Dear Mom,
The Spanish keyboards are interesting to type on. All of the punctuation marks are in different places. And some of the letters.
Soooo, my luggage got here after a two days. Some people on my plane (*cough *cough the hermanas in my district) had extra heavy bags so the plane had to leave some bags behind. However, I was able to make it off what I had in my carry-ons. The CCM president's wife was able to help my find toiletries and stuff that I had packed in my luggage. Both the mission president and his wife are really nice. The toughest about the CCM has been that everything is in Spanish. Everything. Signs, handouts, scriptures, janitors. There are all Spanish and no English. On the first day, there was orientation for the newbies. They sat us down in a room and gave us instructions on how to make our beds and take care of the bathrooms, in Spanish, and then expected us to know what to do. Fortunately, the janitors are really nice when they lock the room to your door for not following all of the housekeeping rules. All you have to do is ask for forgiveness and then attempt to decipher what they want you to do. Es bueno.
our classes are in Spanish, too. My districts two instructors speak English fairly well but the do not use it much in class. As a result there are many hand gestures and confused faces. I am grateful to have worked with Latinos while working with Pratt. Although I can't understand everything, I comprehend much more than the North Americans that haven't taken spanish classes. On Saturday (day three) we started teaching fake investigators. And yes, it was all in Spanish. The practice lessons are called I.P. My companion (Elder Pratt) and I had a terrible first lesson. We didn't expect much more but it felt awful to be sitting in a room with someone and not being able to teach them. As the week went on, we did improve but there is still much for us to learn. We pray for the gift of lenguas (tongues in english?) every day.
The plane ride was not too bad. I sat next to some nice ladies from Atlanta on my way to the Atlanta airport. They werent interested in the BoM but I was able to give them some pass along cards with the men's chorus album on it. They were excited to get free hymns! At the CCM, there is NO MUSIC ALLOWED!!! Si!!! Es loco. Pero the president says it must be so. Apparently, some elders before us played music too loud that was inappropriate. Ah. They were probably the same elders that made it so we cannot take pictures. Yep, no pictures until your last week at the CCM. The Latinos can take pictures and we took a few before we were told about the rule. I'll try and find those and send them.
My district has been the biggest blessing so far. There are eleven of us (three hermanas and eight elders). When we came, there were twelve of us but on Elder went home. I hope that no one else has to leave. We became close so quickly. I am surprised how much going through the same trials unites a group. I love all of the members of my district. It is a little difficult to be with Elder Pratt all of the time. I frequently forget that I need him to come with me everywhere and will just walk out of class without him. I'll get used to it. Elder Pratt gets very concerned when I suggest not teaching every gospel principle in the exact order that they appear in in PMG. We work it out, though. Elder Pratt is a very good elder. He desires to be exactly obedient and is a good reminder to me that we need to follow all the rules, even the ones we don't understand.
My district has already had great spiritual experiences. As district leader, I've been able to teach the elders how to give blessings. We gave one of the Hermanas a blessing on Sunday. When Elder Bellus (pronounced Bae-juice by our district and the Argentino) started giving the blessing, we all felt the Spirit very strongly. It was good.
The food here is gooooood. We have beef for almost every meal. The most common dinner is a GIANT piece of steak with a few fries and maybe some rice on the side. I'm not sure if it will be like this in the field but if it is I will be really happy.
At the CCM, there are 8 districts, 3 North American and 5 Latino. In one of the other NA districts there is a kid, Elder Priebe, who was in my chem class at BYU. There is also a girl, Hermana Kelson, that I met at BYU but haven't been able to figure out where. We frequently interact with the Latino district. I like it because it gives us many chances to use the spanish we are learning. Two of my roommates are Latino, one from Columbia the other from Chile. We talk for 20 or 30 minutes every night in Spanglish.
One of my other roommates is exactly what I imagine Dad was like as an 18-year-old: beefy, tall, played defensive end, social personality, a little fiery at times, and a very strong testimony of the simple points of the gospel. I told him this on the first day. However, on day three my mind was blow away. Elder Larsen (the guy that reminds me of Dad) opened up his locker and had a poem taped to the back of the door. Can you guess what poem...?
YES!!! That's it. It's the race poem that dad ALWAYS quotes. I could not believe it. He said a friend gave it to him and that he finds it very inspirational. Haha, what could be next? Maybe this week I will find out that Elder Larsen has great dance moves, too. I'll let you know if any other similarities pop up.
We are going to the temple this afternoon (in spanish). I'll report on that next week.
This is for Andrew: they have things here called bidets. The look like toilets and act as substitutes for toilet paper. I have not used one yet. That challenge is for week three. There are couple funny challanges that Elders do here. An Elder in my district is doing the coco puffs challange. 100 bowls of coco puffs in 6 weeks.
It's great to hear from home. Since we have such limited time to email, we get to print off the emails we receive and read them during the week. Familia, if you email me, I will read your emails this week and respond next week. I love you guys! Sadie, I hope steel drum band is going well. If you can, please send pictures. Right now, that seems to be the fastest way from me to see how things are going and share them with my district.
Yo se que El Libro de Mormon es la verdad. (more to come next week)
With love,
Elder Smith
