first talk

Hey everyone!

So all is good here at the CCM. It was so good to hear from everyone but I felt terrible that i wasnt able to respond. I only get an hour to email everyone so ya. But I got a system down where I can type my group email before I get on my email so I will be better from here on out. It is funny how pumped everyone gets to email and recieve letters. When we get to the lab everone just starts going crazy and gets all excited. It is what we look forward to every week ha. And only 2 people in our districto have gotten letters but we have mail time everyday even tho we keep getting shut down ha. My district is the best and we always are having a good time. We probably need to slow down and study more but ya. 

We are so pumped for the fourth! I got the 4th pick in the tie draft this sunday and pick me out a patriotic tie ha. We have been singing the 3 america songs in the back of the english hymn book this week and we drew a flag on our classroom board to say the pledge of alegiance to lol. I am so excited for tomorrow. We are not sure what we are going to do to celebrate but we always go big so ya. We definitely got some Merican pride going on down here. Our teacher just laughs at us all the time. He is way dope tho we always mess with him. I am going to miss chillin by the war zone with the family this year. You guys better send me some pictures of your 4th!  

Everyday here at the CCM is pretty much the same except for P-Days (aka christmas), Sundays which are the best, and we have a devotional every tuesday night. I had to sing at the devotional this week. We sounded really good actually. We heard from the area 70 and his wife. It was pretty good. Yesterday we had our first TRC. It is a thing where we just talk to a person that our teacher has come talk to us. It is just me and my comp and it is for 40 minutes. It can be a member or a non member they just bring in whoever to talk to us. We got lucky our first time and got an 18 year old member and a 16 year old member. They were awesome and we just talked to them about random stuff the whole time. We had an absolute blast! The guy beatboxed for us too so we were just jammin ha.  

It is crazy how every second of every day here is scheduled to a tee and it is so hard to get everything done that we need to. We only get like an hour a day to plan for the 2 investigators we are teaching. I havent really been able to just read my scriptures for fun since i got here. Idk i just wish there were more hours in the day. My spanish is coming along pretty good. I can talk to people and usually understand them decently. Depends how fast they talk ha. And I can speak pretty well but it is very broken spanish and I cant really conjugate future and past yet. Idk I feel bad for the people we have discussions with. I am sure they have a hard time undertanding what we are saying but it works out. I have only been here 14 days so thats not too bad. It feels like I have been here a couple months jeeze! Time goes by insanely slow!

I really want to share my sunday with you guys cuz it was just incredible. first of all i gave my first talk and it was ok. My spanish still sucks but Mexico scored a goal while i was talking and the whole city freaked out haha it was hilarious. I heard about how they lost. That is rough! I bet people down here destoryed the city. I didnt notice a difference though cuz there are always cop sirens going off. You just get used to it lol. We also got to hear from president Pratt for a bit then we watched a devotional from Elder Bednar that he gave christmas day in the provo mtc a year or two ago. It was literally the best talk i have ever heard and i really hope you all watch it. It gives you the key to life and is absolutely life changing. I will talk about it a little but really please try to find it and watch it! 

First president pratts talk. It was on the grace of christ and how we are nothing without it. We can only do so much on our own and we need to be strengthened through the atonement and grace of christ in order to make up for the rest. i will definitely plead with god for this stregthening power everyday on my mission. But it applies to everyone like our investigators. We ask them to give up things with the W of W, L of C, tithing, etc... They can use this grace to be strengthened to do these things. I hope all you guys start praying for this cuz we all need help in our lives. 

Now to the greatest talk ever givin!!! Elder Bednar is just the greatest man ever. His talk was about emulating the character of Christ. He talked about how christ always turned out when other people would turn in. He gave a few example stories but it really is awesome and that is the key to life. To really dig and find those things christ did in his life and make them who we are as well. and to always turn out or serve others instead of being selfish. We need to forget about ourselves. He also talked about how we need to be truely converted. Conversion is being constant to what we know. He said that having a testimony is only the beginning to conversion. Someone can have the strongest testimony of the gospel but not be converted and fall away. He said always turning out instead of in is a sign you are converted. I never knew this and it so awesome to know. It was exciting because I see that happening to me and i love knowing i am on the right path. He also shared some amazing insights on the story of the brother of jared. Idk i dont have much time but please watch it. It is an hour long but it will be the most benefitial hour of your life! Sunday afternoons or FHE would be perfect.