First week at the CCM!!!

Hello everyone!

It has been a great week here at the CCM. CCM stands for Centro por Capitación de México.  The MTC is for all those provo missionaries.  My companions name is Elder Nathan Hagemeyer and he is from Colorado.  He was born in Guadalajara, so he has dual citizenship and doesnt need a passport to enter Mexico.  We definitely have different personalitites.  I am more easy going and like to collaborate when it comes to planning or teaching, whereas he likes to be the one in charge.  But I am trying my hardest to love him and get along with him!

The food here is not quite as bad as everyone says it is.  We get to eat authentic Mexican food everyday for every meal.  The Mexican food is COMPLETELY different from the food we eat back at home.  There are no such thing as burritos, flour tortillas, or cheddar cheese.  Oh how I have longed to have some cheese with my refried beans....  They do have have things like cereal, and a full on nutella bar for those that either have diarrhea or dont like the Mexican food.  I have only had one "bathroom" problem, but I popped a pill to take care of that.  But every Tuesday, we get pizza night from the local Costco.  I cant wait!!!!!! Also Tuesday is my P-day, so my emails will come then.

I met my district on Wednesday.  There are eight of us and there are no hermanas.  There are only two districts here in the CCM that are all elders, and we are one of them.  The elders are: Christensen (DL) and Miller, Hagemeyer and Lomeli, Atkinson and Harmer, Tague and Jaussi (yowsee).  We all got along really well right of the bat, and we consider ourselves brothers.  This unity really has brought the spirit when we are doing our studies in the classroom.  We are not afraid to tell each other how we are feeling and how we think we can better help the district.  In my last email, I think I forgot to mention that the name of my district is 12B, not just B or 12.

The studies here have gone really well.  Our teacher is Hermano Cates.  What makes him special is that he is also the Director of Teaching and Operations of the CCM, and he said that he HAND PICKED our district to teach.  I feel so blessed to have him.  He and his family live here and the kids are hilarious!  To go along with being blessed, we also have a great zone.  The ZL's (Grantham and Schmidt) are amazing, and they also said that we are the only zone that has a little family night every Monday, and that we are the only zone that meets together every night before we return to our casas to sing and pray together.  The spirit is so strong when we are all together.

On Thursday, we began teaching an investigator.  He is really a member, but he does a good job at role playing an investigator.  His name is David Urias, and we have already had three discussions with him.  In our most recent one, we invited him to come to church, read the Book of Mormon, and be baptized! It was amazing.  Knowing as much spanish as I do has really helped.

I know this email is long, but a lot has happened and I just HAVE to share!!

Yesterday was Mexican Independence Day.  We got to be done wit classes and have a program where we learned how Mexico gained its independence, and watch closes to 20 traditional dances of Mexico including: The Mexican Hat Dance, and the one that goes like Bamba bamba over and over again.  At the end we all stood and sang the Mexican national anthem.  Dont want to sound rude, but the Mexican one is SOOOO much cooler.  They actually sing it with gusto and with pride.  They dont try to change it and make it over the top like they do in the US.  ¡Viva México!

Lauren: Yes the keyboards here are in spanish.  There are keys for all the different symbols and letters, and the normal symbols arent in their normal places, which makes it harder to type.  But there is a function where you can change the keyboard from English to Spanish. It makes it nice.  Just go ahead and gleek on all the boys.  They deserve it.

Dyl; Keep helping out mom and dad.  You need to learn how to do the technology stuff so you can teach ME when I get back.  But Im sorry to say that you wont beat me in Tiger Woods ;) And make sure mom doesnt break the vaccum haha.

One last thing.  I did find out that you can send my packages while I am here.  You need to do it through a website called www.missionarypackagemx.com.  I dont know the kinds of things you can send, but yes you can send me a package :)

I love you all, and thank you for the prayers and support!  Write to you next week around the same time!

Con amor,

Elder Lomeli