Mexican Independence

They go hard in the CCM!  Seriously though they decorated the entire place for Friday night. We kinda celebrated all day but not much. The food was amazing on Mexican Independence! They defiantly spoiled us. That night we got to watch this big performance they had for us. The dancers were super good and it just never ended. 

The food here is good in my opinion, but most people hate it... its free ish food and I'm not one to complain. But don't get me wrong, theres not much I wouldn't do for my moms cooking right now!

The weeks are going faster and faster. We just lost 2 districts form my zone which stinks cuz I really liked the guys in their districts, but that also means I'm getting two more districts and am hoping they are cool cuz my zone leader "job" will be a lot less fun if they are not haha. 

I'm loving learning the language! I'm not great yet. perro yo estoy aprendando poco a poco. I'm so excited to get out of here and face the real stuff though! but at the same time it will be hard to leave my district, I honestly thought I would hate being stuck with them for 6 strait weeks but its turned out to be a huge blessing!

This Sunday was the best one yet by far!! We get to assign the talks in secret which is fun, so this week we assigned Elder Summers, Elder Anderson, and Elder Bailey (they all were from Utah) they are a trio companionship but are all crazy athletes and spiritual giants. Having them talk was so cool and spiritual! Plus I actually understood everything that was said. Then for devotionals we watched talks by David A. Bednar and Jeffry R. Holland. They were actually very savage but their message was very clear and direct. I defiantly have a ton of things I want to change this week.

My companion is Tyler Williams.  He is from Indiana and loves to sing. He danced in high school too. He is a super happy and loud guy. He kinda reminds me of Max. We have fun together and host a big party in our room every night where all the guys come over and we have some fun until 10:15

The movie nights here really make me think of home and our Sunday movie night tradition

les amo familia

These are the two districts that just left.  Gonna miss these clowns a lot! (my companion is the one in the pink striped tie)

Totally forgot to tell about the funniest thing that happened this week... so my district is full of super good missionaries and every time we see a beautiful girl we all just say "Did you guys see that they have Pineapple today?" its actually super funny cuz Elder Saylors struggles really bad with not looking and its super funny to watch.

3 Apostles on week 3

We got to listen to M. Russell Ballard, Quinton L. Cook, and Todd D. Christofferson talk live from Provo! My favorite quote form the talks is "Faith is a reward of obedience. Learn to jump out of bed each morning with excitement and enthusiasm. Saying, "we have one more great day to testify of Jesus Christ!"" haha so now I wake up every morning (to what my companion calls the "scary alarm" it literally wakes up everyone in the building) and yell super loud. I find it hilarious, but some of them don't  (shout out to Elder Horton for being on TV throughout the world, he was on the live broadcast screen a couple times close up)

So I guess I haven't talked about any of the people here that I already knew. Evan White was here 2 weeks ago and I saw him first day which was so nice seeing someone I knew. Christian Paul is here too but I don't see him much. Brock Dillon just left this week, but I was his zone leader so I got to see and talk to him every day which was super cool. Scott Koch just got here a week ago and he is in my zone too! Its so nice having a friend that I knew before in my zone!

Thought Journal: 

"Whats the reason you came on a mission?" "I just wanted to have sleepovers"

"Wait.... We don't Believe in Polygamy anymore??"

(having a group conversation) "Mexico is like a mix of the U.S. and South America!" "yeah, its kinda like the bridge between the two" (teacher walks over) "what about the wall?" 

I love my teachers so much, they are both natives and one doesn't speak good English which is probably a good thing for our learning but its so had sometimes too. Our week has become mostly a routine thing. We have like 5 hours in the class room in the morning, lunch, gym, 3 more hours of class, dinner, and then 3 more hours of class.  We have fun and all but I never realized how close I am to being ADD, I have the hardest time sitting down for so long.

Teaching investigators is hard in a different language but its actually been the most helpful thing I've done here. They are really just your teachers pretending to be someone they know but we really throw ourselves into preparing the lessons so it almost feels real. My Spanish vocab definitely hit a Plateau this week, but my pronunciation is getting better every day so no complaints here.

OH I don't think I've talked about how much better I've gotten at ping-pong this last week! like you don't understand how bad I sucked when I got here. I guess the Lord blesses you in all areas while in the service ;) we play a ton of ultimate Frisbee here too, which is nice because I  finally have a way to burn out all of the energy I build up throughout the day. 

Sorry for not sharing many pictures.

I

I don't take many... but here is me and Elder Sailors being good missionaries waiting for our time to start while everyone else is writing already.

Les amo!

Semana Dos

This week has been a complete blur.  But its also been super good!   So much happens here every day.  Gym time has honestly been my survival this week. Well gym time and the random 200 or more push ups me and a couple elders do every day. One of our goals or metas this week was only talking in Spanish for the entire day. Every time you spoke English you had to do 5 push ups. Me and elder Thomson (he went to Davis if anyone knows Erick Thomson) decided to do 5 for any English that was spoken. So on the bright side I look super good ;)

haha so I bought one of those one piece Gs and wore it as a joke in my building and everyone laughed supper hard for like 30 minutes making jokes about it (it may or may not be an xs and super tight on me haha) 

I started a Thought Journal this week and I just write everything funny that happens in it. I will definitely have to expand on that next week but I'm out of time already.  One thought that is appropriate at least was. 'Dust me in strawberries and call me Breakfast.'

Sorry if I didn't get around to writing you but I'm super short on time again. 

les amo 

--

Elder Stidham

Life is good in the ccm.

 Got to go to the temple twice since I wrote last. But I dont think I get to

 go again until Ecuador.