God qualifies those whom He calls--District Leader

letter #1 (in Mexico MTC)
August 26, 2013

 I have needed to ask Heavenly Father for help so much this past week because I am the one, from my district, that knows the most spanish.... My district has 12 people and all of us got here last tuesday evening and 10 of us are leaving for Texas Houston East the same day, and the other two leave for Nicaragua that day :) I have a feeling I will know a few people in my mission :P 

 On the second day of actually being at the MTC (which is actually the CCM--pronounced say-say-emmay--Centro de Compacitacion Misional México), which was Thursday of last week, we met with our new branch presidency. They brought each of us in for an "interview" which was really just us bearing our testimonies. I bore my entire testimony in spanish, okay, two words were in English, but that doesn't matter. I was called back in again, after everyone was done, and they asked me to be the District Leader...I had no idea what i had just been assigned to do, but its nice to know that everyone in my district looks up to me :) I am already our language teacher's favorite and he also has asked me to help the others learn spanish...gulp...that scared me, but I know God qualifies those whom He calls, so I have faith.

1) Mom, a ton of people arrived on Tuesday and then the Hispanics(native speaking missionaries) arrived on Wednesday.  We have two native speakers in our dorm. I actually talked to them a little when we first met them. I felt the earthquake on wednesday, when i was doing my personal study in the morning on my bed, my companion was standing up and didn't feel it, but he is from Utah, so I don't expect him to know exactly what an earthquake feels like :P

2) our teacher Hermano Cruz immerses us in as much spanish as he can during class, but I can't really communicate, using spanish, with my companion yet because he knew exactly 2 phrases in spanish when he arrived here, Hola and Adiós...I have been helping him learn Spanish. By now we have talked a bunch to the Hispanics because they are awesome and i help the others communicate with them.. We have even played football with them (like fútbol or football to any other country, not american football)

3) Teaching was really difficult the first time (the 3rd day we were here...last friday. :/) because my companion cant speak much spanish and we didnt know how to prepare well... We have taught 5 lessons in spanish now.  We practice our spanish lessons with a mock investigator who 'had a desire to get closer to God'. we arent meeting with him anymore because, starting tomorrow, he will be one of our teachers, but during the lessons, especially when my companion and i are bearing our testimonies, i felt the spirit so strongly :)

4) there are 6 people in our little apartment, but there are 3 rooms, one for each companionship

5) to be honest, I have no idea what kind of food they are feeding us... they usually have a dessert type thing and one time it was the texture of jello/pudding, yes that is not a normal texture, it was like pudding, but held more of its shape like jello... they have no syrup, they only have flavored syrups and jam and i want syrup for the times they give us mexican pancakes and waffles :) And idk who said that id get fat off of mexican sweet bread, but now i know why they said that, it is AMAZING!!

Padre, mis primeros días en México son muy bien y yo sé que el Espíritu está en el CCM. Me gusta el CCM porque yo aprendí muchas palabras a cerca del Evangelio y yo tengo un compañero muy bien. yo pienso que los primeros días son muy díficil.

México es muy bien! is verano weather? THE WEATHER IS GREAT! even better than California :P it is the perfect temperature all the time here, there are no bugs and it rains every couple of days. in fact right now it is about 70 degrees, like always.

 On Saturday or Sunday, I was writing in my journal and without thinking about it, i thought of every word i was going to write in spanish, and then I had to really concentrate on writing english, instead of spanish...it was weird...

We were able to attend the temple today, and I was thinking about you all.  I love you guys,  and
am thankful that the temple is where families can remain as families for eternity.  A blessing brought about because of the restoration of the Gospel and God's priesthood.

Scott