Hola Everyone,

 Well, this week was full of just great things happening here at the CCM. Last P-day we went to the temple as a whole zone which was really great. We all got to go all together for the last time with District 12A. They just left for Chile this past Monday. So yeah, p-day was good last week. I bought an authentic Mexican backpack and now all the hermanas in our zone have one. We get to wear them hear and they're so much easier to use then the shoulder bags. 

 Thursday was good, these days we just have nothing going on and just like a normal day with classes and teaching investigators. Oh, but we have this thing called TRC on Thursdays where we get to teach like real people from Mexico. Everyone talks about this really cool and awesome old lady named Gloria and me and Hermana Jones got to teach her! Let me just say, she was the best investigator ever. I've never felt the spirit so strong in a lesson and both me and my companion shed some tears with her. It was a great experience I'll never forget. Also, we had an epic rap battle on Thursday night about gospel related subjects. It was pretty baller you could say haha. It was just our district btw..

 

 Friday was literally the same...I don't think anything exciting happened on this day. Same old same old lol. 

 Saturday was good, it was more of a relaxing day because our teacher Hermana Alonso couldn't come in and so we kinda had a more chill day. 

 Sunday's like I said, are always the best. We had to start sacrament at 8am because we had a special devotional from the Provo MTC at 10am live. M. Russell Ballard spoke and it was great. Also, me and Hermana Jones had to meet with our bishop President Muchado before sacrament because we are assigned as the new Training Sisters for our zone! It's exciting and now we have to meet with all the hermanas in our zone a few times a week and then we have meetings with all the teachers on Thursdays and Sundays. I love being a training sister though, it's great. Sunday during one of the devotionals our zone 12 was able to sing in front of the whole CCM. We sang Come Thou Fount and it was so good, it was our last little moment together as a zone. Then we took a whole bunch of pictures together which was great..I'll attach a few. Sunday night's movie was the Restoration and I always love watching that video, it reminds me of when I used to live in the palmyra area. Also, we just cried a whole bunch Sunday because Hermana Wright and Hermana McGregor were leaving the next day.

 Monday was a nice fresh start to the week. We had to teach our teacher Herm. Alonso as Hilda about the Law of Chasity...it was so difficult to explain that in Spanish, but we pulled through and did our best. She said we did a great job and that she feels the love we have for her (Hilda) so that's good. 

 Tuesday was a nice day. Our schedule is always different because we have a devotional on these nights. The devotional was good, it was a talk by Russell M. Nelson. After the devotional we went back to the class like we always do and talked about what we thought about it. Then, our district got really, really off topic and we (the hermanas) were telling our elders how the night before we were describing them as disney characters. Then we ended up just saying who we all would be in different movies. We had a good laugh. Everyone envy's our district because we always have a good time together and we're really close. It's true though, we're really close and have great times together. I love our casa as well. Me and Hermana Jones, Brinkerhoff and Jordan have the best of times. Last night we literally had a hand puppet show up on the ceiling narrating our futures. 

 Thanks everyone for your support and I love you all! I only have less than 2 weeks left here at the CCM and I'm so excited to be going out to Sacramento soon! Mucho amor! 

Hermana Scott

Zone 12

  Hola everyone! Well nothing too much happened this week, just getting into the hang of things and the schedule and everything...I don't have too much time to type today so I'll just briefly go over what has been going on. So last Friday Quentin L. Cook came and spoke to us. It was really an amazing talk for sure. He talked about the important of being Branch and Ward Builders when we get out into the mission field...which is only 3 weeks away! :) I can't wait. And after he spoke we all got to shake his hand which was so amazing...I love the apostles. He is so much older up close than I thought. His wife also came and she was really nice. So yesterday our zone auditioned to sing Come Though Fount for a devotional sometime this week. The training sisters in our zone are about to leave this next Monday and I'm sad because they are really really awesome and great. I love them so much. But, that means our zone is going to assign new training sisters and everyone thinks it's gonna be me and hermana jones...but I'm not too worried because I think it''ll be great being training sisters here. I love the weather here so much. Today we are going to the temple again with our whole zone this time. I love the temple, it's such a beautiful place to be during the week. It let's me be calm and have peace aside from all the crazy schedule and teaching and studying all week long. I have enjoyed my time here, and I'm gonna miss the CCM when I leave, but I'm just really excited to go to the mission field! Well, I almost have to go so I hope you all have a nice week and enjoy your time as you celebrate Easter this weekend. Love you all! Adios!

Hermana Scott

This Hermana is from the district with Elder Kirkland in it. She's so sweet and is going to Chile. 

Second Week in Mexico City

  Hola everyone! I can't believe it's already my second week here! This week I have learned so much more than I ever have. My Spanish is coming along just great and I'm so surprised! I can teach the Restoration in Spanish! This week I have learned a lot about what it really means being a missionary. Here is my weekly report:

 Wednesday 3/9- My first P-day and it was so great! We got to get up and do some laundry and clean our casa. We emailed until 11 when we had to get on the bus for our trip to the Mexico City temple. Wow, that was just really an awesome experience being there. I'll add some pictures but it was really nice and big inside. This temple only has escalators in it which was super interesting to me! We got little head sets so we could listen to everything in English which was nice :) On our way back from the temple it was a crazy drive! Wow the people in Mexico have no rules when it comes to driving...there literally are no lines for the lanes so everyone just drives together like super close. Plus a bunch of people just walk down the street in front of cars like it's nothing! I took a picture of when we got stuck in the middle of a crazy intersections with cars coming from every direction. We had a standing ovation for our bus driver because of how insane it was. After we got back we had to start our service project. My zones service project is really cool! We get to wear special name tags and help out the new US missionaries. We get to meet them, help them email their families and take them to the comedor (cafeteria) and sit and talk with them. It's the best really :)

 Thursday was pretty chill, just our normal schedule. We received new information on our 2 new investigators we have to teach. One of them is named Hilda, who is actually just our Spanish teacher Hermana Alanso and then Cesar who is another one of our teachers Hermano Gonzaga. All of our Spanish teachers are really awesome! I love them! During our five minute breaks we go outside and play ninja together I've one ninja every time we've played haha. I love that game so much lol. 

 Friday was good too, just our normal thing with class, language study, personal study, companionship study, Fundamentals, and stuff like that. 

 Saturday was literally the same as Friday...

 Sunday was just a really great day. I think Sundays and Wednesdays are my favorite days of the week. Sundays are great because it's more relaxed and you don't have to worry about classes and stuff. We had a lot of meetings though, but they were good. The movie Sunday night was The Testament I think it's called? I had never seen it before but it was just a really good end to the day. I cried at the end where Jesus came down to the Americas and greeted everyone. I hate crying in front of people though.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty much the same...just really busy because we had started to plan and teach our two new investigators. They have been going really well. My favorite part when teaching is teaching about the Restoration of Joseph Smith because I know it so well from living so close to Palmyra before living in Connecticut. I have the first vision memorized so I get to say it to the investigators when we teach. Teaching has been getting so much better and I am getting really good at understanding the Latino people here. 

 Everyone here is super kind and nice. The spirit here at the CCM is so strong and I'm just really glad that I am training here in Mexico because I feel like I am learning so much more than I would at the Provo MTC. Thanks everyone for the love and support. I seriously love serving the Lord and being here in such a beautiful place. Mucho amor. 

Hermana Scott

Cassidy's First Week

 Wow, what a week it has been! It´s crazy to know that I've been here a week already! The CCM is wonderful! I didn't know what to expect here but all I can say is that the spirit is so strong here. I love it so much and the people are just amazing. Let me just give you a run down of my week. So last Wednesday I flew here to Mexico and the flying went great. I was a little nervous when I got here to Mexico but I went through immigration and customs just fine. They literally have children working at the airport which was weird. Like this 10 year old boy was checking my luggage and I was so confused lol. Right as I walked out the doors there was a guy with CCM Missionary sign. We talked and he asked if I had seen any other missionaries but I hadn't. Then a Mexican church guy drove me to the CCM. He told me that I could only speak Spanish to him lol. He tried helping me come up with Spanish words and he showed me where the temple was. I got to the CCM and I was the first missionary there. So, that's when I did a check-up with the nurse and wrote a short email to my parents so they know I'm okay. I waited about 2 hours just chillin' because all the missionary's weren't gonna be there till later. So they brought me to my casa and I unpacked and settled in until 6pm. All the buildings here are named after prophets so If I mention a prophets name I'm probably talking about a building here haha. Anyways, at 6 I went to the biggest building, the Thomas S. Monson, and there were all the rest of the new missionaries getting off the bus. Before coming here I had realized that a close friend of mine from Southern Virginia University was coming to the CCM on the same day as well, so I was excited to see her again because we were Visiting teaching companions at SVU together. I found her and we said hi and asked how we were doing. Then, the best part is that we actually are companions here together for the next 6 weeks!!! It's so crazy that these kind of things happen. We both were so excited and we get along so well because we have so much in common!! I'm SO grateful to have her as my companion! The first night was different but we all get along so well. We live in a casa with different new sister missionaries as well. In our room it's me, Hermana Jones, Hermana Brinkerhoff, and Hermana Jordan. We have had such great times together here and we laugh like all the time haha. Our elders are Elder Bown, Elder Bowers, and Elder Ramirez. They are hilarious and so funny. We have an awesome district! We met our Zone too and they're pretty awesome. Our Zone 12 is like the best zone here everyone says, which is so true. We all do sports and play games together on P-day and during work out time. 

  Thursday, our first real day, was long and challenging but I learned so much in that one day. Friday was pretty great and we got into the hang of things. Our first week we just had a lot of meetings and stuff because we're new. I've met most of the other new missionaries as well, but we all have different schedules so we never really get to see each other unless when we're eating in the cafeteria. So the cafeteria here is nice. They put out a lot of variety and everything is so fresh and good. I have one picture here that shows what we eat. For some reason they serve chicken nuggets for breakfast? lol But anyways the CCM has their own well and water system apart from Mexico so the water is good here so none of us have to worry about getting sick. Plus we only drink bottled water anyways because they have bottled water dispensers everywhere on campus here. On Friday we taught our first investigator in Spanish, so literally our second day here we had to teach a lesson in spanish. Me and hermana Jones said a prayer before and it actually went well. We have taught our investigator, his fake name is Wilberto Suarez, 4 lessons so far and me and hermana jones did our lesson yesterday without any notes or anything, we just said everything from our hearts in spanish. Seriously, the lord has blessed me with the Gift of Tongues because I've learned so much spanish in one week than I had in 4 years during school. All my prayers are in Spanish...I feel like a pro already haha. On Sunday I bore my testimony during fast and testimony meeting in Spanish. The spirit was so powerful that day and me and hermana cried...a lot haha. Sunday was a great day though, so beautiful and just a nice day to not worry about spanish class or anything. Our branch here is pretty awesome. I love our presidency! They are so nice to us and help us out. 

  Sunday nights we watch a church movie so we watched a couple of clips about Jesus Christ and about the history of the first sister missionaries. Monday was a good fresh start to this week and it was a lot harder because our teacher Hermana Alonso is super harsh on us because we need to get better at speaking spanish. My spanish is good right now, the only thing is being able to respond to people really fast because every Latino here speaks so fast so I try to pick out stuff that they say and try to answer back haha. Tuesday was good and we have devotional on Tuesday nights. It was a devotional recorded at the Provo MTC a few weeks ago and Ronald A. Rasband spoke about the importance of missionaries. It was such a great devotional and afterwards our zone got together to talk about it. It was really nice. You all might be a little bit jealous because it's so beautiful and hot here :) I love it so much I can wear short sleeves all the time :) Today we're going to the temple as a district so that's going to be great! I can't wait to go the Mexico temple :) So right now we are all trying to email before we have to go at like 11. Thank you all so much for the love and support! I know that this is my calling...to serve my Heavenly Father. I´m so grateful to be here as a missionary. This church is true and I love everything about it. I LOVE MEXICO AND THE CCM. LOVE YOU LL! I'll have more time next week to email :) 

                                                             Above is our district 12B

                                                       Me and Hermana Brinkerhoff

                                                          Me and Hermana Jones

                                                                    Hermana Scott

                                             Guess who Cassidy ran into in the Mexico MTC 

                                                      Here's Elder Omdahl (small world)

 This is our building where our district meets everyday.

I cant wait to hear from her next week.  I will try to keep up and post all her emails and pictures.

Thanks,

Carrie