Hermana Lance's Adventures in Texas: 7-3-2014 Learning at the CCM

Hey guysss!!

¿Como estas? Things are just dandy here in México. I'm still learning lots and making progress and having fun. Cool stuff.

So, since last week, lots has happened.

First off, there's an intestinal virus going around the CCM. pretty miserable stuff. luckily, I haven't gotten it. A couple people in my district did and they were spewing from both ends, if you know what I mean. MISERABLE. Also It was spreading pretty fast, so now we have a no-hand-shaking policy for a few days. Which I'm totally ok with. Gross.

We finished teaching our first investigator last week and then the next night, he became our teacher! Really Javier (our investigator) "choked on a taco" and then we miraculously got a teacher the next day that looks exactly like him! weird stuff happens like that all the time here.

I have two official teachers here. One is Hermana Cruz, who has been teaching us from the start. It's real funny, cause the other hermanas in my district are obsessed with him and I don't blame him. Let's just say he's a real nice looking Mexican man. But we're on missions. so no worries.

My other teacher, who we "met" last week is named Hermana Galicia. He's in his late twenties and is darling. The other day, he started making a bird whistle noise before class started and told us hermanas that he is like a disney princess. He whistles like a bird (IT SOUNDS JUST LIKE A BIRD.) and then all of a sudden, animals start flocking to him!! hahaha we died. Mexicans are the best. especially when they have super broken English. I love it.

On Sunday night we watched a devo given by Elder Bednar a few years back. SO GOOD. he talked about the character of Christ. The character of Christ is how Christ turns outwards and serves others, when any of us would turn inwards. such a good talkkk.

(Sidenote. there are SIX instances in El Libro de Mormón of "one by ones." i've found a few, but not all yet. Challenge accepted.)

Sunday was real funny cause during our sacrament meeting, Mexico was playing in the world cup. let's just say that when you're in the middle of a gigantic city with 21 million people, and all of those people start cheering simultaneously, we hear it. especially since where we have church is next to the wall. haha. This guy in my district was speaking and all of a sudden we couldn't hear him over the cheering and crazed honking. He just stopped and was like: I think Mexico scored.... SO FUNNY.

So my branch/zone and another branch/zone had the opportunity to sing at tuesday's devo. Which was cool cause an area seventy actually came to the CCM. I was in the front row. Boo-ya! We sang "Grand Eres Tú" or "How Great Thou Art." It miraculously went well, despite practicing like 3 times.

So you know how I'm in México and it's the Fourth of July this week? ya, well. My district isn't letting that stop us from being patriotic. We drew an American flag on our whiteboard and we've been singing "America the Beautiful" and "My Country tis of Thee" for opening songs. Tomorrow, it's "The Star Spangled Banner!" Our Mexican teachers think we're dumb. haha but they agreed to leave the flag till after the 4th, so no worries!

We now have 2 new investigators. Alexis and Victor. They're punks. but it's cool. haha.

We did TRC yesterday for the first time. SO HARD. Sometimes I think I'm getting good at Spanish, and then we try to teach someone who knows absolutely no Ingles, and then I remember I've been speaking Spanish for two weeks. HAHA.

ALSO. Hermano Cruz is studying economics at a university here. Guess how much stinking tuition costs for five years of school at his university. TEN PESOS. In case you don't know, 13 pesos is the equivalent of one US dollar. AKA IT'S LESS THAN A DOLLAR TO GO TO SCHOOL HERE. Just a heads up, i'm moving here to go to school after my mission. Just so you know.

The food here is pretty good. They make some weird dishes for us sometimes, but usually it's just some enchilada or copy-cat American food accompanied by rice and beans. Plus lots of fruit. The fruit is the BEST. I think I've eaten about 10 mangoes so far. give or take a few. Plus honey dew and cantalope for days. and on good days, we get some yummy pineapple. For those picky/enfermo people, they almost always have a toast bar with bread, peanut butter, and nutella. yup. that stuff is real good when they make some nasty food.

So the Mexico City Temple is closed for a long time cause of renovations (SO SAD.) But! we get to go to the visitor's center one of these weeks. so I'm really looking forward to that. FOR SURE.

Well, now that's I've written y'all a book-like email, I'm gonna close with: I love you all! Keep your Heavenly Father and Savior close! They love all of us so much it's seriously unreal. We've been practicing how to teach people how to pray a lot the last few days, and one thing we like to tell people is that our Heavenly Father WANTS to hear from us. He LOVES it when we pray to Him and tell Him all of our feelings, desires, etc. As Elder Scott said to us in a devotional last week, "prayer is a sacred privilege." Remember that :)

Loves!

Hermana Lance

SORRY for the crazy emails. I just remembered that I was gonna tell y'all a fun fact about my companion. She is like Harry Potter. Wanna know how? She's legally blind. Without her contacts/glasses, she LITERALLY can't see her hand in front of her face. hahahaha.

Also, México literally means "belly button of the moon." Just let that sink in. I'm learning some cool stuff, guys. haha

anyway, carry on with your days! Love ya!