The CCM is the greatest! (5-20-14)

I know I've only been at the CCM for a week, but it feels like I've been here for a lot longer than that. The days are way long, but so great! At the CCM everyone lives in casas. They are basically like houses with four rooms but we don't use the kitchen or the living room. There are two rooms of native speaking Hermanas in our casa and they are so nice! we´ve already learned a lot of Spanish from them because they only speak Spanish. There are two other Hermanas in the room with Hermana Olsen and I (Hermana Spencer and Hermana Mortenson). All four of us are in the same district. We have a companionship of three elders in our district also. Basically, I love our district a lot. Our teachers are Hermano Silva and Hermano Contrera. We have learned a ton of Spanish already. It´s funny how I´ll wonder what a word is and somehow it will pop into my mind. I guess there is more of that middle and high school spanish left in my head than I thought!

We´ve already taught our investigator three times! His name is Hugo and even though I don´t think we´re supposed to know, we´re pretty sure he is a teacher at the CCM. It is really cool though that we can still teach by the spirit. I think one of my favorite lessons (even though it wasn´t our best language wise) was our second lesson when Hermana Olsen and I had a whole lesson prepared and when we went to teach Hugo, we realized that that wasn´t the lesson we were supposed to teach and changed our lesson completely. My view of missionary work has changed a lot since before I came here. Everything we teach is based on what the investigator needs to come closer to Christ. We rely so much on the spirit and Heavenly Father because A) our Spanish is still pretty terrible B) we can´t convince people of anything, the Spirit needs to do that and C) only Heavenly Father knows what these people need and what he wants them personally to know.

I love my name tag! It´s funny because I am already pretty used to being called Hermana Lee. The other day I was telling a story and said my first name and Hermana Spencer was like "that´s the first time I´ve heard you say your first name!" Also, the first time we all taught our investigators, I guess we were all pretty stressed because I called Hermana Olsen "Hermana Spencer" and then when we had our investigator say the closing prayer he called her Hermana Spencer haha. Oops. Also, Hermana Mortenson apparently was talking about the Atonement and called sins (pecados) fish (pescados) haha. That one is still one of my favorite stories.

Oh! and they gave us a water bottle with a filtered straw. It is pretty much my favorite thing ever. Also, we started playing signs with our district for FHE. I didn´t use to be a huge fan of signs to be honest, but our zone makes it so fun! There is so much more to say but I don´t have a ton of time. I´ll email again next week! I love you all and hope you are doing well! I pray for you everyday!

Hermana Lee

p.s. Here are some pictures from today! Sorry some of them are sideways... I don't have enough time to rotate them! Let me know if you can't see them. The first one is Hermana Olsen and I in front of our casa. One of them is of our district. I also threw in a couple of the classic pointing at the map and standing in front of the CCM sign. You can see part of Mexico City on the mountain with the B. The B used to stand for the name of the school, but now it stands for either Baptism or Best MTC ever haha.