Buenos días! So a lot went down this week. I have a few videos and pics to send. First off there was a sismo! (Earthquake) here on monday. Coolest thing ever!! This is a panic circle: [pictured]When we first got here Hermano Sanchez took us on a tour of the campus. And when we asked what the circles were, he said they were panic circles... we started laughing... then a few days later we found out he was telling the truth. lol They have these all over the CCM. So on Monday morning, we were practicing our español outside when the loud siren went off. All of us including our teacher thought it was a drill. So we all just kind of sauntered into the circle. We were all talking when I realized the pole next to us was shaking. I pointed it out to the Elder´s and Hermano Sanchez. And as soon as they looked, the ground began to shake very softly. It was sooo cool!! The tree´s and light poles were shaking pretty hard. Apparently things like this don´t happen all that often because all of the teachers were yelling to each other... this is sooo cooll!!! We asked Presidente Pratt about it later... according to him it was a 7.1. So cool. Also! I forgot to tell you! We have ´bomb´s´go off all the time here in the city. We thought they were fireworks but the teachers all say that they´re bombs... we´re still not too sure what they are. Anyways. They happen periodically throughout the day. And since we have awesome teachers and missionaries here we all started to do this. (We live in districts... I´m in district 6. But I have a bunch of friends in district 12 here. hehe) Whenever a bomb goes off, whether it´s in the middle of a lesson or in the comedor or walking to our next class we all stop hold up the district 12 sign from the hunger games and then whistle Rue´s song. All day everyday. So I can actually hit all of the notes now... I´ve had a lot of time to practice. lol I forgot to tell you last week. But the earthquake reminded me because after it ended, 4 bombs went off in a row. So everyone was laughing and said that the sismo got them. Quite awful to joke about but hilarious at the moment.
Here´s a picture of Braxton and me from sunday. Sorry it´s so dark, it was the only time we got to take them.
This is Elder Russell. He is the missionary I met when we all went to get our visa´s from DC before the mish. He´s serving in the Quito Ecuador mission. We hung out at gymn a lot. He just left last sunday as well. I also have another friend who just left. Elder Spencer. He hasn´t sent me the picture yet. But I´ll forward it when I get it. He´s serving in Tennessee.
Here´s a pic of Mexico City. We found a spot in the Thomas S Monson building last night where you can see over the wall. Yay! We were talking today about how we seriously feel like we´re in the Hunger Games. With all the bombs that go off and there being a world outside of the CCM. It´s bizarro. Kind of awesome! In 2 more weeks we get to go to the visitors center. And see the Temple. We don't get to go in because it´s closed for construction. :/ But I´ll for sure send you guys a picture of it. And try to get some of the people here.
I took a few random pics for you guys...the reenactment of my face planting...Seriously... it was a bad idea to run on those things. (HJ really wanted me to take this pic .)
And I took a pic of the bathrooms here. They still blow my mind! On the sinks you have to push that little lever on the faucet for water to come out. It took us all like the entire first week to learn how to use them affectivley.
And the toilets here are weird. You have to step on the levers on the bottom right of it. Just thought I´d share that.
Ok, so to explain. My investigator I was telling you about, Carlos. Is our teacher. We weren´t supposed to know that. But since I had friends here they all told me that you teach them (Our teachers tell us that they´re our real investigators) for the first 2 weeks and then they end up being your night teacher. So instead of teaching him lessons from 6-9 at night, he now helps us with our teaching skills and language study. His real name is Hermano Vera. He´s so funny! Seriously. He´s like the complete opposite of his Carlos character. Also, he hung up the pictures I drew for him in the classroom.... it´s not embarrassing at all... Also after he heard me sing, he told Hermano Sanchez.. So now they keep asking me to sing for them. :/ I finally told them that I would sing for them if they sang for me. Unfortunately they said they would. So now I have to sing for my whole district on my 6th week. And they will sing something in english and espanol... since I have to do the same thing. :/ I´m kind of freaking out about it.
Monday started our 3rd week. So that means we no longer have Carlos as an investigador... now we take on 2 new ones. Both played by our teachers. The first is Abraham (Abrahm) who is played by Hermano Vera (formally known as Carlos) And our second is Edwardo. (formally known as Hermano Sanchez) We taught Edwardo on Monday. Worst lesson ever! My comp wouldn´t focus that morning, so I had to plan the whole lesson by myself. (that happens a lot. :/) And he was a tough investigador. His profile is - His family members are LDS. His wife is the RS president and he has 2 kids 14 y 16. He doesn´t struggle financially, he´s well off actually. And he just wants to know why his family seems so happy when they get home from church. That´s what we had to work off of. Well. When we first met with him, he didn´t want to hear a thing. He just wanted us to answer his question. I tried to get to know him but he wouldn´t answer or ask any questions. So it started off kind of awkwardly. Then I asked if we could start off with a prayer. He said yes and asked how to pray. I explained it and then we all got down on out knees to pray (it´s super difficult to get them to kneel on the first visit here.) (Thinking... I have to explain to him why church makes me happy. Why am I happy? Because I know the truth.) But I couldn´t remember the spanish word for truth. So I started explaning to him why church made me happy. He cut me off half way through and said he didn´t have any time he just wanted his answer. So I asked him if I could share a story with him that would help him understand... he said yes. So I went into the first vision. He cut me off like 2 lines in and said again that he didn´t have any time. But he wanted an answer to his question. It was so frustrating. (Meanwhile, this whole time my comp is just starring at me... like she does every lesson because she didn´t know what to say.) So I asked him if he had asked his family why they were so happy. He said no. I challenged him to ask them. He said no. So then I challenged him to go to church with them on Sunday. And surprisingly he said yes. Then I asked him if we could meet with him again on friday morning and challenged him to say the closing prayer. He said no to the prayer and asked me to say it. (At this point he´s smiling because Hermano Sanchez know´s that I despise praying in spanish. I have the hardest time with it. So he´s smiling as he´s on his knees.) Then we left and went to class after setting up a time on Friday. Worst lesson ever! It was so hard! And then afterwards we went straight into language study with him. And my brain was fried. And he kept asking me to answer all of his questions in espanol. Hardest morning so far. But I learned a lot.
I get to teach Abraham tonight. So we have to finish up planning that later today. His story is a little more difficult. But I understand him a lot better than Edwardo when they´re firing off words in spanish. And then Edwardo again tomorrow morning at like 8 am.
Yesterday we had TRC. Which is where you have to go fake tracting around the buildings. We get 2-3 investigadors. So we were getting all pumped up for that... but when we got there all the other districts took all of the volunteers... so we just had to practice with each other some more. The investigators for that are either members here or less actives or (when we get to our 4-6th week) real investigadors. Which is way cool! But nerve racking because our spanish still sucketh. I´m not sure if our district is behind everyone else or not. But everyone expects us to know it by now. The other day Hermano Sanchez made us teach in english to see if we actually understood the doctrine or not. He couldn´t tell if we didn´t know what we´re teaching or if we were just struggling with the language. It´s rough. Some days I feel like I´m totally understanding spanish, I can formulate sentences and understand what everyone´s saying. And then other days everything goes right over my head. I can´t speak a word of it and get my point across and I swear the teachers speak moy rapido on purpose to watch our faces contort into total confusion.
It feels like we´ve been here for months already. Seriously. We were talking about it this morning. It feels like it´s literally been a month since we´ve talked to our families.
Easter sunday was amazing! We listened to Elder Uchtdorf speak to us. Best devotional since we´ve been here. The spirit was so strong and we watched an awesome movie about how the SLC temple was made. Tuesday we listened to Elder Oaks and his wife talk. That was way good as well! I used part of it for my spiritual thought yesterday. I´m getting used to the food out here finally! Not gonna lie though, the fresh fruit and the nutella still save my life the majority of the time.
I had a mock investigator that I had to teach last night who didn´t think that it was ok to pray out loud. But loved listening to me pray. (kind of an oxymoron) As I was teaching him I flipped to an awesome scripture at random. DyC 19:28. You should read it! It applied perfectly to the situation. Then I asked him to say the closing prayer. He said no. So I explained more about prayer. And then challenged him to pray again. He said no. So I had him read that scripture and testified of prayer and the importance of it and how he didn´t need to be shy about praying infront of me. That God will still love him even if he messes up. And then I shared with him that I used to be timid about praying in front of others; thinking my prayers weren´t elegant enough. Then I challenged him again... He gave a wonderful prayer. The spirit encompassed the room. It was amazing. We´re supposed to be persistent. It looks like it pays off even if it´s super intimidating asking again after someone says no.
That just goes to show. Make sure you always follow the promptings of the spirit. They´re there for a reason! Delay and you´ll miss out on something extraordinary. I´m glad to hear that all of you are doing so well. I´m keeping you in my prayers! Stay strong and live what you believe. Until next thursday...
-Hermana Dodge :)
Monday started our 3rd week. So that means we no longer have Carlos as an investigador... now we take on 2 new ones. Both played by our teachers. The first is Abraham (Abrahm) who is played by Hermano Vera (formally known as Carlos) And our second is Edwardo. (formally known as Hermano Sanchez) We taught Edwardo on Monday. Worst lesson ever! My comp wouldn´t focus that morning, so I had to plan the whole lesson by myself. (that happens a lot. :/) And he was a tough investigador. His profile is - His family members are LDS. His wife is the RS president and he has 2 kids 14 y 16. He doesn´t struggle financially, he´s well off actually. And he just wants to know why his family seems so happy when they get home from church. That´s what we had to work off of. Well. When we first met with him, he didn´t want to hear a thing. He just wanted us to answer his question. I tried to get to know him but he wouldn´t answer or ask any questions. So it started off kind of awkwardly. Then I asked if we could start off with a prayer. He said yes and asked how to pray. I explained it and then we all got down on out knees to pray (it´s super difficult to get them to kneel on the first visit here.) (Thinking... I have to explain to him why church makes me happy. Why am I happy? Because I know the truth.) But I couldn´t remember the spanish word for truth. So I started explaning to him why church made me happy. He cut me off half way through and said he didn´t have any time he just wanted his answer. So I asked him if I could share a story with him that would help him understand... he said yes. So I went into the first vision. He cut me off like 2 lines in and said again that he didn´t have any time. But he wanted an answer to his question. It was so frustrating. (Meanwhile, this whole time my comp is just starring at me... like she does every lesson because she didn´t know what to say.) So I asked him if he had asked his family why they were so happy. He said no. I challenged him to ask them. He said no. So then I challenged him to go to church with them on Sunday. And surprisingly he said yes. Then I asked him if we could meet with him again on friday morning and challenged him to say the closing prayer. He said no to the prayer and asked me to say it. (At this point he´s smiling because Hermano Sanchez know´s that I despise praying in spanish. I have the hardest time with it. So he´s smiling as he´s on his knees.) Then we left and went to class after setting up a time on Friday. Worst lesson ever! It was so hard! And then afterwards we went straight into language study with him. And my brain was fried. And he kept asking me to answer all of his questions in espanol. Hardest morning so far. But I learned a lot.
I get to teach Abraham tonight. So we have to finish up planning that later today. His story is a little more difficult. But I understand him a lot better than Edwardo when they´re firing off words in spanish. And then Edwardo again tomorrow morning at like 8 am.
Yesterday we had TRC. Which is where you have to go fake tracting around the buildings. We get 2-3 investigadors. So we were getting all pumped up for that... but when we got there all the other districts took all of the volunteers... so we just had to practice with each other some more. The investigators for that are either members here or less actives or (when we get to our 4-6th week) real investigadors. Which is way cool! But nerve racking because our spanish still sucketh. I´m not sure if our district is behind everyone else or not. But everyone expects us to know it by now. The other day Hermano Sanchez made us teach in english to see if we actually understood the doctrine or not. He couldn´t tell if we didn´t know what we´re teaching or if we were just struggling with the language. It´s rough. Some days I feel like I´m totally understanding spanish, I can formulate sentences and understand what everyone´s saying. And then other days everything goes right over my head. I can´t speak a word of it and get my point across and I swear the teachers speak moy rapido on purpose to watch our faces contort into total confusion.
It feels like we´ve been here for months already. Seriously. We were talking about it this morning. It feels like it´s literally been a month since we´ve talked to our families.
Easter sunday was amazing! We listened to Elder Uchtdorf speak to us. Best devotional since we´ve been here. The spirit was so strong and we watched an awesome movie about how the SLC temple was made. Tuesday we listened to Elder Oaks and his wife talk. That was way good as well! I used part of it for my spiritual thought yesterday. I´m getting used to the food out here finally! Not gonna lie though, the fresh fruit and the nutella still save my life the majority of the time.
I had a mock investigator that I had to teach last night who didn´t think that it was ok to pray out loud. But loved listening to me pray. (kind of an oxymoron) As I was teaching him I flipped to an awesome scripture at random. DyC 19:28. You should read it! It applied perfectly to the situation. Then I asked him to say the closing prayer. He said no. So I explained more about prayer. And then challenged him to pray again. He said no. So I had him read that scripture and testified of prayer and the importance of it and how he didn´t need to be shy about praying infront of me. That God will still love him even if he messes up. And then I shared with him that I used to be timid about praying in front of others; thinking my prayers weren´t elegant enough. Then I challenged him again... He gave a wonderful prayer. The spirit encompassed the room. It was amazing. We´re supposed to be persistent. It looks like it pays off even if it´s super intimidating asking again after someone says no.
That just goes to show. Make sure you always follow the promptings of the spirit. They´re there for a reason! Delay and you´ll miss out on something extraordinary. I´m glad to hear that all of you are doing so well. I´m keeping you in my prayers! Stay strong and live what you believe. Until next thursday...
-Hermana Dodge :)