Week 1 - Spanish, Floods, and District Leader

! mission is amazing! I'm learning so much while I'm out here. I love the CCM (MTC en epañol) and my district it's going to be really hard to leave. The CCM is sort of full immersion. We get taught in spanish and all our stuff on Sundays is in spanish but we still can ask our teachers how to say stuff because their second language is English and we talk to each other in mainly English still. 

Pero mi español es mejorando muy rapido. ¡Yo enseño cinco lecciones en espoñol! Nuestro investigator acepta un invitación a ser bautismo. Yo estuvo muy feliz cuando este a sucedido. Pero necisito a ayudar mucho antes reporto a la misíon. But I can teach a lesson alright and pray and bear my testimony in Spanish so far. So that's cool! 

So much has happened this past week, I don't know where to begin. Classes began and wow! I learn so much. We have about half language studying and half doctrinal studying. I love both of them. My English is actually starting to get a little bit worse. My sentences are kind of put together weird and I am having a harder time spelling. It's way weird what just one week of learning Spanish all day everyday does to ya. I've been writing in my journal everyday so I'm gonna have a good record of all of my time here at the CCM. 

On Friday we met with our zone leaders who basically gave us an overview on how things are going to work regarding church and stuff and then I was called as our districts district leader! Which has been an amazing and humbling experience. I love serving my district and doing all that I can to make sure that we are all going to be the best missionaries that we can be when we head out into the field from the CCM. The next day was my first day as district leader and I'm not going to lie, I felt a little overwhelmed. With the fact that we had to prepare a lesson every day for the next day when we'd be teaching our investigator, prepare a talk every week, prepare a lesson every sunday for my district for Sunday school, learn 25 words a day, 5 phrases, and memorize 2 scriptures.  And, to top it all off, we have homework every night for language and doctrine. So I was a little worried that my plate was just a little too full. But with a LOT of prayer I have really gained a testimony in the importance of planning. I have learned to really manage my time a lot better. Now, I don't feel overwhelmed at all only busy. And in my mind busy is great. I love being busy in the Lord's work. 

I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to be out here. My district is amazing. The Elders are Elder Baughan (mi compañero) y Elder Stewart y Elder Ellsworth. And oh my goodness they are all so awesome. We get along great and have such a good time together. We always have to make sure to get to bed on time and be conscious of it because if we're not then we will be up for hours just talking about the gospel and other things. They are a huge inspiration to me and are all going to make great missionaries. The Hermanas are Hermana Clark (who was really good friends with Haley Brunsdale, Kaitlyn's younger sister) y Hermana Bowen y Hermana Warnick y Hermana Horning. They are all so amazing and have some of the most incredible testimonies of anyone that I've ever met. They are inspiring me and helping me to grow so much as a missionary and just as a person in general. It's gonna be hard to say goodbye but so exciting to hear about the things that they are going to go out and do in the mission field. 

Everyone in my district is going to California on their missions except for my compañero who is going to Denver South. I and two of the Hermanas (Warnick y Horning) are going to Fresno and the other two Elders are going to Carlsbad. The other two hermanas are going to Sacramento. So that's a cool thing that we all have in common. 

​The sign of the CCM con mis amigos

My daily schedule is pretty much that I wake up every morning at 6:20 (10 min early so that I will get a hot shower haha). It's actually not hard at all to wake up in the mornings which was a huge surprise. My body is totally happy with 8 hours of sleep so that's been way nice. Then I get ready and head to breakfast. Which the food here isn't that bad. It's actually pretty good most of the time. Plus we get Costco pizza every Tuesday night so that's way awesome! After breakfast we get to study by ourselves for an hour and I just study the Book of Momon. I'm going to try and start and finish it all in here which would be super nice. Man that book is seriously the word of God. It is so amazing. Then after that we have classes every day until lunch pretty much. 

My Room. My bed is the one with the masculine pink blanket

We learn in Spanish so that's been hard to get used to because my spanish wasn't good at all when I got here. But I'm understanding it way better now and am just striving to keep improving. We then have lunch and then after that we have something called TALL which is a program the church uses on the computer to help us learn spanish. I learn a good amount of grammer in there so that's really nice. Then we have personal and language study which is pretty much just used to memorize words and phrases so that we can actually understand people when they're talking to us. haha. Then is a great part of the day...GYM TIME! We get like an hour every day to go play basketball, volleyball, soccer, or to lift weights or run, so that's really nice. It's fun to relieve some of the stress of learning with some good games of ball. Then we plan for the next time and have dinner. Then we teach an investigator every night. 

We have been teaching Hermano Loya. It's been really awesome and a cool experience teaching him in Spanish. It has helped me a lot to speak in spanish to him and I learn a lot by doing it. After that we get to go home and read a little in our scriptures, write in our journals, talk a little bit, and be in bed by 10:30 -- even though we always get into bed at like 10:34. We try so hard to get in bed right on time but we can never do it, haha. We'll get it down soon though. 

On tuesdays, instead of teaching an investigator we get to have a devotional which is so awesome. This week it was streamed in from the Provo MTC where Elder Quintin L. Cook and his wife spoke. It was really neat and I got a lot of notes out of it. One thing his wife stressed was that ''you are your first convert'' -- which is such a true statement. Something he said that was amazing was to not be discouraged because we are called of God and we will be able to do anything and everything that he has asked of us with his help. 

Sundays here are amazing too. We just get to refill our spiritual canteens instead of learning how to and filling others. It is really nice. It's all in spanish except for the devotional on sunday nights so as of now I don't get a lot of what was taught so that's a bummer but i think I'll be able to understand more as the weeks go on. Every week though we have to prepare a talk for sunday. And then 6 random people are chosen every sunday to speak. And yes, that means give a talk in spanish. So that'll be interesting when I get called upon to give that talk. 

So that's the basic life that I'm living now and oh my goodness, do i love it!! Oh, and some crazy things happened this past week here. The CCM flooded. Yes I mean flooded. It was crazy.

​Us in front of the house during the flood. (Left-Stewart, Baughan, Me, Ellsworth-right)

​Me in the street that's flooded

The store here is awesome and has so much stuff so that's been super nice because we get about 100 pesos a week or like 8 dollars so i've gotten some good stuff from there like mexican candy! It's way good. 

I know that this was suuuuuper long and I'm sorry, I just have so much I wanna share! I have so much more I could talk about but I'll end somewhat with this. It's a scripture in 2 Nefi 2:7-8 it says:

Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered.

Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise. 

Wherefore, he is the firstfruites unto God, inasmuch as he shall make intercession for all the children of men; and they that believe in him shall be saved.

Yo sé que este escritura es verdadero. Yo es aquí porque todas personas en la tierra necisitan a escuchar sobre El Salvador y su Expación. Amo mi Salvador con mi corazón de todo. Yo sé El Libro de Mormon es la palabra de Dios. Yo sé José Smith fue un profeta y restaurado la Engelia de Jesucristo en la tierra. Agradecido por este y la oportunidad a servir un misión. ¡¡¡Amo usteds mucho!!!