First Week at the CCM...

Hola! Well the last 9 days were probably the longest days of my life but I really loved almost every moment. I guess I should start with the first day. So the flight here went really well, it was crazy to see Mexico City from an airplane! It´s huge!! There were just buildings as far as you could see and as tightly packed in as you can get. At the airport they checked my bags when I got to Mexico and when they saw all of the food I had they gave me a really funny look but I just told them that I was a hungry growing boy and they laughed and let me keep it. I flew in with about 35 other missionaries and I am the only one that is going to Anaheim, even now I haven´t found another person going to Anaheim but I hear rumors that someone else going to be serving there as well. So when I finally got here President Prat was waiting to welcome us and it was super exciting. They gave us a big packet, let us send a quick email and then we were on our own. I found my companion and we found our apartment and room. My companion is Elder Golding, he is from Washington and will be serving in the Richmond Virginia mission. He is way cool and I am super glad that he is my companion. So after we found our room we hurry and got to a live broadcast devotional and when I walked in I saw Quincy, Spencer, Parker, and Logan right away and it was so great to see all of them. The first day I realized missionaries aren´t perfect. Actually not even close haha I was suprized that they were pretty crazy and some things I saw were suprizing. For example right when I got there and was looking for my companion these girls were trying to flirt with me and it caught me by suprize that here the girls flirt way more than the guys. The next couple of days they had us in a room with an español teacher and right away she was only speaking español and I feel like all I did the first few days was learn spanish, eat, sleep, repeat. Especially since we didn´t get gym time until Thursday. Learning a new language is really hard and I have been struggling a lot with it but I think a lot more has been starting to stick the past few days. My companion is the only one in our district that hasn´t taken a spanish class before and we had to teach a 30min lesson on our first Friday there. It was really broken spanish and was pretty rough but we made it through it. By the time Sunday came we could pray, bear our testimonies, and had taught 2 lessons to our investigator, Ignacion. Yes ignacion. AKA nacho :) As for the food, the first few days I loved it! But then it met my stomach and had other plans because it has made me really sick most days but it still tastes good so it´s a really interesting love/hate realationship. I´m really glad I brought so much food because it has helped out a lot. The second night we were here they told my district they were going to interview everyone and then choose a distrct leader, and they picked me. I was way shocked and already felt way overwhelmed by learning the language but I accepted and now have the responsibilities of picking up the mail everyday(thanks for the early letter mom), leading our study times and providing a 45min district meeting lesson every Sunday, and well as many other random little things. I really love my district and companion and I am enjoying the CCM a lot. So a normal day goes like this. Wake up at 6:30am, pray and then get ready for the day. My companion prays for at least 30min morning but he usually falls asleep during them so it´s pretty funny. We have breakfast at 7:15am and then personal study time, language study, coaching, and more study until 12:15pm. Lunch at 12:15, which ALWAYS includes rice and beans, which taste amazing, but make you pretty sick if you eat them a few days in a row. TALL for an hour from 1:15-2:15, TALL is a language program on the computer that makes you really tired. Then we have more personal and language study until 4pm when we have gym. I have played tennis, ulitmate frisbee, basketball, and most of the time my companion and I join Elder Kimball and his district for some volleyball. We have gym for 45min and then we have time to shower and do our daily planning until 5:45pm when we get to have dinner. After dinner we either teach our investigator, Ignacion, or we have some sort of devotional. we have taught Ignacion 4 lessons now and they keep getting better each time and we even committed him to baptism last night but now we have to teach him about commandments and see what he thinks about that. He will be our new teacher in a few days, so no he isn´t a real investigator, and so he likes to really try and mess with us. Especially my companion and I because our español is very limited. Last night after he asked why baptism is impotant and we told him it would wash away his sins and help him to return with his Heavenly Father, his family, and our favior Jesus Christ, he told us he didn´t have any sin and that he was already baptized when he was a baby. So he tries to make it difficult and real and he is a really cool dude. So after that we just have personal time and companionship prayer and go to bed. Thank you all for the support, Sunday was a little tough because it finally hit me I was really gone, but knowing you are all there for me and for all the reasons I came our here I have been doing great ever since. I have also been able to see Elder Smith and if you know of anyone else coming down here let me know so I can look for them :) I love you all so much! LOVE, Elder Hyde