Adjusting

My district: the elders are (from the left Elder Anderson, Sandberg, Cummens, Stam, Walker, Johnson, other Johnson, Miller, Nickelson, and me.  the hermanas are Johnson and Jones.

August 19, 2014

            Today was p-day and it was pretty bad actually.  I would have rather been in class.  We got our letters today and I was grateful for Mom’s note.  When the others were playing volleyball, I was working out and doing pushups.  The elders started making fun of me and you can imagine my reaction…yeah, I got pretty pissed off. I eventually just stopped working out and tried to cool off.  It wasn’t much fun.  But other than that, I am getting along all right and figuring everything out.

August 20, 2014

            I loved today. Class was awesome! It was a relief to me to get back to work after a painfully awkward p-day. My companion and I learned 44 verbs today.  The lesson with our “investigator” went crazy well.  I understood 99% of what he said and was able to joke around with him a little bit.

August 21, 2014

            Nothing too great happened today.  Let me tell you about one of our first teachrs, Hermano Martinez.  He is the best teacher ever!  He does taekwondo and we hit it off well!  His enthusiasm is part of the reason why I don’t have any home sickness.  He taught me to love the mission and work my butt off in the first lesson.

August 22, 2014

            So today was ridiculously slow and LONG.  Our first investigator became a night teacher for us and our day teacher is our new investigator.  I have learned a total of 110 new verbs and it is getting pretty tough to remember them all.  Elder M. is going home to resolve some personal issues.  Late last night we put sticky notes in the jacket pocket he left in the room.  I left a long note in his pocket to encourage him.

August 23, 2014

            Today was very similar to yesterday (I think that it is my new normal).  It rained harder than I have ever seen it rain in my life.  It was so bad that there were rivers flowing in the streets.  It was pretty fun to see the missionaries running through puddles for fun. 

            Before I left, I promised the stake president that I would speak only in Spanish when the day came for me to enter the MTC.  But the problem is that my companero doesn’t understand and his focus is on bookwork, not practicing speaking.  It makes it hard to talk to him when he can’t, or won’t speak.  I love the Spanish language and I get along super well with all the Central and South Americans.  I am super excited to be serving a mission in a South American country.  

August 24, 2014

            This was my second Sunday.  I played “How Great Thou Art” medley in sacrament meeting. I played well and really felt the spirit as I played.  I am starting to get frustrated with the fact that no one else wants to speak the language.

August 25, 2014

            Today I had a problem.  I lost my temper when Elder S. decided that he was going to make fun of me (again) for how I was doing my pushups. Really…this must be what high school is like.  It is just stupid and it got me going.  So I flipped my lid a bit and pushed him to the ground with my foot, and got in his face a bit, and told him to stop mocking me.  Well, he claimed that he hit his head on the floor…I ended up leaving the room to calm down.  I said a prayer, which really helped me, and just as I closed my prayer, Elder S.’s companion, Elder W. came out and talked with me. He said that he understood my frustration and my reaction and that was helpful for me to hear.  I realize that feeling angry feels awful and I hate it! It is hard to remember that in the moment, but I am going to try harder to control my temper.

 August 26, 2014

So here I am at another P-day and it is looking to be as slow and awkward as the last one. I am used to things moving at a much faster pace and having a very full schedule.  I have decided that I am not very good with being with people 24/7, probably because I am used to doing things on my own all of the time. 

I took a few pictures of the MOUNTAINS here.  They are huge (they are at least 3000 feet), but they still call them hills.  One of those (the clear picture) is MAYBE half the size of the other hills so yeah they’re pretty huge. The food is very good here and overall I consider myself to be very lucky to be here in the Mexican CCM.