different things but what I got most from the conference was that one apostle said God qualifies those he calls and the spirit hit me hard with that and I knew that God was and is looking out for me and is right by my side in all of this as I obey. In Moroni 10 it says we must have both faith and hope so not just in ourselves but in God, so with that I have been living each day and it is going so much better! I love this place and all the people and couldn’t be happier!