Week 4 in the CCM

Hi! :)

So we´re almost there. I think it´s only 12 more days until I get to Ecuador. I feel like I really want to leave right now, but at the same time, I feel like there´s still more for me to learn and that I should try finishing off strong here.

Well there are a ton of new missionaries every week here. The first week we were here, we knew  everyone. Now there are so many people that you see someone new everyday. It´s cool though since I think some of them look up to us as an example, so we need to be the best missionaries we can be.

I´ve been having some really good experiences here with teaching. Every Thursday, we have this thing where members of the church that live around here will volunteer to come to the MTC and we will teach them as if they were an investigator or an inactive member. I think some of them are actually inactive and some have problems or doubts in their lives that they will talk about in the lesson. So last week we taught this one member who came in and it was an amazing experience. He told us that he had doubts and asked us questions. So we based our whole lesson on what he wanted to talk about, (which is what they have been telling that we should teach according to the needs of the investigators, even if we spent a long time planning a lesson, we should always be willing to change the lesson if the investigator needs to hear something else or if the Spirit guides in another direction). But anyway, I guess were really able to help him and he said he could feel the spirit very strong and feels God´s love for him after that. He said that he had been having questions and doubts about things, but that after we taught him he felt so much better. He was very touched since he knew that we actually cared about him and I gave him my Book of Mormon to keep. In the report we got back the next day, he gave us his phone number and he said that he´d really like to talk to us when we get back from our missions to see how he is doing. Even though not all investigators will be like that and some may argue or get angry, it made me really excited to go out into the mission field.

Language: We have language class everyday where we learn grammar, but we've actually learned all of the grammar so now I think we´ll just be doing review now. I´m able to have conversations with the Latinos and I can understand most of what they say. Sometimes I have to ask them to repeat it or they will sometimes slow it down or try to explain it in English. There were two times this week where I planned to speak only in Spanish for the whole day, but it didn't work out well, so I am going to try again a few times before I leave. Also, I really think I will be able to achieve my goal of fluency before I leave, as long as I practice and study the language more and speak less ingles.

Lessons: We teach two of our teachers a few times every week who will play as progressing investigators. In parts of our study time each day, we are supposed to prepare a lesson for them. We try to figure out their needs and the things in their life and try to plan a lesson around that. In our classes too, we are taught how to teach better and things we can do like asking questions and getting investigators involved and feeling like we actually care about them and that they´re not just a statistic. We also have coaching time, were our teachers will come around as we study and talk to us and give us tips and things on how to teach better and we will practice on them.

We teach the lessons all in Spanish. I can pretty much say anything I want to now in Spanish, but sometimes it´s hard if I don´t know a certain word. One my teachers told us to never ever ever speak english in the lesson since you´ll just confuse them if they don´t speak any english.

My district has been saying all the time that they want to speak less english but they never do it. I feel like we´ve been speaking more english this week. So it gets hard when I want to set a personal goal to speak only Spanish for a day when they only talk in english. I think we just need to remind ourselves and discipline ourselves better.

Apparently there is a rumor going around that someone got a worm or parasite from the food and someone else might have, so if that´s true then that would be why people are getting sick. But I think it´s also because it takes time to adjust to food from other countries and your body might reject it at first.

They add stuff all the time at the tienda. They have a ton of candy so some of the people in my district go there every day and buy candy. I even found some dress shoes there that I´m considering getting just so I don´t wear out my shoes too fast but I don´t know. There´s a lot of members of the church from out in the city that come to the store and buy stuff too.  

It rains almost everyday here. But the last few days it hasn´t rained. But when it rains, it comes down hard and when there is thunder and lighting it lights up the sky at night and is very loud.

Well , I really don´t know what else to say since every week we do the exact same things. But I´ll just end saying that I know that I´m supposed to be serving a mission right now and that that I love this Gospel and the happiness it brings to people.

Can´t wait to hear from you all soon!!!

-Elder Gomez