Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Week 1 in the MTC

HELLO Family and All! As im sure guys now know my p-days are on Tuesday for at least this week and next until the new Norte missionarys come in. So the CCM is pretty cool. there are a lot of ups and downs. The first night or two that i was here I will be honest I was really homesick and stuggling with the launguage but now it is going a lot better. My companion is Elder Putnam and he is a great missionary. He has been really struggling with the language though and not until the last day or so has he picked up basic spanish so I have had to teach a lot of the lessons with little help. This was hard but it has improved my Spanish in the long run. So there are about 30-40 Nortes, thats what the call english missionaries, and 50 or 60 Latino Elders. The latinos love to talk to us and help us with our Spanish which makes the learning process a lot easier because you are always speaking Spanish no matter where you are. We went to the temple today across the street and it was the first time we left the gates since we arrived. it was an awesome experience and i cant wait to go back next week. The second day we were here we already had an investigator and we had to teach a lesson all in Spanish! it was very rough with a lot of awkward staring but the lessons have slowely gotten better as we have had 2 or 3 lessons with Jamie our invertigator. The food here is pretty good but it can be hit or miss. There is only one other Elder in the CCM that is going to San Salvador Este with me and that is Elder Blanchard. I have met some latinos though here from EL Salvador and when they hear I am going there they scream stuff in Spanish to me about how awesome it is or something I really am not sure what they are saying most of time.  yesterday I was able to teach some Latino missionaries that only spoke Spanish to practice and i thought it went really well. they were able to communicate with me and i could talk decent to them. Afterwards they bore their testimony to us and asked to pray with me and my companion so right there in the middle of the CCM we all 4 knelt down and prayed and God blessed me to be able to understand completely the most beautiful and humble prayer I have ever heard from the latino Elder. Then they asked me to pray and I was blessed with the Don de Lenguas as I was able to express my feelings in prayer beyond my language compacity. Afterwards the Latino Elders said they would kneel and pray together every night for us to be helped and blessed with the Gift of Toungues and I almost broke into tears the spirit was so strong. This place truely is amazing and I am so lucky to be one of about 30 English speaking elders in the world to be here in Guatamala. I was made District Leader the second day I got here. I try my very best to serve and improve my district as best I can. President Cox our CCM pres is an old funny guy with a great spirit and I already love him. Last Sunday was awesome. we had a break from the normal classes and had sacrament in Spanish and then everything else in English and it was probably one of the most spiritual days I have ever had.  Oh yeah today I was talkling to an Elder from Honduras and an Elder from EL Salvador and the Honduras Elder told me he had a cousin serving in EL Salvador. He told me that last week for dinner with a member they were served Donkey reproductive parts and that that was common down there since they were poor so I have that to look forward to..... but seriosuly I am so excited to be here and even more excited to go serve in El Salvador in five weeks. Right now we are those new white guys in the building but I already feel like I have been here for months. The days are long but looking back the weeks are short and time flies and i consider that a great blessing to lose yourself in the work. Well so much has gone on this week but honestly that is all i can think of to say at this moment. Mom i apologize but they dont let cameras in the CCM so you wont get any pictures for a bit. THey push us really hard here and the teachers after the second day speak only in Spanish and act like they dont understand anything we say in English. Sometimes I feel frustrated that i cant communicate the feelings of my heart to my investigators but I have learned to trust the Spirit to teach the investigator the things that my vocabulary lacks. I hope everything is going great and i miss you guys lot. Some days are hard, some are terrible, some are good, some are long, some are the best days of my life. Thats how missionary work is and i wouldnt have it any other way. Well, maybe hot showers would be nice. I do miss those. Anyways love you all! 

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