Friday, September 8, 2017

September 8th - At long last!

David emailed us as soon as he reached the MTC to let us know he had arrived safely. He told us his p-day would be on Wednesday, but when the day came, he had to go get his visa. So he was finally able to write today. Hooray!

Hello family,

It feels like I have been here at the MTC for years but it has only been ten days. As I said in my previous tiny letter, the schedule here is pretty messed up for new missionaries so I haven't had a single p-day until today. I only have 1 hour so I will try and write as much as I can. 

Let's start out with the trip here. I got on my flight at Denver to Dallas and I put my bag above my head so I didn't have it the entire flight but that's okay since I mostly slept. The people in front of me were watching a bad rated movie so that kind of sucked to start the mission out, but such is the world. The next flight I had was boarding at 1:45 and I got off my plane at 2:00 so that was real close! I ran through the Dallas airport to get there on time. So you know how you said I would probably have missionaries on the plane with me? I didn't. I went through the whole flight alone next to some Spanish swim team and when I arrived at the airport I went through immigration alone and got my bags. As I exited the airport I found a Spanish man holding a Spanish sign that I only knew was Mormon because of the little Moroni. He spoke no English. Another sister was supposed to arrive the same time as me so we waited...and waited for 2 hours to no avail! The sister never showed so I drove the crazy, crazy streets of Mexico City alone in a bus with only a Spanish driver who the only word he said to me in English the whole time was "water" and pointing upwards because the rain was absolutely dumping. I got to the MTC and ate some cold pizza that I microwaved which, btw, was the only thing I ate that whole day other than breakfast and that jerky. Eventually I got taken to my house and met my companion at around 10 at night. 



My companion is a little guy named Elder Cranford. He is from Utah and he plays the saxophone and he is a total nerd. I love the guy though. 



The next two days at the MTC were the absolute suck and I found myself wondering if I had made the right choice by coming here at all. Think of all of the stressful things you have done, and combine them into one day of absolute expectations. After a while I have finally started to get into a rhythm. Specifically my days go like this I wake up at 6:30 cada dia, and then get showered and go to breakfast around 7:15. Following that I go to classes with my morning teacher Hermano Gomez and I learn everything from the gift of tongues to the life of Christ. Usually we have a session of TALL in the morning which is a language program we use to learn phrases and grammar and words and things. After Tall and my morning classes, I go to lunch. The food here is pretty good depending on the day. In the lunch room I say a lot of gracias and disgulpe, which are hello and excuse me. After lunch we go to a class with our afternoon teacher. Her name is Hermana Leyva. She was also our first "investigator." That is what we do after the beginning of our afternoon classes - we usually teach a lesson to "frida" our teacher. This Saturday though, we get two new investigators but they are both going to be our teachers too. Mostly what has gotten me through the CCM so far is getting close with my district and trying to do the Lord's work. After we teach our investigator we get to go to dinner and then we have planning and study after. That is pretty much my basic schedule with a whole lot of study times and other things like devotionals worked in. Usually after lunch we get to have an hour of gym time, which is pretty much my saving grace. I have had a whole lot of experiences here that have been super spiritual and a whole lot of experiences that I have totally hated every minute of. For my lessons, the first one was rough since we have to teach in Spanish but I am getting slowly better. I can pretty much say most of the things I want in a prayer in Spanish now. I can bear my testimony, share an experience, get to know someone, and say eat dirt (comme tierra) which is something the Latinos taught me that they said was a greeting, to mess with new missionaries. 



There are houses here, like 50 of them, and they are kind of like dorm rooms. There is a little lobby place too, and a laundry room and a kitchen that is locked. As for how big, it is semi-big. There is enough room for the 50 casas and 6 long class buildings, and the reception place, the Thomas S. Monson building, and a church building sorta thing. I think there are two of those. Also there are 3 outdoor basketball courts, one indoor full court, and several volleyball nets around the campus. This place used to be a mexican high school, I  am pretty sure. Also, you have the tienda, the post office,  a ton of computer labs, and a gym. It is really nice. All of the other kids in my district are American. My district is one of the best ones here. I love all the other elders and our hermanas are okay. We have a guy that was working for ESPN before the mission in our district

As for a spiritual experience for you guys, one of the days this first week was really, really tough and I found myself wanting to go home really bad. I prayed to know why I was feeling the way I did and I opened my scriptures to John chapter 1, which talks about sharing the things that you know to be true but it also talks about using the Atonement and I realized I needed to be praying for forgiveness every day. This experience brought me closer to Christ and taught me the reason why I am here, which is because my Savior came to the earth and died for me and because of it my life is so much better and I want others to have the same opportunity to use the Atonement and come closer to Christ just like I have these first few weeks.

Love,
Dave

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