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.

First Week

First week was absolutely crazy!!  So the first day I didn't even have a companion, haha I got here and was all alone in the room, eventually at like 11.00 I went  to tell the reception desk and of course I was completely lost. On the bright side I meet a lot of the workers that are now friends, and I used way more Spanish that I thought I would have on the first night. So that entire next day I was just alone because my companion never showed up to the CCM. 

Eventually I found my companion and it all worked out. He is a really cool guy!  His name is Elder Williams and we laugh all the time. I honestly have the best district in the CCM. So I got made a District leader on my first day which was crazy! like I still had no clue what was going on but we were in charge of everyone in our district. But then on my 5th day I got made Zone Leader!!!! like that was so out of the blue!

We got close with the old Zone Leaders heading out and asked a million questions because we are so new to everything. He heard that we needed to work with some other district leaders because they are too rowdy and don't like to work much, which would be no big deal talking to them if they weren't already here for 5 weeks and we were called instead of them after only 5 days. Its not the biggest deal in the world to be a Zone leader but basically I'm in charge of like 100 people that have all been here longer than me....on the bright side I get to assign lessons and stuff on Sundays... Plus we have to sit up at the pulpit on Sunday meetings too which is a little weird. The best part about this calling is that we get to assign the sacrament talks and no one knows that we do. haha kinda funny being able to assign them and they have no idea they are giving one until the actual meeting (everyone has to prepare a talk but no one knows until right before if they are talking or not. ) I'm honestly loving it here, its such  a great experience.  We are learning so much so fast.  I kinda wish I had more time to reflect here but its ok. Our schedules are super packed. But that's OK because I'm having tons of fun, Like I said, my district are all super cool guys. Like honestly I would hang out with them if I had meet them back in the states.

 Kinda weird thinking I'm not living there anymore. The food here is pretty good which is nice, but everyone older keeps telling us that it will get old. I totally keep forgetting that everyone that's been here longer than me isn't really older. Like they just seem so much more intelligent and confident after a couple weeks in this place. Honestly this MTC (CCM) is huge! like me and an Elder went for a run around the outside border and like 2 laps in we were dead.  The perimeter is huge!

 My Spanish is actually pretty good,  I totally surprised myself by how good I ended up being. I know I need to be humble about it haha but I am honestly as good as most of the older kids. The only one better than me in my district is my companion (but he took 6 years of Spanish so I don't count it) ;) I don't really have much stress or anything like that. I kinda expected it but it all turned out good. We teach our fake investigators every day and it goes pretty well I guess. The language barrier is hard but I am getting there. Its so crazy how much Spanish I have leaned in just one week!!! I can say full prayers and teach lessons without needing to memorize lines or anything anymore!  Super excited to see how much I will improve by next week.

We are the largest missionary group the CCM has ever had! Like even my flight here had 110 missionaries on it!! It was so cool we all sang called to serve right before we landed. The spirit is so strong here!!

Elder Stidham

Flying to Mexico City's Missionary Training Center

My friends Don Nay and Scott Stewart were working Zack's flight to Mexico City.  They took great care of him!  They gave him a first class seat and made him feel so special!
It was amazing to see that this flight was almost all missionaries.  One hundred and ten missionaries on one flight!  Zack said as they landed in Mexico the missionaries spontaneously started singing Called To Serve.

Temple Endowment Day

Salt Lake Temple