Called to Serve: Elder Nathan Hubert's Mission Blog: Week 1 Update

First things first, when I got down here, they so graciously let us know that they hadn't updated the MTC address online, so the address that I found and the address that is in the program at church and everything is actually incorrect, so if anything has been sent, I hope that the Mexican postal service realizes that they need to forward it here... But I do have the new address in case you wanted to send anything! :) That is as follows:

Carr. Tenayuca-Chalmita No. 828,

Col. Zona Escolar, Deleg. G. A. Madero,

C. P. 07230, Mexico, D.F.; Mexico.

Sorry I wasn't able to let you know until now! But also, my MTC P-days are on Thursdays. They have to spread out the MTC P-days because there are so many missionaries and the computer lab would be clogged up all day, but while I'm here, expect emails and everything on Thursdays!

But where do I start? Okay, so, I got here on Wednesday the 25th, but so much has happened since then! It was that night that I found out who my MTC Companion would be, and it turned out to be none other than my 2nd Cousin, Elder Taylor Stringham! Talk about a small world, but things are just going so well! We get along super well and work together super well, and this whole MTC thing is just incredible!

The first couple days at the CCM were full of meetings and orientations and a whole bunch of stuff like that, and it did get a bit boring, but it is all part of the process. But on Friday, we were first assigned to meet with our districts and everything. And let me be completely honest when I tell you this, my district is the greatest district in the CCM! We have gotten so close, almost like a family. And we already have tons of inside jokes! For example, one time one of the Elders said one of their names, but when I heard him say it, I thought he said Iguana Millett instead of Hermana Millett, so now the Hermanas in our district are called Iguanas, and they love it so much! They tell us every day how they are going to miss being called Iguanas when they get out into the mission field...

But pretty much every day starts out at 7 with personal study in the classroom, and then later in the day we have companion study, language study, Libro de Mormon Study, TALL (more language study), Gym Time for an hour, and then lesson study time where we get to decide on what to teach our investigator, a woman named Irene (pronounced like Ee-reh-neh - with a Spanish accent).

But as I said earlier, Elder Stringham and I work together really well. We just are very in tune with the Spirit and with each other, and were able to teach her about el Libro de Mormon the first lesson, then we taught her about Christ's example, then taugher her about Baptism, then answered all of her questions and everything. We thought that we were doing super well with her, but both of us had our suspicions from the first day. We thought that there was no way that they would let us newbies teach a real investigator, and then the other day our suspicions were confirmed! We were walking on campus and saw Irene walking towards us, and when she passed us, she looked all uncomfortable as she covered up her 'maestra' nametag, so she really is a teacher! And then later during that same day, when we went to the CCM Offices for a little bit, she came in there and I got to talk to her while Elder Stringham was busy, and I learned her real name and got to talk to her about being an investigator and everything - it was kind of funny... :P

And there is a district in our Branch who thinks that they can beat my district at everything, including Frisbee... So they challenged us to a Frisbee game, and then we played! As missionaries, there is a rule that you can't keep score during a game so as to limit the competitious spirit of the game, but even though the game ended up as 0-0, we'll say that we were the greater of the two 0's. I had some pretty sweet interceptions and awesome plays, and my district works so well together at stuff like that! :D

But unfortunately, of all of the amazing things that I have experienced while being down here, I had to get sick as well... It started on Tursday night, and for some reason I kept on waking up and not feeling very good, and then on Wednesday, Elder Stringham and some other guys in our district started feeling the same way. I know it's only been a few days since that, but I think that I can dismiss the fear of gaining wait in the CCM, because I've actually been losing it! But I haven't been trying to, it's just that after a week of being here, some of the food they have been serving has been getting me sick and I have been losing some weight, along with Elder Stringham. Both of us can see it, and the belt that I have from CTR Clothing? If I tighten it like I used to, it goes past all of the little hole things, so I have to wear it a bit looser than I would prefer... Actually a lot looser... :P But please don't worry about me, I'm doing great, it's all just part of the experience! :D

And then today was so fun, we got to go to the temple! it was so great being able to do it in Spanish.

Let me tell you that it is so strange writing this email in English after I've been writing and speaking Spanish every day. I didn't notice it the first time I did it, but recently I've been writing in my journal in either Spanglish or complete Spanish. It is so strange! I guess that just being immersed by the language is really taking it's toll on me! :D Anyway, I love you guys! Feel free to email me, tell me how you're doing, ask me questions, anything like that. :) The church is true!