Ñoquis

One of the teachers here served in Argentina Bahia Blanca so we talk a lot of that country, especially the food.  So we decided since most of the teachers had Tuesday off, we would make Ñoquis (it's a potato pasta).  So probably about 10-15 of the teachers came over to my place and we went to work.  There wasn't enough room in the kitchen for everyone, so of course, we had dance lessons going on too.  All in all, it was quite a fun Tuesday.

Dancing and Tacos

After the devotional with Elder Holland there was a dance at a nearby chapel.  I tell you what, the dances here are so fun.  Everyone actually dances.  We danced until about 1:00 then went to get tacos (apparently that's the tradition).

Elder Holland

Elder Holland, Elder Christofferson, and Elder Hallstrum have been in Mexico all week training all over the country.  Last night Elder Holland gave a devotional for young single adults in 8 of the nearby stakes.  IT. WAS. INCREDIBLE! I love how passionate, bold, and loving Elder Holland is all at the same time.  He began by telling us a bunch of the statistics of the church that are breaking records everyday (missionary force hit 70,000 yesterday for example!).  He said there has never been a time on the earth with such rapid growth and with that comes a lot of responsibility for us.  He shared the story of Esther and asked if we have that same courage to stand up for the church.  Why were we lucky enough to be born at this time and to have the gospel in our lives?  Why us?  He said he doesn't know why, but that we have a huge responsibility because of that.  What have we done with what we have been given?  What do we give?  Don't just be willing to die for the church, live for the church.  Give it all.  He also came down on us for being single :).  He said he thinks sometime we focus too much on the young part and the single part, but not on the adult part.  He said to stop acting young, to stop being single, and to be an adult.  We need more adults in this world.  It was funny the way he said it, and filled with love, but also very true.  He talked about 2 missionaries from the early days of the church that probably most people haven't heard of (Eliazer Miller and Alfias Gifford) who probably thought they didn't have success as missionaries.  They only baptized two people.  Sometimes we get discouraged with our own efforts because we give it all but think nothing comes of it.  Well, these two baptisms were Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball.  If they had only known who these men would become, they probably wouldn't have been discouraged.  So we also shouldn't get discouraged.  We have to do this together.  Everyone matters.  It's not enough to just live a good life and make sure we don't do things wrong.  We we meet God again, we will need to give an accounting of ourselves but also of who we helped.  What we did.  What we gave.  I wish words could convey what Elder Holland can convey.

Elder Christofferson

Elder Christofferson came to the MTC yesterday to speak to the missionaries.  What a treat! We only have about 90 missionaries here so they had a very intimate meeting with him.  We only filled half the chapel with the missionaries and 30-40 teachers that were there.  It was neat to see how personalized his message was for the missionaries. For part of the time he let missionaries ask questions and I was really impressed with how deep yet principle centered their questions were.  It allowed for some great answers.  After the meeting with the missionaries (which was at 4:00), I somehow got invited to attend the dinner they had prepared for Elder Christofferson in a small room in the MTC.  We are so blessed to live during the time of prophets and apostles on the earth.  After dinner, the entire institute of the Aragon Stake had a meeting with Elder Christofferson in the MTC chapel, so I got to hear from him again.  There were probably at least 500 young adults in attendance. He taught about the importance of the scriptures and pointed out that we are the only dispensation in history where we all can have our propio copies of the scriptures.  It made me ponder about what is expected of us by having them and what a great responsibility that is.  He also talked about expressing more gratitude, in general, but especially to God.  He also spoke a lot about how God knows us personally and individually.  That He couldn't possible know us any better or love us any more.   

El Castillo de Chapultepec

The missionaries had p-day on Tuesday this week so some of the teachers and I decided to aprovechar the day and see some sights.  We started with an early morning session at the temple.  The inside is a lot like Provo.  I haven't slept much for about 5 nights because of this dang cough so I was a little worried about sitting through the session, but everything turned out okay.  We spent the rest of the day downtown at the bosque and Castillo of Chapultepec.

View of La Reforma

Way in the back is the angel de la independencia 

Los Hermanos

Las Hermanas 

Trying to get the perfect profile pic

Chapultepec is Náhuatl for the grasshopper's hill

Pedro, Santiago, y Juan

Every Monday night at my complex the senior couples/senior sisters have family home evening, digo, una fiesta.  This week I was able to go, and it really was a fiesta.  Everyone brought a little snack to share, we had a lesson about keeping the sabbath day holy, and then finished by playing Pedro, Santiago, y Juan.  I think in English it's called Saint Paul.  It's when you all sit in a circle and and the first person is Pedro, next to them is Santiago, then Juan, then everyone numbers off.  You slap your thighs, clap your hands, then snap and if the person says your number, on the next snap you say someone else's number/name.  If the person called messes up, they go to the end of the line.  So imagine me with 22 other senior missionaries playing this game. So much fun!!!!  I seriously love it here so much.  I feel right and home and like this is where I'm supposed to be right now.  Tomorrow the missionaries have p-day so I'm taking my day off tomorrow.  A bunch of the teachers are going to show me around the city a bit after we do a morning session at the temple.  I'll try to take so good pics.  Buenas noches!

La Garganta

Mike, how are you so good at predicting the future? 

My brother Mike served his mission in Mexico City, and before I left he said after about a week here I would come down with a soar throat and cold-like symptoms because of the pollution.  Sure enough, Thursday night my throat was killing me.  Yesterday I had pretty much lost my voice and today I can barely talk.  I feel pretty good though, just sound horrible. Everyone here is trying to take care of me though.  It was funny because I told one of the supervisors I hadn´t slept well because my throat hurt, and then within an hour Nancy came to see how I was feeling, then Hermano Hernandez, then Sister Pratt called.  Hermano Hernandez said they are all taking responsibility for me like I am their daughter/sister.  I feel very loved.

One of the teachers got married yesterday, so I went with all the other teachers last night to the boda at a chapel not too far away.  Weddings here are so much more fun than in the states.  We pretty much just latin danced until 3 in the morning.  So fun!

Martes

This morning was fun.  For about 2 hours I took the teachers through the grammar methodology and taught them as missionaries and had them practice as teachers.  They did a great job.  I think they are a little nervous to do the 6 week program, but I know they will be great.  The north americans fly in tonight and will start their training tomorrow.  This morning we also trained on being a progressing investigator in Spanish to missionaries who don't know much Spanish.  I can't wait for these missionaries to get here.  They will be awesome and have some fantastic training.  This afternoon Shawn, Lane, Isaac, and I went out to Benemerito.  What a beautiful campus!!!  It's huge (about 93 acres I think).  What a blessing to have this as an MTC.  I'm excited to see it grow.  We will move up to that campus at the end of June.  Sister Pratt made homemade chicken noodle soup and fresh bread for dinner and it was delicious.  The rainy season has begun and it was a down pour tonight.  Sister Pratt says that everything will be getting really green soon from the rain and will be that way all summer.  President Pratt told us an incredible story of 2 missionaries who were kidnapped in Posadas (my first area of the mission) back in 1976 and how he had to go get them.  Maybe some other time I'll put the details on here.  On the way back to the apartments we ran into some of the new missionaries who had just flown in.  I'm excited to see them tomorrow to see what they think about being at the Mexico MTC.  I'll be doing the first day welcome with one of the districts so that 5 of the teachers can watch me do it while Shawn takes the other district.  Ready or not, here we go.

Here's the google map view of Benemerito

Warning

This is just a warning that most of these posts may or may not be that exciting for you all to read.  I'm hoping to keep a journal through this blog, so there may not be many pictures and it will probably be more of a log of the day.  And I apologize for my lack of writing skills.  So with that said, here we go.
Today I went over to the MTC at about 8:30 am to get ready for the training we were doing.  We had all 40+ teachers come so that we could give vision to the 6 week curriculum.  Shawn did an excellent job helping the teachers to see that the 6 week program isn't just a language program.  It's to help the missionaries to fullfil their purpose of helping others come unto Christ in Spanish.  The teachers had some great insights into what it means to fulfill the purpose.  After, Lane did the first day welcome with Mauri.  It was so fun to watch the teachers learn a new language in that language.  Hopefully they were able to feel what a missionary might feel their first day being immersed in the language.  They saw that it can be fun and positive even though it is hard.  Shawn and Lane then took them through language study plans and a brief overview of coaching in the language.  We had an amazing lunch with the teachers after and then me with President and Sister Pratt, Javier, Isaac, Nancy, Omar, and Hugo to discuss schedules, etc.  We were having trouble getting TALL working because of firewalls, but the MTC was working on getting that fixed before the missionaries come.  The Pratt's took us to the Parilla Danes for some yummy tacos.  We have more training tomorrow with just the 10 teachers who will be working with the two north american districts we are bringing down this week.

(I didn't take this picture, but I get to look at this temple every day)

My New Home (for now)

I made it into Mexico City Thursday night and two of the the supervisors at the MTC were there to greet me and bring me to my new apartment.  The MTC was kind enough to get it ready for me.

My living room/kitchen

The ginormous fruit basket-so delicious!

My bedroom

The beautiful flowers with a card to greet me.  And yes, they are real.

I feel so welcome and at home here.  It's strange that it feels so normal to be here.  My apartment is in a little complex with the senior couples called to the temple.  Visitor Center sisters used to live here, but the visitor center has been closed for a couple years for renovation.  We live just across the street from temple square (the temple, the MTC, distribution, cafeteria, and a chapel).
Friday I was at the MTC from 8am-8pm seeing how everything is run.  Omar has been my guide and is always making sure I've got everything I need.  He is the morning/afternoon teacher supervisor and has been a teacher for 2 years.  The MTC is small but nice.  The teachers are incredible!  They do it all-teaching, training, in-field day, supervise gym, etc.  There are just under 80 missionaries in this group.  They all leave Monday.
President and Sister Pratt (MTC President) are wonderful.  What a blessing they are for the MTC.  And turns out their son is who hired me as a teacher at the MTC years ago.  What a small world!  Sister Pratt was telling me about how she doesn't really understand why, but there are always fireworks and cannons going off in this neighborhood.  Boy was she right.  Every night since I've been here there have been fireworks and even yesterday and today during the day it sounds like cannons going off.  Today was also complete with a band.  I'm not sure if a parade was going on up the street, or just music.

This is what it sounded like from my living room

Shawn and Lane fly in early tomorrow morning and we start training the teachers on the 6 week curriculum.  We'll train all the teachers tomorrow morning for 4 hours and then Tuesday morning we'll do another 4 hours with just the 8 teachers that will work with the 2 north american districts arriving Tuesday night.  They are all excited and will be great.  These teachers sacrifice a lot to work here.  Some of them travel up to 2 hours each way just to be with the missionaries.  You can tell that this is much more than just a job for them.  I'm excited to learn from them.
I went to church today at the chapel adjacent to the temple.  What a great ward.  The talks were fantastic and the Spirit strong.  Hopefully I'll get to know a lot of the members before we move up to Benemerito in 5 or 6 weeks.

My Mexican Kiesta

My wonderful family threw me a Kiesta (pronounced Shiesta) since I'm moving to Mexico.  Mike did an amazing job with decorations and Erin, my parents, and the Roundy's brought great food.  Such a fun day complete with pinata!

She claps

Introducing Tim to the pinata

Los tres hermanos