Week uno at the CCM

 

 

I MISS THE UNITED STATES

THE STRUGGLE IS SO REAL!

Hola mi familia y Amigos!!!

There is so much to say so I’m just going to say it, sorry if it’s not very orderly!!

I can’t believe I’ve been here a week already!! Time has gone by so fast, but so slow at the same time. Mexico City is such a beautiful place. It is such a different world here than in the U.S. The CCM really is a bubble away from the world though. When I arrived here I got here at 7 and we got some pizza and my name tag and stuff.

 

 I went to my casa and waited for 3 hours for mi companera to arrive. I was the only one in the casa and it was kind of lonely, but it was a good opportunity to get all of my stuff unpacked. 

 

 

My companion's name is Hermana Schaefer and she’s really awesome, we get along very well. We met our district the next day in class. There are 5 companionships of elders in our district and I seriously love them so much! I didn’t think I would love them as much as I do. Most of them are 18, so they were a little immature at first, but we’ve trained them well and they are Elders now. They feel like big brothers, we always know they will be there watching out for us. I’ve been very impressed with them. So, just know that we are in good hands. They gave me a beautiful blessing today, but I’ll get to that later.

Being here in Mexico has made me realize how lucky I am to be serving in the United States. I miss it so much!! On our second day here, we picked up a huge bag of all the books we need to study with and in the bag was some filtered water bottles for us. We were so excited because the water here smells so gross. The instructions for the water bottle said you had to squeeze the water through the filter 3 times before you use it, so h. Schaefer and I were standing around the sink just squeezing our water bottles and our hands were shaking and we were just kept saying I miss the U.S.!!! It was so funny. Seriously, we can’t wait to get back!! There are also mosquitoes EVERYWHERE! But don’t worry, they don’t really bite. I think I’ve gotten bitten once and it wasn’t that bad. Also, sometimes the water in our toilets is brown. hahahaha. It’s so strange. 

I’m so amazed at how much Spanish I’ve learned in just the first week. In the first couple days of class we learned a bunch of different conjugations, which seem endless and we also learned how to pray and bear testimony. We are only allowed to pray in Español now. I love it though. I also REALLY love singing himnos. Hymns in Español are so beautiful. On Friday we taught our first investigator. He is just a teacher acting like an investigator for us, but it is so realistic. His name is Randy. We got to know him a little bit during the first lesson. He was born in Mexico, then lived in Vegas for a while, and now he is back in Mexico. He has friends who are LDS and he heard about the CCM because he lives right next to it. He loves baseball and he lives with his grandma I think... Something like that. I still don’t understand Spanish very well. BUT, I usually get the jist of what he is saying. On the first lesson we taught him about prayer and we asked him to pray, He prayed a catholic prayer at first but then we corrected him and he gave a beautiful prayer. He thanked Heavenly Father for sending us and asked him to bless us and to bless him that he would know if what we were saying was true. The next lesson we taught him about the restoration, he totally understood and agreed to go to church the next day. When we met with him on Monday he said he attended church and asked us about the sacrament, so we explained that and explained about Jesus Christ and the atonement and then we told him a bit about the Book of Mormon. He told us that he would read about it, and pray about if it was true. We didn’t get to teach him yesterday, but we are going to tonight after p-day. I hope he read it. OH!! I also committed him to BAPTISM!!! WOOOOO!!! Randy is awesome!!!

During teaching, one of the elders in our district taught randy that Jesus Christ died for our fish... AHHHA Spanish missionary problems. :)

I absolutely adore our teacher, Hermana Arbon. I think she’s about 24 or 25, she went on her mission to Texas and she wants to teach Español as a career, she worked at the Provo MTC but they needed teachers down here at the CCM, so she said, sure why not. She is so awesome though, she teaches us in all Spanish, hardly any English. It was so hard at first and I didn’t think I would ever get the hang of it, but really, everyone speaks Spanish here and it has helped so much even though it is frustrating. All the teachers speak Spanish even if you are just talking to them after class. The only classes we attend that are in English are our devotionals, Sunday school, relief society and the movie. 

On Sundays we have relief society first, then sacrament meeting. Sacrament meeting kinda sucks actually because it’s all in Español and you don’t know you’re going to give a talk until five minutes before. They just announce next week’s topic on Sunday and you have to prepare a five minute talk for the next week in case you get called on. It stresses me out so bad!! But hey, I just have to remind myself. If I can give Randy a 30 minute lesson then I can give a 5 minute talk in sacrament meeting for our teeny little branch who probably won’t understand what I’m saying because they struggle with Spanish too. Sunday school is held with the entire CCM in the auditorium and is taught by the mission president, President Pratt. He is really awesome, but it is so hard to stay awake. We’re all just so tired because we work work work from 630 to 1030 every single day. I loved relief society though. Sister Pratt gave a really good lesson about the book of Mormon and we also formed a relief society choir to sing for when we had a general authority come. 

The devotionals have been so uplifting!! On Sunday we watched a video recording of a devotional by elder Holland when he rededicated some parts of the Provo MTC in January. He gave the most encouraging talk ever and it was exactly what I needed because I felt like I was really struggling with the language and everything. He promised us that we would be the generation that succeeds and that this work is the most important thing to the world to him. He got really emotional and he slammed his hand down on the pulpit with tears in his eyes and said, THIS MEANS EVERYTHING TO ME!! It was so awesome. There wasn’t a dry eye in the auditorium. I really encourage you all to try to find it and watch it sometime if you are ever feeling worried about me or miss me. It is such a great reminder of how important this work is. Hastening the work is brought up in every single devotional and meeting here and I know that it is really happening. WE WILL BE THE GENERATION TO SUCCEED! As elder Holland said. 

Last night we had another devotional and a member of the Seventy came. He was from Mexico and he gave his first talk in English only 2 months ago, but his English was amazing. He gave a really good talk about what our purpose was as missionaries. The best part of the whole night though, was singing with the relief society choir. We sang Tu me has dad muchas bendiciones, dios, or in English, because I have been given much. Not to brag or anything, but we basically sounded angelic. Our closing hymn was really awesome too. We sang Placentero nos es trabajer. It’s a hymn that is only in Spanish, so it’s not in the English hymn book. It was so beautiful. Mom, when you go to church on Sunday, look in the himnos and find hymn #88. I think that’s which one it was. It’s my new favorite hymn. It’s so pretty. 

I really struggle with the language every single day, but I just need to remind myself that I’ve only been here a week and I've truly accomplished so much!! Even though it is so hard, it is so worth it, especially when randy understands what we say and when we get him to commit to something. Even though it is hard, I really love the Spanish language so much already. We pray shamelessly for the gift of tongues every single time we pray and I love it. We really need it, and I can see how we have been blessed with it already. I know that the gift of tongues that we receive is a result of our obedience to the rules. Remember, Exact obedience brings specific blessings. Please remember to pray for our district. Bendice nos con el don de lenguas. Bless us with the gift of tongues. WE NEED IT!

We are district 11 and we always joke around about the hunger games. Elder Sutton in our district always whistles the hunger games tune during lunch and we like to whistle it back. It’s so fun!

Meal times are the best 3 hours of the day!! We aren’t allowed to sit by the elders, which is kind of nice because we need some girl time usually. We’ve gotten to know most of the other hermanas here just by sitting with them at meal times. The hermanas are so awesome!! WE RUN THIS!!!! We have these two sisters that we love to sit by, they’re names are hermana Faw and hermana Christensen. 

Yesterday we had a service activity and our district was paired with H. Faw & Christensen’s district so while we were cleaning, the janitor, Fernando, pulled us four hermanas aside and asked us to help him clean up the table where the cafeteria workers eat. We cleaned up the table and he kind of secretly waved us over to him, so we went over and he gave us Jarritos soda and some cake! It was like Christmas!! We were so happy and we were just cracking up because he told us not to tell the elders. It was so funny.

The food is always interesting though. We joke that we don’t know what it is, but it’s usually good. The Juice is incredible though. It’s not all artificial and sugared up. It’s so good. I really like the bread too.

H. Schaefer and I are the only Americans in our casa. In the casas, there are 5 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a laundry room. The whole houses are tiled and in each room there are 2 bunk beds and a bathroom. We don’t have anyone else in our room, but there is one companionship of Latina hermanas in each room. They don’t know English very well so they force us to practice our Spanish with them. They are so much fun and I absolutely adore them. On Saturday night they knocked on our door and asked us something in Spanish. It took us forever to understand that they wanted to have family home evening. We were so excited when we figured it out though. WE all gathered in the living room, had an opening himno, I said the prayer, then we all bore our testimonies, then sang a closing himno. ALL IN ESPANOL!! It was so much fun and the spirit was so strong. Last night, we had to show them how to do laundry. None of them had ever used washing machines before, they were so excited, it was cute. I’ll try to get a pic of them next week. 

Last night I started feeling really sick and this morning I woke up so sick! I have a really bad cold and my throat is hurting so bad. I asked two of the elders in my district, Elder Hatch and Elder Tews for a blessing. They were so excited that I asked them because it was their first blessing. They gave me a really beautiful blessing and promised that I would be healed according to my faith. SO please remember to pray for my health. Also, During Hermana Pratt's lesson about the book of Mormon in relief society, she was talking about the blessings you receive from the book of Mormon and one of them is health. So I’m going to read my book of Mormon a lot today. I have faith that if I do that and if I do what I’m supposed to do I'll be healed and be able to teach Randy tonight. 

A couple of days ago hermana Arbon our teacher gave us a coaching lesson in English and she read us exerts form the talk titled the fourth missionary. Can someone please find that and send it to me. It was such an amazing talk!! It really made me think about my time here at the CCM. I am learning about my weaknesses so much here, but I know that they will make me a stronger person. You all should read it; it definitely applies to life as well as missionary work. 

I am going to give this work everything I have.

There is so much more to tell you all but I’m running out of time!! But I wanna leave you guys with the funniest line of the week. 

H. Schaefer and I were eating with H. Christensen and Faw. H. Faw was telling us about the time that she got her wisdom teeth out.

Me - I only had one wisdom tooth but I had to have my molars removed because none grew in in the bottom

H. Faw - (her mouth drops) so you don’t have any molars?

M - Nope!!

H. Faw - So you must be pretty gummy back there…

We all completely died laughing. And then one of the sisters that sits with us laughs like a seal, so we just kept laughing even harder. One of the elders in her district yelled across the comedor, Hey, you alright over there Hermana Scow?? Then the whole comedor just completely busted up laughing.

I love you and miss you all so much. I think about you ever single day and pray for you. 

Yo se que el evangelio trae bendicones!! 

-Hermana Clark