Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 1

Hey! Sounds like you guys had an awesome time on the fourth of July. On our Fourth of July everyone in our district and the district right next to us stood up and sang the national anthem to a American flag patterned scarf. So that was pretty fun. The natives thought we were kind of weird though. They also gave us American food on the Fourth of July: Root beer and hamburgers.

I´m going to try to be more creative in my adjective choice for describing my week than Hal and Courtney.

So this week was really Spanish. I had a great time. There were 7 missionaries on my flight from Atlanta to Mexico City. I actually knew one of them from when he was in my EFY group in normal: Elder Thomson. He had actually shown up late and was running to get on but I was surprised and happy to see him. He´ll be going Spanish speaking to the Provo, Utah Mission. I got through immigration okay but since there was a big group of missionaries and  was last ´m pretty sure the lady stopped caring once she got to me. Once we came out of immigration there were some people waiting for us to bring us to the CCM. They were so awesome they were trying to speak english with us because they knew that we didn´t know Spanish. They were so happy and they loved making jokes so that was awesome. 

Mexico City is so beautiful. When we were flying over it I was amazed at how huge it was. The city just extends on for seemingly ever across hills and valleys. They took us on a bus from the airport to the CCM. The city is so beautiful with all the houses being brightly colored and compact. Driving in Mexico city is awesome. I don´t think I´ve ever seen so many cars so close together moving so quickly. It was about a 45 minute drive. 

When we showed up at the CCM we went into the Thomas S. Monson building for our orientation. They reviewed our vaccine records and a few of us elders had to get another tetanus shot. But the nurse gave me a little fun size chocolate bar so that was good. There were 4 elders with me when we arrived and we´re all in the same house. We walked around trying to find everything our first day. A lot of people had told me that there was going to be a lot to do on the first day but I guess at this MTC they didn´t have anything for us to do our first day other than orientation and then at night a devotional. There was a maintenance man and one of the elders asked if it was okay to drink the tap water in the CCM. He told us " No, your estomach explode". 

The devotional was by the person who is in charge of all of the MTC´s worldwide. He showed us pictures of all of them and some of the things they were planning on doing. He told us that the CCM is the best MTC. The CCM is the biggest MTC in acres and we have fewer missionaries than Provo so that´s awesome. 

When we got back to the house all the elders that were arriving later in the day were there. My Companion is Elder Creager. He´s super awesome. We´re both really determined to learn Spanish. We study a lot and try to use Spanish with whoever we can. We´re rooming with Elder Widney and Elder Pippert. I´m really glad I got put with these elders as well. Behind our house beyond the CCM wall there´s what looks to be a 4 giant lego arms sticking up out of the ground and we were all theorizing on what it could be but Elder Widney said that it looks like a dead robot cat laying on its back so we´ve just taken to calling it "El Gato Robot".

My Spanish is coming along well. I´ve been trying to listen to the native speakers and i´ve been surprised that I was able to generally understand what they were talking about. "Generally understanding" meaning being able to pick up a few words and guess what they´re probably saying. I feel like I´ve learned more Spanish than I did in the 2 years in Spanish. The teachers speak slowly with us so I´ts easier to understand what they´re saying. 

They really do just drop you into speaking the language here. On our second day they had us teaching lessons with a pretend investigator entirely in Spanish. My first Lesson I brought in 4 pages of notes. I don´t think i would´ve been able to say much more than "¿Como esta?" or "¿Empmizamos con un oración?". If I didn´t have notes. I even had notes on how to pray in Spanish. Yesterday we gave our 5th lesson and I was able to go in with just my Spanish scriptures and a pamphlet to give him. That lesson wen´t well, I´m sure i made grammatical mistakes but it was okay, we were still able to get our message across. I was really excited after that lesson.

Adapting to missionary life is kinda weird. Thinking things like "I only have an hour a day to read my scriptures in English" is weird relative to life before going on a mission. I think a lot of missionaries here have seen "the other side of heaven" because a lot are trying to just learn Spanish by reading back and forth out of their English and Spanish scriptures during language study. I guess if that works for them, that´s good. They gave us 4 books that explain all the grammar and a list of all the most important vocabulary so I´ve just been using those. 

The view from the CCM is beautiful being surrounded with mountains and houses on the sides. It´s even more beautiful at night. The Weather has been amazing this week, We play volleyball every day in gym. Elder Creager and I haven´t been bitten by mosquitoes yet but others have, Elder Creager theorizes that it´s because we drink a glass of orange juice at every meal. I´m not so sure about that but whatever it is, its working. 

I´m out of time, talk to you guys in a week. Spanish keyboards have ñ.

love, tyler