Things are going great down here in good ol' Mexico City! The CCM, MTC, is so special and so amazing. There are lots of mosquitos and I have about 6 or 7 mosquito bites all over me. Wasn't expecting that. The food is somewhat like sister spencer described. The missionaries who have been here a couple weeks say that it's improved significantly over the past week, but we still expect about one meal a day containing hot dogs. Which taste like they're actually made of dog.
Mexico city is so beautiful. They don't let us outside the walls so the only chance I got to see it was the drive from the airport to the CCM. But just from that I fell in love with the city and the people The actual CCM is also beautiful and stands above all the surrounding area with a huge beauty. The buildings aren't new, but they're more spacious then the Provo MTC.
Our district comprises of 5 sets of elders, and one pair of sisters. 10 total. Our branch currently has 3 districts in it making our branch total of about 40 missionaries. We're district C, and we're supposed to get about two more districts within the next two weeks. On Sunday we met as a whole district for sacrament meeting held in the Seminary Building on campus. Our branch presidency is comprised of three men who live in Mexico City that have been called to serve as branch presidents here at the MCC. There's about 16 branches here and they're expecting more. This CCM is expected to be the second largest CCM in the world, housing and training over 1000 missionaries. The branch presidency member in charge of us is Hermano, or brother, Gomez. He's a sweet, soft spoken man who loves us with all his heart. He seems so excited to be with us and he looks forward to getting to know us much better.
And I'm going to get to know him much better because I've been made district leader of my 10 missionaries. I'm a little bit concerned about my responsibilities but after some informational meetings on Sunday I'm ready to take on the challenges and fulfill my responsibilities
My Companero, companion, is named Elder Marchello, He's an interesting kid, about my size, and he's from Meridian Idaho. He's very forward and, like me, is learning to trust and compromise with another person.
The language is kicking my butt, but I'm..... well progressing. All the members of my district have previous Spanish training in high school so they're knowledgeable of the language so they help me on a consistent basis.
We've begun teaching our first Investigator. He's really just one of the teachers portraying an investigator they met on their mission, but it's still teaching lessons in Spanish. Elder Marchello mostly does the talking and I do my best to write down what I'm trying to say. But when we testify, i speak from the heart using no help, well.... except for our Spanish book. We're going to be teaching him our third lesson, but we're still not sure what. I've loved getting to know him, his name is Juan by the way. We got him to pray with us and to read the book of Enos which we talked about yesterday with him. Next week we're going to extend the invitation to be baptized so let's see how that goes. When we talked about families I showed him the Oregon family picture and told him about my family. he's a strong family man so he really enjoyed hearing about you guys and he seems to trust me a lot more. Next week he'll be our teacher and he'll explain to us our weaknesses and strengths in the lessons we taught him along with some helpful pointers.
We won't get to go to the temple for the next couple weeks, it just closed for maintenance. We're supposed to go every other week but I guess we'll wait to see.
This gospel is amazing. The church is true and I love that I get to spend the next part of my life testifying of Christ and his teachings. Bringing others to the gospel is what I want to do and I am so grateful.
Tuesday's are my Preparation day's so this is when can write back. I love you all so much and I hope that you know I'm safe and doing ok .
Sincerely, Elder Rodabough
