First Week!

Don´t fall into a lake. The CCM is huge, there is a ton of open space and the elderes y hermanas are awesome. I got called to be a district leader the second day I got here. I absolutely love my district and we act like we´re family. I have some good stories already that I´ll share more of in the future. Love you!

Hey everyone, I made it safely to the Mexico City CCM (MTC). The plane was full of missionaries just like myself and the trip was a blast. The air here is so thin, we are a little over 5,000 feet above sea level so working out is hard because I get winded after like 20 minutes. We are thrown into speaking spanish. There is no remorse, but in the week I´ve been here, I've been getting really comfortable speaking the language. We had a few hundred words to memorize and 120 phrases to know by this Sunday. I was called to be the District Leader for my district, Distrito 8-C. We all get along so well. There are 12 of us and we act like we´ve known each other since birth. We speak in spanish all day and do everything together. I love being with them, they are so motivated, spiritual, and a little crazy. My companion, Elder Everett, and I had to teach our first lesson in spanish the second day we got here. 

The Gift of Tongues is real. You have to work hard and have the spirit to be with you to recieve the help. It´s not just automatically knowing the language. It´s the ability to relay what you teach based on the needs of the investigator. Speaking spanish is hard, but every day it gets easier. Its like taking a spanish class all day, every day. Most of our vocab is related to the church and its lessons, which is what were here to learn about, the lessons. 

The weather here in Mexico is pretty consistent. It´s warm all day and it rains quite a bit. There are parrots everywhere and they are very loud. The city surrounding the CCM is also really loud. The natives here like to party late at night, drag race, and sometimes shoot each other in the middle of the night. There has not been a night where I haven´t heard sirens go off and police trying to talk down an active shooter. Thankfully the CCM is gated off with a large fence and barbed wire. 

I was finally able to dunk a basketball the day we started having time to work out. Our district has become known as the Rancagua Dunk Squad, as 6 of the 10 Elders can dunk a basketball. We have been getting a lot of attention from the presidency here as we have been working insanely hard as a district to learn the language. 1st Councilor, President Call, expressed that we were the tallest district he had ever seen. Our group for our branch is made up of four districts, so roughly 48 people attending sacrament on Sundays. All of our services are in spanish. We also recieve a topic for sacrament talks that we get randomly selected to give during sacrament for 5 minutes in spanish. The work is hard here, but the knowledge is irreplaceable.

During my third meeting with our mock investigator, I tried to express saying today which is "a hoy" in spanish and instead i said "ahoy" and started laughing uncontrollably at myself which resulted in Elder Everett and I restarting the lesson.

Once I get an SD card reader, I´ll have pictures for you all. 

Thank you for you love and emails as they really help me. I hope you are all doing wonderful and I miss you all.