Christmas in Oaxaca!

Hello!  So this week was Christmas, in case you missed it.  It was a busy and exciting week here in Oaxaca!  We did a lot of contacting this week, and we found a good amount of new people to teach!  So thats good!  My favorite contact this week was a lady that we saw struggling to carry a good amount of branches up a hill.  I approached her and offered help, and she accepted.  We carried the branches all the way accross the city!  But when we got to her house, we asked if we could share a message.  She seems interested to learn more about the gospel.  I loved using service to introduce people to the gospel!

On Christmas eve all the missionaries around here gathered in Oaxaca city for a Christmas activity!  It was really fun!  We had dinner, played soccer, had a talent show, and had a devotional.  Then we returned to Miahuatlan to have dinner with some members.  This family (The Davitas) is so sweet, there is one older lady, 3 young woman, and 1 young man.  We did a sub for santa thing with them, and they got me a new tie.  So nice!

Christmas we had a baptism interview for our investigator E.  It went well.  Then we searched for a long time for a place where we could skype our families, haha...  Pretty much every internet place was closed...  We eventually had to borrow computers from members, ha...

But it was such a joy to talk to my family for a little bit!  I really enjoyed that, it was definitely the highlight of my Christmas.  

Thats pretty much it for Christmas.  It was very simple.  But if you think about it, the birth of Christ is very simple as well.  He was born in a stable, amist animals.  It was actually quite nice to have a simple Christmas this year, without all of the many distractions that often occur at this time of year.

The day after Christmas, we had the baptism for E!  It was great!  Elder Silvestre Baptized him.  I was so happy for him and his progress.  The gospel truely does bring so much joy in our lives.

Today we had a surprise.  We had a special transfer today, so we lost Elder Prieto in our companionship.  Now its just me and Elder Silvestre.  It is sad to lose him, but I'm also excited to see what it is like to only have one companion, because to be honest, having 2 is difficult.

Thats all I have for today!  Have a very happy new year everyone!

Elder Lindsay

Our Christmas tree!

​This is on Christmas eve, and the Davitas' house.  Look at the cute way they wrapped our presents!  They're the best!  (And that isn't my jacket, by the way.)

This is a picture of the baptism this saturday, with me and my companions with E and his family.  :)

Christmas Activity - Amapolas/Atoyac/Mitla Zones

This week!

Hola!  So this week was kind of crazy.  I'm adjusting to life here very quickly now, and I'm understanding a lot more spanish!!  It's nice to actually know what is going on once in a while, ha...  It's still hard to speak though, because everybody here can speak so fast, and it takes time for me to think about what I want to say in spanish, so by the time I figure out what I want to add to the conversation, they're talking about something else.  But oh well!  It will come with time.

Living with random people who don't speak your native language is tough.  They're great people, but we all come from different cultures, so we have different expectations and habits.  But I'm glad for the opportunity.  They're teaching me a lot about spanish, so thats a plus.  And I'm developing patience, so thats good too, haha.

This week we had our first companion exchange.  Our district leader, Elder Valedez, went to Miahuatlan with Elder Prieto, while Elder Silvestre and I went to Ocotlan with Elder Merrill!  Elder Merrill is from Highland as well, in fact, he was in my stake!  Its kind of crazy that we ended up as companions for a day.  It was a really fun day, I loved being in a different city for a bit, and I liked talking to someone in english as well, ha... 

Also, this Saturday we had a Missionary Christmas choir concert in Oaxaca City.  It was awesome!  It was really well put together, and I felt the spirit really strongly.  It made me really excited for Christmas, and helped me remember the true meaning of Christmas, Jesus Christ.  I am so thankful for him, and for all that he has done for me, and still does for me.

That night we stayed in Oaxaca, with 2 other missionaries.  One of them was companions with both of my current companions, so they had a lot of fun.  Probably a little too much fun, they were kind of crazy!  But it was fun, we ordered a pizza, and talked.  It was nice to get to know some more missionaries better.

We gave some service this week for some members here.  They needed some help at their farm, and I really enjoyed helping there.  We were harvesting corn and bagging it up.  Afterwards we went and checked out their animals.  It was really fun, I liked getting out of the city and into nature for a little bit!

This week one of our investigators, named J, was baptized!!  It was a great experience.  I didn't work with her a lot, because my companions gave her all the required lessons before I got here.  But it was such a joy to see her recieve this important ordenance!  She is about 23, I would guess, and her husband is a member already.  They have one son who is really cute!  When I saw her baptism, it made me so excited for her.  Baptism is the gate, and if she continues in the church faithfully, she has the opportunity to enter the temple and be sealed with her husband and son.  There is so much happiness ahead for her!  I know that this gospel brings so many blessings.  I hope to help many other people recieve these blessings for themselves, through my efforts as a missionary.  

Thats about it for this week!  I love you all, and I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas.  Remember the true purpose of Christmas.  Take some time to reflect and be grateful.  I know that Christ lives.  Until next week!

Elder Lindsay

Last week was Elder Silvestre's birthday!  An awesome member family gave him this cake and played soccer with us on his birthday (it was p day)  It was fun.  He's 22!

​We found a tire swing.

​This week we had a branch christmas party.  It was cool, and we brought a couple investigators to it as well!  We made piñatas, and this was the elder's quorem's piñata.

Christmas Program - Atoyac Stake

Week 3 in the feild!

Hello!  This week was good!  I really like this city, it is an adventure every day!  Mission life is tough, but I'm adjusting, and I have faith that eventually I will be able to communicate and listen effectively in spanish!

The truth is, I have improved a lot in spanish over the past couple weeks.  I just have a long way to go still.  I am doing my best to be patient, and heavenly father is helping me with that.  But its cool when I realize that I can actually understand everything that someone is saying!  And when I say a sentance in spanish and realize that I didn't even have to translate it in my head, thats cool too!

I want to talk about my city, Miahuatlan.  There is a ton to say about it, so I won't cover everything, but I wanted to share more about it!

First off, the city has buildings on every inch of the street.  It feels like a maze sometimes!  Houses don't have doors, they have metel gates usually.  That means that when we go contacting, we have to knock on the gates and yell "Buenas tardes!"  It is interesting.  Also, they have a strange obsession with winnie the pooh here.  He is painted all over the place!  It is really random, haha...  There are people selling stuff all over.  Grasshoppers, bread, juice, all sorts of stuff.  There is a truck that sells gas that is probably the most annoying thing in the world.  It has a big speaker on the top of it, and every 7 seconds or so it blasts a loud Mooing sound.  Literally, i think they recorded a cow and blast it, and that is their idea of advertising.  It is so loud, so I hear mooing pretty much all the time on the street.

The food here is really good!  And sometimes really weird!  For example, they love eating bugs.  Love it!  People have buckets full of grasshopper things, and they sell them on the street all the time.  I have had my fair share of them in the time that i have been here.  They aren't bad, actually...  The other day I had a chicken and grasshopper taco.  It was pretty sweet.  But yeah, most of the time the food is super good, even if it doesn't look good.  Cactus is good, I ate that this week.  But the people that we eat with are kind of crazy!  Because I'm white, all the mexican men do everything they can to make sure that I eat every strange or gross thing on the table.  When I say I'm full, they say, no, its for you!  They refill my plate when I am completely stuffed, and then they do it again!  It's their quest, or something like that.  But what can you do.  Oh, the juice here is really good.  I don't usually know what fruit the juice comes from, but its good, so I'm not complaining.

There are a ton of wild dogs here!  They roam the street.  It made me really nervous when I first got here, but they seem to leave you alone if you leave them alone.  Lots of people have them as pets as well.  People also have pigs, goats, and cats for pets.  Its funny, haha.  The bugs here are awful.  There are so many cockroaches!  The other day when Elder Prieto was taking out a mini Cristmas tree to set up, he yelped and ran outside with the box.  When he dumped it out, I saw that there were a whole bunch of cockroaches inside, 30 at least!!  We had to stomp them to make sure they didn't come into the house again...  It was nasty!

Thats a little bit more about my city!  Sorry, it was really scattered.  I was just kind of brain dumping.

Anyways, this week we had the opportunity to go to a baptism for one of the children in our ward.  It was a really cool experience!  We drove about 20 minutes outside of the city and had it in a river!  It was a really pretty spot for a baptism.  I loved seeing more of Oaxaca and it's beauty.  It was funny, in sacrement meeting the next day, he was invited to the pulpit to tell about how he felt in his baptism.  He said, "When I entered the water, I felt really cold."  Thats it.  It made me laugh.

Right now we have 2 investigators ready for baptism!  They are both investigators that Elder Silvestre and Elder Prieto worked with before I came, so I didn't really do much with them.  Other than that, we don't really have anybody who is progressing much.  We are doing a lot of contacting.  I hope to find someone else who is prepared to recieve our message.

I'm out of time again!  Thanks for all of your prayers!  Love you all!

This is where the baptism was!!

This is the center of town!  Christmas, yay!

New Missionary Training - Oaxaca City Zones

Week 2 in the mission field!

Hola!  So I've been here in Oaxaca for 2 weeks now!  I feel like i'm slowly adjusting to the lifestyle here, and the lifestyle of a missionary.  It's a lot of work, but I'm glad to be here, and I know that what I'm doing is making a difference.

Every day we start the day with several hours of study.  (4 to be exact)  This time is very precious to me, and I love having time to study and prepare.  The scriptures are a great comfort to me.  Every time I open the scriptures I can be assured that I will feel the spirit.  What a great gift the scriptures are!

After study it is time to head out.  Every day we teach about 5 to 6 lessons, some to investigators, some to members.  I really like teaching!  You see, my spanish is fairly good when it comes to teaching.  Even though I can't express everything I want to say, I can testify sincerely with the spirit.  I have a long way to go, but I'm glad I have the capability to teach people.

We also do a lot of contacting, which is more difficult for me. It isn't easy for me to aproach a stranger and start talking to them, especially when it is in spanish!  I try my best, but I still speak awkwardly.  But I know that if I keep trying and excercise my faith, God will make my weakness into a strength.  

Oaxaca is so different!  This city is covered with buildings, which line the streets.  There are no gaps in between the buildings, so it feels like a giant maze sometimes!  We give our lessons in all sorts of places.  People don't have living rooms here like they do in america, so we are often sitting on the floor or standing.  There are often animals, like chickens just wandering through their houses.  I like it, its fun!  

Thats all I've got for this week.  Adios!

Every monday the city completely transforms!  People set up little shops like this all over the center of town.  Its chaotic, but really cool at the same time!

Week one in the field!

I don't have that much time to write today, but I'll do my best!

The mission feild is tough!  I'm still alive, but ya know, I'm kind of dying.  You see, going on a mission and learning a language is like playing guitar hero.  The MTC is like easy mode.  So when you get to the mtc and start learning, it's hard at first, but it's really not that bad.  By the end of the MTC, you're hitting all the notes!  You feel pretty good about yourself.  And then you arrive in the mission feild.  The difficulty automatically gets switched to extreme.  People speak like 30 times faster, I swear!  Oh, and I don't have anybody to speak english to.  So the guitar is glued to my hands, and I'm stuck playing guitar hero on extreme mode for eternity, missing pretty much all the notes

That is how I would explain it.  In all seriousness, it is so difficult.  You feel so alone when you can't even understand what people are saying around you.  People try to talk to me, and I want to understand them so badly.  But I just can't.  Even my companions, who are around me constantly, speak so fast, and I only understand a portion of what they say.

It's hard.  But it's okay.  I'm happy to be here!  I'm struggling so much every day, but I'm still happy.  I know that the reason I can be happy despite the trials that surround me is because God is "easing the burdens that are placed upon my back."  He doesn´t take away my trials, but he makes them bearable.  So when somebody talks to me, and I don't have any idea what they said, I can smile, ask them to repeat what they said, and not be too sad about it.  It really is a miracle that I am able to feel this way, because I am a perfectionist in nature.  I know that God has helped me so much, and I am so grateful for that.

What is really scary is contacting people!  I'm not good at talking with strangers in english, let alone spanish.  It's going to be a huge adjustment, but I have confidence that with God's help, I will one day be able to contact many people successfully.

This week I was reading the story of the widows mite, and it really got me thinking.  I compared myself to the widow.  I don't have a lot to give right now.  I can't speak very well in spanish.  But I find comfort at what Jesus said about the widow.  She cast in more than everybody else, because she cast in all that she owned.  I know that if I give all my time and talents to the lord, he will be pleased with me, even though I don't have much to offer right now.

Thats all the time I have for today.  I love you all!

Elder Prieto, Me, and Elder Silvestre.  This is when I ate my first bug of the mission!  I don't know exactly what it is, but everyone eats them here!  They have people just standing outside selling baskets of them.  It wasn't that bad, but I wouldn't eat them just for fun, ha...

The candy here is terrible.  I don't know who had the idea to add chile powder to candy, but whoever it was is completely evil.  I miss american candy!  But I did find this gem!  Kinder surprises!  I was so pleased!  That is the only thing mexico has over america candywise.

Day 1 in Oaxaca

So, I guess they changed P-day to today, so I get to write you again today!!  So the past 24 hours or so have been completely crazy!  We finished up training at the mission offices and then President Madsen assigned me my area and my companions!  My companions are named Elder Prieto and Elder Silvestre.  They are both native spanish speakers, and Elder Prieto is from mexico and Elder Silvestre is from Uruguay.  Yep, sorry, messed up in my last email.  Uruguay, not Uganda.  They're both nice guys who seem to be good missionaries.  I hope to get to know them better soon and learn a lot from them!  

So our area is unique, there are a couple smaller cities close to Oaxaca city that make up our area.  Our companionship's city is called Miahuatian, and its about 2ish hours away from Oaxaca city.  The other people in our district are in a city about 40 minutes away, so we have to travel all the time!  Today we took a bus and a taxi to our district meeting.  It has been fun to see so many parts of Oaxaca already!  

Now I'm going to be honest:  I pretty much have no idea what is going on most of the time.  Me and Elder Merrill, another american missionary who arrived the same day as me, are the only english speakers in my district.  Even if there were more english speakers in my district, it wouldn't help me much, because our companionship is the only set of missionaries in Miahuatian, 40 minutes away from anyone else!  Elder Prieto and Elder Silvestre were in a companionship before I arrived, and even though they try their best to talk to me and make me feel welcome, they still talk to each other in spanish a lot, and I don't really know what they are saying.  It is a totally new experience for me.  Don't get me wrong, I really love it here.  But I can tell that the next couple months are going to be difficult.  

Also, I'm going to have to get used to the apartment!  It is really small, and pretty dirty.  Our beds take up an entire room of the house, and there are only 2 rooms and 1 bathroom.  We wash our clothes in a bucket.  There is a clothes line that hangs above the other room of the house with clothes draped on it.  There are no closets to hang up our clothes, just one small bar for all 3 of us.  It is definitely unlike any place I have ever stayed in.

However, I couldn't ask for any more.  The other day I was saying my personal prayer, thanking God for my blessings.  In that moment I felt an immense feeling of gratitude.  I was so happy, I almost cried.  I knew that that feeling came from God.  It was such a tender mercy for me!  It made me realize that I have everything I could ever need.  Blessings were brought to my mind that I had never thought about before, and I felt so grateful for them.  

This experience really changed my perception about being grateful.  I finally understand that you shouldn't be any more grateful in times of hardship then you should be in times of great happiness.  You don't have to possess a lot of "things" to be grateful.  If you come unto God with a few things that you are grateful for, he will bring more of those things to your mind, until you are filled with gratitude.  I know that we are all so blessed, and if we give thanks to God he will fill us with joy and happiness.

Oh, and the food here is great!  We had tacos last night where they just had a big piece of meat hanging over a grill, and then then cut pieces off and put them into tacos.  So cool, and so good! 

Thats all I've got for this week.  Have a great thanksgiving, I love you all!

New Missionary Orientation/Meeting Companions

Week 5! (the last one!)

Here I am!  I only have a few more days here at the CCM!  I have mixed emotions about leaving, but I'm mostly excited!!  True, I could learn a lot more here.  But honestly, at this point I believe that I will learn more in the mission field than I could here.  I have done what I needed to do here, and now it's time to move on.  True, my Spanish is far from perfect right now, but God doesn't expect me to be perfect right now.  As long as my heart is in the right place I am confident that I will be able to be an instrument in God's hands to teach salvation to his children.

Speaking of spanish, I feel pretty good about where I am right now!  Granted, I have a terribly long way to go, but I feel like I can teach my lessons pretty well, and communicate the essentials, and that is what's most important.  I'm excited to go to Oaxaca because I know I will be completely surrounded by spanish there, so I will be able to learn a lot!  

While I took spanish in high school, I really disliked it.  I felt like it was a ton to memorize, and that I wouldn't really use it in my life.  But being here in mexico completely changed my perspective of learning a new language!  Learning another language gives you so many more opportunities!  Every new word I learn is exciting for me, because every new word helps me communicate better with these wonderful people!   

I really love our teachers here at the CCM.  Our district has really grown close to them throughout the weeks.  I can tell that they legitimately care about us and our well being.  Our morning teacher is named Hermano Palma.  I have already talked about him a little bit.  He is super short, but he means business.  He teaches very well, and loves to joke and tease us when we mess up our spanish, haha.  We tease him back though, we call him Hermano Palmita, because he is so short!  (In spanish, when you add ito to the end of a word it makes it smaller.  For example, perro is dog, and perrito is puppy.)

Our night teacher is named Hermano Alverez.  He's a really cool guy.  I can tell that he was a great missionary when he served.  Obedience is very important to him, he taught us a lot about it.  When we first met him in our third week, we thought he was strange, and we didn't really understand him.  But now we all love him, he is really funny and gives amazing advice.  He also likes pokemon, so thats always good haha!

Me and Elder Henrie have gotten really close.  I am so glad I had the opportunity to be companions with him!  He is a great example to me.  We get along great together, so it will be bittersweet when we go to Oaxaca and get new companions.  Our district as a whole is amazing as well.  I get along with everyone very well.  They are great examples to me, each one of them.  

I feel so blessed to be here as a missionary.  I can't wait to actually teach people!  I can testify that God is always there sending you blessings.  You simply have to have the faith to receive them.  I love you all!  

Week 4

Wow!  Time really flies here at the MTC now!  I can´t believe that I will be leaving to Oaxaca in just a week and a half!!!  I´m a little nervous, because I still have a lot to learn, but mostly I´m excited!!  I can´t wait to meet the people there, to teach them, and to learn how to love them with all my heart.

This week has been good!  I´ve been working hard at learning spanish, and I am trying my best to speak only spanish...  It is way hard, and I´m not very good at it yet.  I still speak english way too much.  But I am getting better, and speaking more spanish every day, and I think that is the important thing.  Ha, speaking of which, our teacher, hermano palma, says that every time he hears us speaking english we need to buy a chocolate and give it to him, so he can put it in a piñata shaped like donald trump for us to break at the end of the MTC.  It was just a joke, but I thought it was really funny.

This Sunday the district above us left for their missions. It was bittersweet, because our districts have become really close, but they are going on to bigger and better things.  They have been such an example to me and I know that they will be amazing out there.

On the bright side, we got a new district in our zone!  They are great, I really like them so far.  We´ve been playing soccer with them like we did with the old district.  They are way good!  Anyways, I can tell we´re all going to be great friends.  It seems like everyone in our zone is passionate about lord of the rings, so we get along perfectly!  (unless we´re arguing about which character is the best, then it can get messy, haha...)

Because we lost our old zone leaders, we got new ones this week! Elder Gunnell and Elder Gonzales are the new zone leaders.  They are both powerful people, and I know that they will do a lot of good as zone leaders!  Also, Elder Henrie was called to be district leader!  He is going to do a great job, he is a great example to me, and I´m proud to be his companion.  

Lots of changes this week!  We said goodbye to our second set of latino roomates the other day.  They were...  Interesting.  They were really nice guys.  I liked them.  They just had one problem.  They didn't know how to use the bathroom correctly, and they definitely didn´t know how to clean up after themselves.  Basically, our entire dorm smelled terrible for the past 2 weeks.  It was horrible!  I don´t understand how anybody could have messed up a bathroom that much!!  Me and Elder Henrie cleaned it one day, but alas, the very next day it was just as bad as it was before!!  We couldn´t believe it.  Anyways, they´re gone now, and even though we liked talking to them, we are relieved to finally have a clean bathroom.  (Cleaning that bathroom was one of the nastiest things I have ever done.)  ​

I had an amazing experience on Sunday of this week.  Hermana Hollingshead was feeling very sick, so us Elders offered to give her a priesthood blessing.  She accepted, and wanted me to give her the blessing.  Elder Henrie did the anointing, then we circled up.  When I started speaking, I immediately felt the spirit, very strongly.  I was surprised by how easily the words I was supposed to say came into my head.  I felt the power of the priesthood very strongly at that moment.  After the blessing the whole room was filled with the spirit.  I know that the words that I spoke were not my own.  I was so grateful and so humbled to be a mouthpiece to the lord at that moment.

Thats all I've got for now!  Thanks for your prayers and messages, I really appreciate them!  I love you all!  

Elder Lindsay

​The Elders in our zone before 11C left

Our Zone! 

Week 3!

I can´t believe I have already been here for 3 weeks!  Time is really flying by now!  The first week was so slow, and now every week seems like a day!  I´m all adjusted to MTC life now, the crazy amount of studying that we do seems completely normal now!

This week was pretty much just like all the other weeks.  We teach mock investigators almost every day, have a devotional on tuesday, P day on thursday, and a lot of meetings on Sunday.  Sunday is always the best day, because the spirit is so strong, and we get some time to somewhat relax.  The devotionals and meetings are always great!

  

So this Sunday we had a fast and testimony meeting.  It was really cool!  Everyone in our zone has a really strong testimony, and it was amazing to hear about their experiences.  The zone before us, 11C, is really funny.  Our zone leaders are the most hilarious, awkward people, but they are great examples to me.  One of them actually played trombone in a marching band before he came, so its nice to have someone I can relate to, haha...  We play soccer with 11C all the time, and its a blast!  I forgot how fun soccer is!  Anyways, this is 11C´s last week.  I´ll, miss them, but they´ll be doing great things out in the field!  

So on Sunday, I joined the MTC choir!  It is really cool, all the songs they sing are in spanish.  It is really spiritual to hear their testimonies ring out through their voices.  Music is so special to me, and I love the spirit that it can bring.  Anyways, it turns out this week the song they were singing was the efy medley!  I love that song!  I was thrilled when I opened up the folder and saw that we would be singing this song.  We started our practice on Sunday, and I noticed that the pianist was having a bit of trouble playing the song.  I felt bad for him, it really is a difficult song, and it is especially difficult to play when accompanying a choir.  I decided to stand up and ask him if he wanted me to play it, since I learned it before I came out.  He was relieved, and said that it was fine.  It turns out that he only had a week to learn it.  I felt bad, because he really was a great pianist, but 1 week simply isn´t enough time to perfect that song.

Nevertheless, I was so grateful for that opportunity to play with the MTC choir.  I love playing that beautiful song, and it was even cooler to be able to accompany a spanish choir!  We preformed the song at our Tuesday devotional, and it was very powerful.  I am so thankful for my heavenly father for preparing me for that moment.  Before my mission I didn´t know why I felt like I should learn that song.  It was a choir piece and I had no choir to sing with me.  However, I felt prompted to learn it, and so I did.  I feel like this experience was similar to the experience that Nephi had when he was engraving the plates, even though it is on a much smaller scale.  Nephi had no idea why God commanded him to make a record.  He could not have imagined the impact his record would make.  However, he was still faithful, even though it might have seemed pointless or too difficult.  This experience that I had this week has really increased my testimony of acting upon spiritual promptings.  Even if they don´t make sense in the moment, God knows what he is doing.  He knows what he wants you to be, and he knows how to get you there.  So listen to him!!

Well, last Friday I got sick.  I felt awful.  I feel better now, but I am not all the way recovered.  It is very frustrating!  Being sick is very distracting.  I couldn´t learn as much or focus as much because of it.  I felt like it was keeping me from reaching my potential.  But ya know, it happens.  Its okay.  The other night I was feeling very frustrated, because I was still feeling sick after many days.  I prayed with all my heart for the Lord to give me some comfort, because I was feeling pretty lousy.  After my prayer, I opened up my book of mormon, praying that I would be able to find something to help me.  I opened up my scriptures to Alma chapter 32, verse 13, which reads ¨And now, because ye are compelled to be humble blessed are ye, for a man sometimes, if he is compelled to be humble, seeketh repentance, and now surely, whosoever repenteth shall find mercy, and he that findeth mercy and endureth to the end the same shall be saved.¨  This was a great comfort to me.  I know that got watches out for his children, and he wants to help us.  We just need to come unto him.

I am out of time.  Thank you all for your support and love!  Adios!

Week 2!

Hey Mom!  This week has been intense!  They work us hard here, which is good, I'm glad I have people to push me!  We have been really focusing on teaching lately.  When I got to the MTC I thought it would mostly be language classes, but that isn't the case.  We focus on teaching skills and studying the gospel a lot more than spanish.  I'm starting to feel kind of stressed, because I don't feel like I'm improving very fast...  I still have a ton to learn!  But I'm definitely getting better, bit by bit.  I just need to have faith that God is watching out for me, and no matter what happens, he will be there.

We had a devotional on Sunday where we watched a video of one of Elder Bednar's talks.  It was such an amazing talk!!  He talked about the characteristic of Christ, and how we should all try to emulate it.  The characteristic of Christ is turning outwards when the natural man would turn inwards.  Turning outwards is focusing on others and on their needs; focusing inwards means focusing on yourself.  Whenever something bad happened to Jesus, he focused on others.  When something bad happens to us, we tend to want attention, or we fuss, or we shut down, or we have terribly negative thoughts.  I want to try my best to turn outwards as much as I can, because that's what being a missionary is really all about.  I highly suggest watching this talk!  It applies to everyone, not just missionaries.  I don't know what the name of the talk is, but it was given by elder bednar in the provo MTC on Christmas, 2011.

Our district is really fun!  Elder Orrock is really funny, he can always make everyone laugh.  Elder Donkin is super weird, he always says the most bizarre things, it makes me laugh.  Elder Gonzales is really cool, he is pretty quiet and spiritual, and he rocks at basketball and soccer.  Elder Gunnell is great, he is our district leader!  He is funny, and really spiritual as well.  Hermana Reynosa is great, she is very headstrong and sassy.  Hermana Hollingshead is really nice and spiritual.  She's also kind of random sometimes.  Elder Henrie is my companion, and he's great.  He rants about random things in the funniest way, so our district loves to tease him about his pet peeves.  Its fun to work with him, because we both bring totally different talents, so we make up for each others weaknesses.  We make a good team. 

I love my district, and we're really close.  Sometimes I think we're a little too close, however, cause we get distracted talking to each other sometimes when we should be studying.  I'm really trying my best to be diligent and I'm trying my best to study even when everyone else is talking, but its really hard.  We study a ton every day, so a half an hour break to talk can seem harmless.  However, I know how important it is for me to be exactly obedient, so I am striving to improve my focus.

I didn't really get to talk about this last week, because I ran out of time.  Last week when me and Elder Henrie walked into our dorm we discovered that our roommates were both Mexican, and they didn't speak english.  It was really really difficult to live with people that we couldn't really communicate with.  However, as time has gone by, it has become a blessing to live with Hispanic people.  A couple days ago we tried to talk to them for the first time.  It was a struggle, and we didn't understand most of what they said, but it was a good experience.  They weren't mad.  They understood that spanish wasn't our first language.  They were really kind to us.  A couple days ago they left the MTC and we got entirely new Hispanic people that didn't speak any english!  We are trying to get to know these new Elders, and we are trying to push ourselves to speak more spanish.

The other day we had an activity called TRC.  I have no idea what it stands for, but basically what we do is we teach someone who isn't pretending to be an investigator.  They are being their real self.  It was really hard, but it was really cool.  It was the first time I gave an actually lesson, not a practice one.  We were teaching a lady who is already a member, but she had some troubles with her family, because her dad doesn't come to church.  We couldn't say exactly what we wanted to say, since it was in spanish, but we did teach with the spirit, so I think it worked out pretty well.  She gave us great feedback as well, so it was overall a success!

Today we got to go to the Mexico city temple!!!  It is so cool!  So beautiful!  It was an amazing experience!  I missed the temple, even though it has only been about 2 weeks, haha...  I felt the spirit very powerfully.  The celestial room is gorgeous, I wish you could see it!  The workers all speak spanish though, so it is a challenge, but a good challenge!  I can't wait until we get to go again.

Thats about it for this week!  Thank you for your prayers, I love you all so much!

The Temple!!!

One of my old roommates

This is our classroom

​The tienda (store)   We hang out here quite a bit when we have some free time.  There are a ton of fun Mexican snacks.  There are chips where there is one chip in the bag that is really spicy, and the rest are just mild.  The spicy chip turns your toungue blue so you can prove that you got the spicy one, haha.  Our district likes to buy a bag and pass it around to see who gets the spicy one.  It's way fun!