Week 1, November 12, 2013

Hola Mi Familia!  

I can not believe that I have already been here almost one week!  Time flies by so fast yet so slow.  Every hour is a year but every day is only an hour.  Does that make sense?  Thursday was a lot of orientation stuff and just getting the feel of the CCM.  (MTC means missionary training center, but in spanish the initials are CCM.  And pronounced ce ce eme.)  So I love the CCM!  I feel really at home here and know that this is where I belong.  The campus is so beautiful.  It is so green and all of the houses are different colors.  Then right outside the gates it is like an ocean of houses stacked on top of one another.  What a culture shock.  The first day they spoke English for us, but after that it has been mostly spanish.  But still not as much as I expected.  But I love hearing Spanish everywhere around here.  I love saying Hola or Buenos Dias, or even being called Hermana.  

  On day two they seriously threw us to the curb and gave us an investigator that only knew spanish!  His name is Juan Carlos Ramirez.  Our first lesson was basically a trainwreck.  lets just say there were a lot of awkward pauses and nervous laughs.  But the next day(we teach investigators almost every day)  went so much better!  Surprisingly better actually.  I was able to pull sentences and words out of nowhere and after I was like "whoa, where the mexicó did that come from?!"  The gift of tongues truly does reside here.  I have only been here 6 days and already I can understand quite a bit and am able to come up with sentences and speak muy pequito.  

  But that doesnt mean that things are easy here.  We spend 14 hours a day just running around, studying, and hitting our heads against the wall.  At times it is easy to get discouraged.  After our first lesson Hermana McRae and I were just not feeling it.  It almost felt hopeless and we could not focus the rest of the day.  If you let any inch of doubt come in your mind then that is when Satan takes over.  He himself has no power.  It is only us who lets him in willingly so he can work his magic.  But ever since then we have been staying positive and know it has only been a week.  

  All of the missionaries who are on their 4th week seem so old and mature haha.  Even though they are the same age as us.  And their Spanish seems so much more advanced then ours.  They give us a lot of hope for the future.  

  Everyone here is so so nice.  I can honestly say I have not heard one negative thing coming from any Hermana or Eldér.  It really is just a bubble of peace and happiness here.  I love how much we pray.  We pray all the time.  Morning, every meal, before study time, during lessons, before teaching, night.  And a lot of the time it is with my companion.  I can even pray in Spanish now.  At times it is hard to come up with tangible things and I just thing, please forgive me God if I am saying any bad words haha.  But I am excited to be fluent.  I only wish I could roll my Rs so I wont sound like a Gringo.  

  I love Hermana McRae.  Our personalities are actually very similar but she is definitely a little louder and more outgoing then me.  But you would be surprised about some of the things that I do here haha.  There is this game called Falling Dinosaurs.  You basically spin in a circle for what seems like forever then you all race.  The first time I played Hermana Fisí-ahi ran into me and I got thrown into a wall!  haha it is hilarious and we do it if we are tired and need energy.   also love my District.  All of the Eldérs are a blast and I especially love Hermana Moser and Hermana Heaton.  They are the other sisters in our district.  We spend almost all of our time with our district and everyone says we will get very close.  We have played a lot of volleyball which is fun.  Sometimes we get a little too into it when we are not supposed to be competitive haha.  

   The food here isnt too bad.  Actually sometimes it is super good.  But there are a lot of weird combinations.  It can be scary.  But there is always a Nutella bar! haha The money the church must spend to go through so many jars of Nutella each day.  So far we have only had one Nutella sandwich and one bowl of cereal with it. (Try putting a spoonful of Nutella in some frosted flakes-best thing ever)  All we do is sit around and then only get and hour a day of exercise, so we definintly have to limit ourselves.  

  Today we went to the temple.  The Mexico city temple is so beautiful!  It seems so huge and I loved going.  Our first time through we can do it in english but the rest of the time has to be in spanish.  And we only go ever other week.  But I loved it.  Even though the bus ride there was terrifying!  People here are amazing drivers.  They have to be to tailgate, brake, and swerve the way they do without getting in constant accidents.  I tailgate so I would probably fit in perfectly here haha!  Plus on the way back to the CCM we actually hit a car.  No joke.  But no one stopped so I guess it is actually a regular occurance.

  I love the spirit that is constantly here.  I especially love the hymns in spanish.  They are so beautiful.  You all should learn some, it is worth it.  

Please forgive me for any grammar errors.  The keyboard is different and I do not have the time to go back and fix things.  We only get a little while.  But I am sending out letters today with more stories and more detail.  So feel free to post them all on the blog.  Tell everyone I love them so much and miss them.  I am so grateful for everyones support!

-Love, Hermana Adair