Monday, July 28, 2014

I get on a bus out of here in 6 hours.  I can't wait.  I just want to get to Perú and help people or buy some candy for a little kid.  I am taking Book of Mormon's that I bought and a couple pass along cards to hand out at the airport, I am going to talk to as many people as I can since we will be waiting there for like three hours.  I am glad that my email last week helped with your lesson.  If you ever need any more advice, you know where to find me!  gregory.baker@myldsmail.net   I am here every Monday from now on I think.  

Nothing too new this past week, just still working hard, trying to learn as much Spanish as I can.  One funny story, I asked a kid what are the odds you sing a solo in sacrament meeting?  He said one in one hundred and one.  He looked at me and I said change your number I read that one in your mind and he was like no, someone give me a countdown.  3... 2... 1... We both said 72.  Everyone started going crazy it was hilarious.  He didn't want to sing so we settled on him buying me some things from la tienda.  

I am so excited to share my testimony in church on Sunday because it will be fast Sunday.  I will tell them they need to talk slow to me and it's my first week and smile the whole time while bearing testimony because I want everyone to like me.  Even if people don't listen to me on the streets or wherever else, I want them to like me because then it will plant a good seed for future missionaries.  Hopefully I get a good trainer, I will find out tomorrow!  We will see!   

Anwyays, I will have a lot more to write next week because it will be new experiences.  Your boy will be in Perú tomorrow!  Talk to you later familia.  Keep following the Spirit.  Trust in the Lord. 

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Hola!!  YOUR BOY OFFICIALLY HAS HIS FLIGHT PLAN FOR PERÚ.  WE LEAVE THE CCM ON MONDAY AT 8 PM AND OUR FLIGHT IS AT 11:50 PM.  We should get to Perú at 6 in the morning on Tuesday so we might be a little exhausted but who cares?  I'M GOING TO PERÚ!   Getting my flight plan was a little bit like Christmas.  Probably top 20 best moments of my life.  Maybe top 10, who knows.  

Anyway, the Spanish is coming good.  This week my teacher asked me again what I have been doing to improve so fast.  I told him I haven't really done anything different.  It all just kind of clicked.  So he told me I need to help teach in class and help the people who were struggling.  I am second best at Spanish in my district and my companion is the best so our lessons have been going really good.  I am confident with my Gospel Spanish now, but I know that when I get to Perú I will be so lost haha.  I just hope that I have a good trainer so I can get off to a good start!  I am so excited to go to Perú and just help people.  Speaking of helping people....  On Thursday we have TRC and that is where the CCM pulls in people from Mexico City and we teach them.  You could get a non member, member, inactive member, who knows.  We had to skype because our people couldn't make it to the CCM.  We started talking to them and the lady in her twenties was a member and her nephew who was 12.  Her other nephew who is 12 was there and wasn't a member.  I immediately got so excited.  We asked him what he knows about this and that and then we talked about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and at the end he committed to read it!  we won't teach him again so we won't be able to follow up but it was so cool hearing him say he would read it.  I didn't even know what to say in the moment I just started smiling it was so cool.  

I gave a talk in Sacrament this week on baptism and it was cool.  I definitely went over the five minute time limit we are given to speak but oh well.  I sat down and my companion said that everybody said I was talking really fast.  It's good because the talk was all in Spanish and out of the corner of my eye the whole time I could see the branch president nodding his head so in my mind I was just like yesss I am doing good.  It was hard to come up with things to talk about that weren't the same as everyone else since our spanish is limited so I talked about how we need to be baptized unto repentance and how much we need to stress baptism to our investigators because it is our first covenant with God and our first step to return to him.  We are baptized and we promise to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ.  This is a really cool thought for me since I am a missionary.  I literally have the name of Jesus Christ on the name tag on my chest every moment.  When I take the name tag off at night to go to bed it feels like I am taking a part of me off.  I am so blessed to have this special opportunity to represent the Savior for these two years.  It truly is incredible and I have already seen miracles happen.  We always need to be acting properly because people are always watching.  we are role models for people and we may not even know it.  

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Why LeBron??  We loved you in Miami.  Oh well, we got some nice pieces.  

One crazy story, I was studying early one morning with Elder Bean in their place (next door) and we heard a slip, a fall and then moaning in pain.  We ran to see what was wrong and one of the Latino's that live in their place had slipped after he got out of the shower.  He had surgery for a torn ACL a couple months before, he fell on that same knee.  Elder Bean and I had to run to get the doctor and that kid long story short had to get surgery again and had to go home.  It was sad, he had only been there for two days.  But ya, we get up at 6 every morning and study for thirty minutes.  Our teacher, who also plays the role of an investigator, pulled me out into the hallway and told me it is incredible the rate at which my Spanish is increasing so there is a confidence booster.  

We are now officially the oldest district in our zone.  The older ones left today early in the am so we are the oldest.  We get two new districts on Wednesday.  It is getting packed.  Good thing I have this week then next then I am off to Peru!!  I am going to either ask for or buy a bunch of Book of Mormon's to pass out and talk to people at the airport.  I just want to talk to real people!  It´s getting so close.  This month has flown by so i'd imagine the next 23 will go even faster, it's a bummer.  Missions are fun.  Just have to work as hard as I can while I can.  

One more highlight, we are trying to set up our teachers on a date.  Hermano Cruz wants to see the Salt Lake temple really bad and Hermana Gutierrez wants to get married there so it's perfect.  Our district is playing matchmaker and it is going to happen.  I got a Dominos pizza coupon from la tienda attached to some candy so I am going to give that to him so they can go get some pizza.  I'll have more updates next week.   Until next week, love you all!

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

This week was just the same as all the others.  Study, teach, study, teach, etc...  I love it here but i just want to get to Peru.  I can't believe I am halfway done with the CCM.  The time is flying by so I just need to use it wisely.  

The 4th of July we didn't really do anything.  Except at lunch, one of the Mexican workers in the comedor got on the microphone and was like "Elders y hermanas, I need you to settle down.  I have a very important announcement:  Happy Fourth of July." Then everyone started cheering and screaming it was funny.  Then at lunch we all stood up and sang they national anthem and they put out red white and blue for us, it was nice.  After that we had a normal day.  I was hoping they would surprise us with fireworks at the end of the night but that was a no go.  

Another thing we had this week is new investigators.  In this teaching session we didn't know if we were going to get a member, an inactive person, or a nonmember.  Our person didn't show up so we taught a different girl who is 19 and turning in her mission papers soon.  The spirit was awesome and at the end of the lesson she told me that my Spanish was really good and to not be afraid to speak it because I am really good so that was cool.  

I think we have about 800 people in the CCM now.  When we got here we were the first big group and we made it about 400 so it is pretty packed.  It is supposed to be over 1,000 by the time we leave.  I have no idea where they are going to fit everybody but I guess I will find out.  We also got to go to the Mexico City temple today.  It is closed for renovation but we got to go in the visitors center and walk around and take pictures.  Getting to leave the walls of the CCM felt like Christmas.  It was so nice because we are just enclosed in the CCM surrounded by a 20 foot high wall.  Mexico city is not the nicest place but I waved to every single person and they seemed pretty nice so that was cool.  

I don't really have much to say this week because every day in the CCM is the same schedule.  Oh, we had an old talk from President Holland at the MTC from a couple years ago as our devotional on Sunday and it felt like he was in my face the whole time.  Such a good talk!  

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

The past week here has been crazy, so many good experiences.  Last p day was incredible.  After devotional we had a district testimony meeting and the spirit was so strong.  One of our elders was having a tough time and we knew it but didn´t know the problem.  He was fasting all day and in our closing prayer one of the Elders prayed specifically for him.  When we got back to our rooms I got the Elder and pulled him aside for an interview, and he opened up to me.  He asked me for a priesthood blessing at the end of our interview so I of course said yes and the Spirit was so strong.  I know the words that I was saying were not mine, I was directed by the Spirit.  It was the coolest experience.  The next day our whole district fasted for him and he didn´t know it until we broke our fast together with a prayer.  He thanked us profusely and said that it had been his best day so far.  The church is true.

Other than that it was just a normal week, and it is nice not to be the new ones anymore!  The oldest kids in our district left the past two days and we get new elders and hermanas tomorrow so that will be fun.

The instructors all tell us Peruvian Spanish is a lot different and a lot faster than Mexican Spanish so I am excited to just get to Peru and learn the real Spanish hahaha.  That´s all I have for this week.  Oh, I got to play basketball with Scotty, Elder Peery from BYU and we didn´t lose a game.  

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The CCM is awesome.  It is like 3 or 4 times the size of the Provo MTC but there are a lot less people.  It hasn't really been too hot here.  It is cool and kind of foggy/misty in the mornings.  Then in the afternoon it heats up and then around 5 or 6 the storm clouds roll in and it rains hard.  It keeps that up for basically the whole night.  One highlight at the end of the first day I was called as the district leader.  They said it lasts for the whole six weeks I am here, so I am excited about that.  We have I think the biggest district here, 12 people in our district and we are all going to the same mission.  The days are going by a lot faster now that we have all gotten to know each other and are friends.  I love my whole district.  

The food here is not that great.  There will be meals that are pretty good but then the next is not very good.  They have a lot of fruit so when the meal isn't good, I just snack on that.  I am really missing the cannon center right now haha.  My companion is Elder Jones.  He just graduated from high school and he is from Chicago.  We also have Elder Tonga in our district and he is cousins with Howard Pututau from Cottonwood that played basketball so we have had fun with that.   Hermana Amis and I are in the same district so that's cool.   There are a bunch of people here from BYU that I recognize but none that I was close with minus Hermana Mortensen, Elder Peery and Hermana Amis.  

The Spanish is going good.  Slowly but surely.  We taught our first investigator our second full day here in complete Spanish.  It was stressful and we went first out of everybody but it went pretty well even though we had to read like everything.  We have taught him three lessons so far and our next one is tomorrow.  Each lesson my Spanish gets better and it gets less stressful.  I can understand it a lot better than I can speak or write it.  For Sundays, all of us have to prepare a five minute talk and in Sacrament reading they choose people randomly to come up and give their talk in Spanish.  The first Sunday I didn't get chosen so that's good haha, but it was hard to understand people.  I could pick out bits and pieces of talks but nowhere close to all of it so I just have to do a lot of studying.  

That's about it.  We just study every day and are in class so it is definitely tiring but so fulfilling going to bed at night knowing that you worked your hardest and tried your best.  Oh, on Sunday they broadcasted a devotional from the Provo MTC and Elder Richard G Scott was speaking.  He spoke to missionaries learning a new language and I needed to hear it.  Parts of it felt like they were directed at me, it was one of the best talks that I have heard.