Week 1-Getting Started

If you are getting this, first of all I’m not going to use a lot of proper grammar and all that because it just takes longer. 

so the flight in took a while.  we got in at about  1:30 in the CCM.  We also had an hour of extra sleep that morning.  but that morning was the longest day of my life.  all it was was orientation stuff i don't even remember it.  i wrote it down though.

second day was better.  my companion is elder martin from draper, ut.  he played soccer up until his junior year in high school.  he is pretty good.  better than a lot of the latinos.  we also room with elder williams who is 22 and elder livesay.  we arent compatible with them as much.. we started with classes and first thing we did was learn how to pray.  i have the basics down.

third day.  now all the days are the same.. i have everything written down with dates so no need to worry mom.  everyday we learn something new about spanish.  yesterday we had to teach a role play investigatior in spanish.  it went a lot better than i thought.  also there is one brittish guy here.  i don't know how to spell his name but it sounds like elder kane.  he is a liverpool fan because his dad was.  we always talk about soccer with each other.  i also talk to a lot of the latinos about soccer. most of them like James or Ronaldo or Messi.  obviously the peruvians as well.  but there are a lot of columbians here as well.  i saw one guy with a dortmund ramos jersey.

we play soccer everyday.  there are only a few good white guys.  me, my companion, elder wright the guy i reffed with, and i think there is one more.  the teacher that is always out watching soccer looks just like di maria and he is actually really good.  he said he played professional for a second division team or something like that after his mission.  but soccer is always fun.

this part is for dad and opa mostly, but mom can read this too.  i don't think oma would want to...  so on sunday we watched 2 devotionals given at the provo mtc.  the first from elder cook but i fell asleep during that... the next from elder perry.  one thing really caught my attention..  he was talking about companionships and he was talking about when parley p pratt and oliver cowdry were called by God to go west to ohio and teach who?  THE LAMANITES.  he either said Lamanites or something that rhymes with that.  it was really weird..  May 13 this year he gave the devotional at provo mtc.

sundays are different so ill talk a little about it.  first we have sacrament meeting and 4 missionaries speak in spanish for 4 minutes then someone from the presidency speaks.  then we have sunday school and priesthood.  after that we just have devotionals and firesides.

oh. also this week we had someone from the first quorom of the seventy come and speak to us.  i don't know his name because it was hard to hear in spanish.  he talked about a missionaries objective and purpose. 

now for today.  today was crazy.  first we went to the temple which was awesome.  ít's a really small temple and sessions only hold about 25 people.  but the celestial room and sealing rooms were amazing..  That was one of the places i have felt the spirit the strongest ever.  it was an amazing feeling to be in that room.  i only got a few pictures of the temple and ill try to send them next week because we were so busy today.

afterward we went shopping.  we went to the gro-cer-y store!  we got some inka cola, coke, and fanta.  we also got some candy to eat.  oh and by the way, we forgot hangers!  but i got some at the store.   then we went to some other LDS type shop.  i got a few ties, a small bag, and scripture cases.  i saw a U of U tie and thought of the Blacks!  we are going to a store next week to get jerseys.  and i only used my card today because i want to save my cash for the sketchy shops.

after we were done shopping we got on the bus.  they suck at driving.  they use their horn every 2 seconds and i feel like we are going to crash!  but we were on the bus for a while and we didn't know where we were so we got off.. we were lost!  we get on another bus and that bus driver knew what we were talking about when we said iglesia de mormones.  the other one didn't.  so we took that one back to the temple and took another bus back to the CCM.  it was an adventure.. we were lost in the city. but now we are back!

The CCM i feel is a lot better than the provo MTC.. I'm forced to learn spanish here.  I learn most my spanish playing soccer with all the latinos.  But it's an awesome place.  you can feel the spirit here all the time.  the food could be better though... it's the same everyday.. chicken and rice for lunch and dinner, and eggs for breakfast.. ALWAYS!!  but it's fun here.  we also play ping pong at lunch every day.  There are a lot of good ping pong players!

Hope everything is going good!  Love you guys!

Yo sé que JesuCristo es mi salvador y Dios es mi padre celestial.  Yo sé que José Smith esó un Profeta y Thomas S Monson es el Profeta.  Yo sé que la iglesia es verdadero.  En el nombre de JesuCristo, Amen.