CCM- Week 1

Hi! I'm doing well, finally survived a week. So I will start from the beginning, going through customs in Mexico took forever and it rains a lot here. At the airport we were rolling our suitcases to get to the bus, and at one part we had to get them up this escalator ramp thing; imagine the moving sidewalks at the airport, but this is going uphill, not good for rolling suitcases. And driving through Mexico is scary, not that many red lights and people just walk into the street. It's funny you ask anyone here how was the ride here was and there faces are all the same. I am living in a apartment and there are three rooms to a apartment. My companion is Elder Schwartz, seems nice but makes Lunden look like a Olympic athlete, its funny:) . He took three years of French and does not speak any Spanish so I have been having to teach him. The entrance to the CCM (Mexico City MTC) we went through was a side entrance. We crossed a bridge over some water so it looked like a moat it was cool. We couldn't use the main entrance because they are building a few guard towers there first, which apparently comes standard with places here, nice... the apartments are nice, they have locking closets, so that's nice to have. The other people in the apartment are Elder Baum and Elder Eisenhut, they are awesome and we are friends, we also have two native speakers Elder Ailgular and Elder Flores, I'm understanding them better and they are pretty funny. Day 2 was the longest day ever! so many meetings, I think it was the hardest day, the weather has been nice here, rains at 5pm everyday and the flocks of wild parrots overhead are cool to see. An Elder found a kitten! He named it Mittens, it made my day! Everyday it gets better here, in my district there is me, Elder Schwartz, Elder Baum, Elder Eisenhut, Elder Stevens, Elder Steggmiller, Elder Cannon, Elder McCall, and Hermana (Sister) Paligrio, Hermana Powell (she left on day 6 due to stress and other problems:(  ) Hermana Hershey and another Hermana, I can't think of here name right now, everyone is so nice. It is very smoggy here you can see it in the air. We get up at 6 every morning and go back to our rooms at 9:30 at night its a long day. When a wore by blue tie, I got 11 compliments on it :) . Throughout the day you always here explosion noises, the leaders tell us it is the locals setting off fireworks to celebrate their saints, but its probably gunshots, there is a lot of them and they are very loud. At night we can hear dogs and music from parties people are having, so that's what we do at night; listen to the music and talk with the Spanish Elders, they are very funny! Elder Agulair can speak enough English where Elder Baum, Eisenhut, and I and can talk to him in a mix of Spanish and English. One of our conversations went like this- Elder Agulair was asking me if the Civil War was real and we told him it was. So then he asked are all Americans racist? So we explained to him that there are some but most of us are not. He then said "Why in all our movies does the Mexican die first?" So I had to explain to him that it is the black guy first and then if there is a Asian, he dies next, its never the white guy. It was a funny night! Everyone is my district is awesome, Elder Steggmiller and I can talk about physics, chemistry, Montaigne, Hegal, the properties of light, quantum mechanics, and various philosophies, finally some one I can talk to! Hermana Paligrio is very interesting, she doesn't know how to pronounce her last name, she is Italian, Hawaiian, Native American,.... and peaks 4 languages fluently. She even speaks Arabic which I am jealous of. She knew the Italian Mafia, does parkcore, and started her own business- like I said she's interesting. The 28th is a day I think I will always remember, this is one of those stories.... So it all happened at 3 in the morning. Elder Baum and Elder Eisenhut were already sick, but at three in the morning, Elder Eisenhut went into the bathroom and fainted because he was so sick and hit his head falling, so he woke up covered in blood. He went to go get Elder Baum. Elder Baum gets out of bed to help him when he feels that he has to throw up, so he stumbles to the toilet. At which point I wake up to him throwing up. I go out of my room to see what looks like a murder scene, the two Spanish Elders are dragging Eisenhut out the door to get him to the infirmary because he can no longer walk and he's bleeding, so I look in the bathroom to find blood on the counter and floor and Elder Baum is passed out on the floor who also can not walk or move much now. So I send Elder Schwartz to go find people to help me carry Elder Baum to the infirmary, Elder Baum is 6'1'' and 190lb. He is a big guy. So there is no way I could move him on my own. Finally Schwartz comes back with two other people and a wheelchair. We put him in the wheelchair and carry him downstairs (we live on the second floor). They went to the hospital 20 min away, but they came back at the end of the day feeling a lot better. Elder Eisenhut has a little bald spot on his head now where he got stitches. Everyday we teach in Spanish to a pretend investigator named Alexa. So far she has accepted the invitation to be baptized, so we must be doing something right. Yesterday, Elder Schwartz got sick with a stomach virus, so we spent the day in the apartment, I finally had time to iron everything. It's been nice, the other elders and I in our district go to the gym everyday and its been fun. I did my wash today! Took a little while to figure out everything but it's all done now. We played soccer- foreign vs/ the native speakers, they won. Been having a lot more time now. I got the package, love the Gatorade! Thank you! and Matt. 17:20 is the scripture I want on my plaque- grain of a mustard seed! Learning lots of Spanish. I miss you all and I like the book of letters. I'm sending you some pictures to! With the pictures, I don't really know how to send them that well, but it should be the first picture that you see. I don't know if pictures that I didn't take that are on the computer from before though. Also the pictures won't fit on one email so I might send some emails with just pictures.