Week Two: Time is Flying!

The hermanas in our zone right before Hermana Adair and Hermana Taylor left to go to Oklahoma City.

Area: Mexico MTC
Companion: Hermana Katie Neeleman
Hermana Neeleman's Blog Post: Week Two

This week has actually gone by really fast! After last week, I thought that my time in the CCM would be really long, but by it was already Sunday before I knew it. I am loving my stay in the most beautiful campus I have ever been in. Seriously, I am so glad that I am here instead of in frozen Missouri! For the last couple of days, me and Hermana Neeleman have been going outside to do our study instead of staying inside the classroom. She sits in the sun and I sit in the shade and we both have a really good time.

The days have all started to sort of blend together. Every day, we start with personal study. Then we go to breakfast and prepare for our first "investigator". After that, we do a lot of language study and more reading the scriptures. At some point during that time, we go to gym and eat lunch and dinner. By the end of the day, I am always so tired! But it is the good kind of tired. I am happy in my work.

I think that all of the time that we have spent reading the scriptures has really been getting to me. At night, we read the Book of Mormon in Spanish as a district and we all follow along in English. We just barely got through the story of Nephi getting the brass plates, but every night I start to think of funny backstories for all of the people in the stories and I start to get giggly. I don't know how long that will continue, but I don't know if it is a bad thing.

I feel like I have already learned so much more than I knew before. I am still not fluent and I can only understand about half of what everybody says, but I am so happy that I am not totally lost in everything. In our lesson yesterday, I didn't even look down at my paper once for hints on how to say things (I can't guarantee that this means I was saying my words totally right, I was just able to be understood). I am excited for a time that I will really be able to speak the language. Right now, I feel like I am losing my English way faster than I am gaining Spanish. I make so many spelling and grammar mistakes when I write my letters. Oh well.

On Wednesday nights, we go as a district and do our service project. Guess what we get to do every week!? Greet the new missionaries and help them to get to their casas. It was so fun to be able to see all of the new missionaries coming in and to talk to them about their flights and their lives. The only thing that was a little stressful about the experience was that the people who were helping were not supposed to speak English to each other. That basically meant that I could not speak unless I was helping out the new missionaries, but it was okay in the end. By the time that we started helping them take the luggage to their casas, we started to speak in English to each other.

This Sunday was super fun and really spiritual. I don't remember if I told you this in my last e-mail, but we have to write a five minute talk in Spanish each Sacrament Meeting and when we get there, we are randomly called on to give the talk. It is a little stressful, especially because the Spanish I do have is very broken. Anyway, I was called on this week to give my talk in front of the entire zone. It ended up being better than I thought it would be. I am just glad that I prepared even though I thought that I would be exempt because I was playing the piano :). Later that night, we went in to Sunday Movie Night. There was an extremely odd selection of movies that were shown: The John Tanner Story, an old movie about the Crucifixion, and the informational video about temple clothing. I was still glad for the break from classes and Spanish.

Hermana Neeleman and me outside the Mexico City Temple.

This morning, we got to go to the Mexico City Temple (which is why I am writing to you so late in the day). It was so nice. It was a little strange going through a Spanish session only knowing a little Spanish, but I am glad that I had the opportunity to go. I don't know when I will next be able to go to the temple, but I am grateful for every opportunity that I get to go to the house of the Lord.

I think that my biggest revelation that I had this week is that the CCM is a little bit like a prison. There are tall walls around the perimeter that have barbed wire on the tops, the time is very scheduled, and we can only communicate with the outside once a week. Despite the similarities, I have been feeling very content in my life lately. Every day, I feel the spirit so strongly. All of my teachers are so good (although one had been nicknamed Hermano Rapido because he speaks so fast). I am so excited to be a missionary and I feel constantly that this is the right place for me to be. I am really excited to be out in the mission field, but I am happy to spend a couple more weeks in the CCM.

Hermana Blau

The parrots that hang out on the palm trees here in Mexico.