The Resort MTC

Family,

Before I say anything else, I want to say thank you so much for all of the letters from family, friends, cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents. It means the world to me!!!!! It makes my week and helps me feel like I am not so far away. I am sorry I can’t always respond because our email time is limited. Please keep sending me letters, I print them off and read them throughout the week. I love hearing about your weeks. Congratulations Hannah, and thank you to all of the uncles and cousins for helping my dad with the yard prep.

Mexico MTC Campus

This place is so great. It really is the resort MTC. They have tennis, football, basketball, soccer, ping pong, volleyball, beach volleyball, pretty much any sport you want. This week during gym I mostly played soccer. I did put my pulling skills to good use yesterday when we were playing though. I was dribbling the soccer ball down the sideline and another elder was coming to try and steal it. It was the softball incident all over again and I stuck out my forearm and lowered  the shoulder. The guy ended up flat on his back and it didn’t even phase me. It felt good to play a little American football again. Don’t worry, he was ok. He had taken out one of the sister missionaries earlier in the game. But I totally trucked him. One day I ran around the old school gravel track (Claire) in the rain. And this morning I played a little tennis. Though there is a lot of great recreation, the food is not so great. Average. The first week we got special treatment because of the Mexican Independence Day. We had quality, traditional Mexican food like tamales and several other dishes I had never had. They were great! Now it is back to the mystery meat cafeteria special. We get a lot of chicken but I have a hard time eating it because it reminds me too much of the cow heart dissection we did in sports med last year. For breakfast I have a bowl of all bran with strawberry yogurt and a banana. Lunch is hit and miss because it depends on what they are serving. Dinner is usually ok, but there is always cereal and PB and J as a backup plan. It rains almost every night here. I am so glad I have all my rain gear. Some of the missionaries rooming with us are going to  Antofagasta Chile up by the desert and they don’t even have a raincoat or umbrella. Classes are going very well. We literally study from 7:30 am to 9:30 pm. I feel like things are going much better this week. I understand the language pretty well and can teach a lesson using the words I know. We have a great district and everyone gets along really well for the most part. Sundays, Tuesdays and P-days are the best. Sunday we get a break and enjoy listening to devotionals and get to watch quality church movies like Joseph Smith, The Restoration, stuff like that. Tuesdays we watch or receive a devotional after dinner from an Apostle or General Authority. Tuesday is also pizza night and we get huge pizzas from Costco so I eat all I can. One thing I forgot to mention about the food is that it seems to have the opposite effect of the Provo MTC. Instead of gaining weight I have already lost six pounds. One of my friends told me that he has lost 20 pounds here. I have heard the same from a couple other elders.

Olympus High School Missionaries at the Mexico MTC

I have made a lot of great friends here. I have met a couple of missionaries that leave for the Pingree’s mission next week, and they are awesome. They are in my zone and have been really great to me. One of the kids who used to be in my district lived in Torreon, while his dad served as the mission president there. I met Murray’s QB for the last three years. He is a pretty cool guy. I also am in the same casa as one of the SkyView players. He admitted the pass they won the game on was incomplete. It is amazing to see the maturity in the 1st week missionaries and the 6-week missionaries. Sooo different.

I have had some really cool experiences this week. I gave one of the sisters in my district a blessing earlier in the week because she was feeling sick and asked. It was a good bonding moment for the district and I had a couple elders tell me how much they appreciated it. One of the elders in our district is really struggling. He is very shy and hasn’t ever taken Spanish. I had the opportunity to testify to him that everything would be ok and that the Lord has called him to succeed and not to fail. The spirit was really strong and we were both on the verge of tears. It was a very strong prompting and I felt like it was exactly what the Lord wanted me to do. My companion and I are doing very well. Rather than struggling with not having enough to say in our lessons, we run out of time. We work well together. Even though things are going much better, there are still a lot of difficult times. I felt a lot of comfort last week when I re-read Meisha’s letter and my Patriarchal blessing. I make sure to do my part as well by working hard and trying to be obedient. I see so many blessings every day and I feel like I learn way beyond my capacity every day. It is very remarkable.  This week I blessed the sacrament in Spanish. I had flashbacks to blessing it back home and it was a really fond memory and I enjoyed doing something so familiar.     

I have seen miracles this week as well. I sprained my ankle really badly during gym and I thought it was going to be a really long recovery. I woke up in the night a couple times because it was hurting. The next morning, I took some ibuprofen and by lunchtime it was completely better, aside from some bruising around my foot. The swelling had gone down significantly and there was almost no pain. I haven’t had a problem with it since. Those are a few of this weeks highlights, I wish I could share some more but it is impossible to share everything with you guys. A mission is so incredible. The temple was really great last week! I felt so uplifted and the spirit was really strong. We got to go through in English with headsets, next time it will be in Spanish though. We go every other week.

Mexico City Temple

You guys would be surprised how much I miss yard work. I often want to go work with the landscape crew. They are pruning the trees outside our casa and I am very jealous. I would love to be dragging branches around the yard. I also really miss raking leaves surprisingly. I had a couple moments this week where I just had the urge to go rake. Goofy, I know.

Outside Will's Casa, Mowing in the Rain

Dad, we had a great devotional about involving members in missionary work and think you should take a look at the new church website on hastening the work. I am sorry I don’t remember what it is called. But I found it very motivating and know you will too. It is important for the members to help the missionaries.

Grandpa Paul’s weekly report cracks me up, love the detail. I love it!

Sorry, these are all just random thoughts that keep popping into my head.

  

I am so jealous about the ski passes. I think I deserve a new pair of skis when I get back  because I didn’t get the Deer Valley, Alta, and Park City passes when I was in high school. Claire take advantage of those!!!!!!!! for real!!!!!!!! I was crying when I read that. There is some great skiing on the Jordanelle side of Deer Valley. 

I wish I could write for hours and tell you everything. It is too much to describe. Thank you for always being there for me. I think of all of you all day!!!!!  I pray for each of you each night as well, my heart reaches out to each of you!!!! Like I said, I wish that I could talk forever, there is so much that I want to tell you. I love you all so much!!!

oh esta todo bien

P.S. They are still launching fireworks here, although I am not sure which ones are fireworks.