Week 2 in Mexico

So last p-day we went to the Mexico City temple which is gorgeous!! the outside looks kinda like a Mayan design or something, i-ll send pics. anyway, we got back to the CCM (MTC) late, so lunch sat out for about 2 hours before we ate it. basically, a fourth of the CCM got food poisoning, including my whole district so Wednesday was just dandy, as you can imagine. One of my companions got super sick and got a blessing from the elders in our district and she was great! it was such a great experience! i seriously love the priesthood more and more!

We have amazing devotionals!! Often, they are previous Provo MTC devotionals that they just have on DVD, but they are great. So far we've had Elders Bednar (Tuesday devo) and Holland (Sunday). They are amazing!! I love their talks! I love the spirit and the knowledge we get from it! I basically just love it here. Oh! we also watched The Testaments on Sunday! If you haven{t seen it, watch it. It is so great!

This last week has gone by so quickly!! its been so fun with so many funny stories that i wish i could remember!! its also been hard though. The Spanish was coming pretty great the first week, but this week seems harder for some reason. I think we've been getting kinda lazy and losing focus a little in our district this last week and that's probably why. we had a great lesson yesterday about pride and charity though and i think that will help us a lot. You can{t have charity, that pure love of Christ, if you have pride. They just cannot exist together. And you can{t teach and love your investigators if you don't have charity. alright, well I'm about to launch into some long thought about this lesson and i only have 5 more minutes, so to sum it up. Pride is bad- stop having it. Love others instead. the end.

So funny stories time.

Last night it was raining during gym time, so we danced and sang in the rain for like half an hour. It brought us joy. haha. So it rains here for at least a little bit every day. Like a random 10 minute downpour. its wonderful! however, it doesn't have a "rain smell" like in Utah, so that is extremely disappointing, but other than that it is wonderful!!

They have horchata. "nuff said. its basically the most wonderful thing I've ever tasted.

We have lots of random earthquake "drills." they-re not really drills, but the sensors are SUPER sensitive or something, so we don't actually feel the earthquakes at all, but apparently during one of them a light pole thing was quivering, so that's fun!

Elder Smith is hilarious. just so you know. every day he is funnier. basically one of my favorite people.

Last week during the service project (sweeping the already well kept sidewalks) Elder Robinson (in my district) decided to sweep of the CCM (MTC) sign. He joked about breaking the "C" before he started and then 10 seconds later was like "crap! i broke the "C"!!) at first i thought he was kidding, but he wasn't. the second "C" is now missing from the sign. I-ll send you a pic next week.

One of our teachers (who was our first investigator) is from Mexico and speaks almost fluently (and he started learning 3 months ago!!) but he is still learning lots of stuff, so we have taught him a few words including: swag, yolo, sketchy, and bounce (as in "leave", like he said "everyone grab your stuff and lets bounce"). It's great.

Mary and her companeras.

Mary and her district.

Mary and her companeras at the Mexico City Temple.

First Week

The CCM (MTC) is great. I told you before that my compañera was Hermana Mills right? Well now we are a trio- the 2 of us plus Hermana Thacker (who we were behind in line at the SLC airport). They are really sweet. I kind of like being in a trio, it's fun. The español is coming along pretty well though and it's fun learning a new idioma (language). I've already learned a ton!
Thanks dad for the thought and mom for the talk!! I'll read it tonight!!

So we live in casas (houses) with about 10 girls. The houses look cool (I'll send pics soon i hope). Our casa is white and turquoise! basically the cutest casa around. I like it except we have cockroaches!! EW! and they refuse to die. Hermana Mohun (in my casa) split one in half and it was still alive and moving! apparently we're the only casa with this many so they fumigated our casa during the day once I guess, but it didn't work in our room because we still have a ton! at least they aren't too big though- only like an inch long or so. Anyway, all we really do at our houses is sleep. Besides that we're up at meetings, meals, but mostly studying and class.
There is a playground behind our house. It's basically great. They told us we could go there to have joy, haha. But we haven't really had any time since we've been here.

The CCM is gorgeous. I love the palm trees and the ones that look like giant pineapples. Our first day here we heard some super loud birds making a sound i've never heard before up in the trees. I'm loving the different culture here. Though, inside the compound (what we call the CCM) doesn't really feel all that different than home. Though there are mountains pretty close on all four sides. And you know, the constant traffic, honking, sirens, barking dogs, and the occasional "fireworks"/gunfire all night and day is a bit different. (Don't worry, I think most of the sounds that one night were actually fireworks for some Mexican holiday-the rest were probably gunfire. But we're completely safe here. It's like a seriously guarded MTC.)

Outside the CCM is definitely Mexico though. The bus ride here and the bus ride to the temple today was awesome! Though I'm pretty sure there is really only one traffic law: if you see an opening, take it. It doesn't matter if the light is red, or if there is oncoming traffic, or if someone is trying to get in your lane, or if you're trying to get into someone else's lane where there is barely an opening, or if you're a pedestrian and it's not actually a crosswalk and you just walk through the cars, or if someone wants to pass you and there's not actually another lane there- whatever. doesn't matter. If there is any opening you take it. And even if there isn't. I'm surprised we haven't seen like 30 car accidents in the 2 hours I've been on a bus. And people walk between moving cars, some of them trying to sell the people in the cars cigarettes and gum. Yep, definitely not in Utah anymore.

Oh and our view of the houses and stuff from here is gorgeous! I'll send pics soon (maybe today if I have time at the end). There are houses halfway up the side of the mountain and they are super colorful and at night they have their lights on and it's just beautiful!

The food here is actually pretty similar to what we have back home, but it just tasted slightly different the first few days. Not anymore though- I think I've just gotten used to it. And I've gotten used to the water (because it definitely does NOT taste like Utah water).

Okay um, story time.
First- In my district someone was trying to say "we are all servants of God" in Spanish and instead said "we are all farm animals of God." It was basically the highlight of my day.

Second- In our second lesson with our investigator (in Spanish by the way- our first lesson went great, second was iffy because we weren't really teaching with the spirit, and third was also pretty good, next one tomorrow) our investigator said for fun he likes to go drinking with his friends, but he said it in Spanish. All me and Hermana Thacker heard was "amigos" so we were both like "¡Si, bueno!" and Hermana Mills was just silent. Later she told us what he actually said... oops.

Third- for sacrament meeting, we all prepare talks, and then in the meeting they announce who will be speaking. So when they called my name on Sunday, I just wanted to cry. I would have if no one had been there. I am definitely not a fan of speaking in front of people and I hadn't had time to translate it to Spanish so it was completely in English. And of course I was reading it off a paper, and I messed up, and my face was super red. But afterward people said I did great. I think they may have just been trying to make me feel better.. No you know what, it was a great talk, thank you very much! haha, who knows.

Fourth- yesterday our elders in our district started talking about politics and it started getting contention-ness, so one Elder Smith was like, "lets learn Spanish." He walked up to the board and wrote yolo=swag. He's basically hilarious, like all the time.



A little more time I guess...
We went to the temple today and it was beautiful and I loved it!!! The city is really fun to drive through and really different. It rains here like everyday for 10 minutes and then stops.. random.. but I love it. I love you!

After being set apart yesterday Mary became a full time missionary. This morning we took her to the airport at 5 am and she caught her flight to Mexico City. This afternoon we got an e-mail saying that Mary made it safely to the MTC in Mexico City.