Buenos Dias o Buenas Tardes Familia,
Hope you've all had a great week. It just seems like a few days ago when I wrote to you all. I honestly can't believe I've been out for 5 weeks. Time flies by so fast. I have a lot I want to say and I don't even know how to begin.
I'Il start with Spanish. My Spanish is doing pretty well. I've learned so much here at the CCM. My vocabulary has improved both conversationally and especially with church words. I love speaking Spanish, but at the CCM it's not as easy because the majority of us are Americans who speak English most of the time. The last two weeks, however, is only Spanish. Some days and conversations are harder than others, but I can't wait to speak it fluently.
Friday night, after dinner, my companions and I were walking outside to go back to class. Somehow I lost track of them and we went different directions. Right before stepping outside of the cafeteria I heard an Elder say "Hey Joe". It had been the first time someone had called me by my first name. I turned around and to my surprise I saw Grant McGregor. We talked for a few short minutes before I had to go. He has a few more weeks left before he goes to Chile Santiago. I was so happy to see someone I recognized and knew. Also that night it rained terribly. You can expect thunder and lightning pretty much every night. If you even thought about going outside without an umbrella, you were going to get soaked. And when you're wearing a white shirt, it doesn't look all that great when you can see right through everything. Haha. Some times there can be a few inches of rain on the streets. Those are some of the best nights.
A week or two ago, elder Mazaleyrat was brushing his teeth and, I must have said something funny because he accidentally spat(sprayed) toothpaste on my suit jacket and pants. We tried getting it out, but had no luck. Along with that, two of my other pants had a small rip in them. One of them I had only worn once. Now, not only did I have one pair to repair, but now a second. I looked down at my pants and said "seriously", like the kid inventor off the Ellen Show. Luckily at the CCM they have a place to dry clean and sew. I took them in and it costed me 210 pesos or 13 bucks. Super cheap and they did a great job on all of them. Now I don't even know where the rip is at. Haha.
We have been teaching Dayana and Raul (our teachers) pretty much every day. In the beginning or for the first few weeks, we had a lesson prepared and then we would write down what we each wanted to say. Like literally write down the sentences. We did this because at the time because we didn't have a lot of vocabulary nor sentence structure. However, the last two weeks, I don't believe I have taken any notes to our lessons. It can be difficult sometimes, but the investigator(our teacher) always corrects us if we didn't know a word. We have definitely been better about working together as a companionship in all things. Elder Hilton and Mazaleyrat are great guys and I'm going to miss them a lot as well as my district.
Some parts of the CCM were long, hard, and slow. I honestly thought spending 6 weeks was going to be super tough. I now reflect back on my first week here and have no idea where the time went. Studying all day, with minimal exercise time was difficult for me, especially because I like staying active. But somehow the days went by so fast and before I knew it, I was eating dinner. Each night when I wrote In my journal, it felt like I had already written in my journal 10 minutes ago. So crazy. The MTC presidency here are super cool and kind. I loved going to the Tuesday and Sunday Devotionals with them.
Unfortunately I won't get my flight plans from the Reception until this evening. I have been asked to be the Travel Leader for one Hermana who is going to Yakima who will be on all the same flights. So at least I'm not by myself. They did send me an email two weeks ago about my flight stuff, but nothing different than what we knew before I left. I will forward that email to dad, but for everyone else here's what I know.
- I leave Monday October 22nd for my flight from Mexico to Dallas Texas.
- My flight leaves at 8 AM, so I will have to get up super early.
- Once I land in Dallas I'll have about 30 minutes before I board again.
- From Dallas I will fly to Seattle, which is about a 4 hour flight.
- There I have roughly a 2 hour layover, which is when I can call home.
- Then I'll take a 40 min flight from Seattle to Yakima and land around 6pm.
Well I can't wait to be in Yakima. I will miss the CCM a lot and the many friends I've made. I can't wait to Facetime and hear from you all. I'm getting excited just thinking about It. Thanks so much Bailey and Jimmy for letters. I loved them.
I love and miss you all so so much.
Elder Nissinen.
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