Week Four at the CCM

¡Hola mi familia y mis amigos!

I am almost two-thirds done with the CCM! I feel like I've only been here a week, but it's been almost a month! In less than three weeks, I will be heading to Provo, Utah, and actually start doing mission work.

I actually have a few pictures of the temple this week:

Like I said last time, it's pretty square, both on the inside and the outside. I think it's cool because it's very different from what you normally see. Even the chandeliers and things inside tend to be less round and more angular. It's also very three-dimensional. Everything has depth. All the decorations have some kind of depth to them, and I think it looks really nice. We had a great experience, and it was cool to see everything in Spanish. The only downside is that, because we're in the heart of Mexico City, it takes almost an hour to get there and at least an hour to get back! All in all, the trip takes around 5-6 hours! It's worth it, though.

I'm starting to learn some of the hymns in Spanish now. The only ones I really know well right now are Jesús es mi luz (the Lord is my Light) and Para siempre Dios esté con Vos (God be with you till we meet again). It's pretty interesting to see some of the translations. Some of them are nearly word for word, but most of the time, they're more of a translation of meaning. That means that you can't always translate directly from one language to the other.

We didn't really do anything special for Valentine's Day. In Spanish, they call it El Día de Amor y Amistad, or the day of love and friendship. Nothing super special at the CCM, although there were a couple people in our district who gave us Hershey Kisses.

This week we heard about some tile in the CCM somewhere that you can flip over and sign. Apparently, the bottom of the tile is signed by some past missionaries. I don't know where it is, or if it's even real, but we've kind of been looking for it. We did find one tile that we could flip over, but it didn't have any signatures, so we signed it.

I don't think I mentioned this yet, but we finished teaching our first fake "investigator" and now we have two different ones to teach. It's much more difficult when we have to prepare two lessons for people with different needs. Not only that, but now we each have to create an investigator for people in our district to teach. Each companionship teaches two other missionaries as their investigators, meaning we have four different people to teach! We've only taught one other missionary so far. It was Hermana Bradshaw, who was playing Rosa, who just wants to know more about the church because her friend is on a mission. Our "investigators" are supposed to be based on people we know. Mine is based on a girl I knew in school who occasionally asked questions about the church. She also used to have a boyfriend who was a member. Several of us changed the gender of our investigator to match us. I haven't had a chance to be my investigator (Javier) yet, but I think it will be fun.

Almost all of the buildings here are named after the presidents of the Church. Our classroom is in the Wilford Woodruff building. The Joseph Smith building is the reception, the Thomas S. Monson building is a three-story office building, George Albert Smith is a chapel, and Gordon B. Hinckley is an auditorium and gym. I think Spencer W. Kimball is something, too, but I'm not sure what. The rest are full of classrooms. Outside the Spencer W. Kimball,there's a big stone head:​​

I don't really know why it's there, but it looks pretty cool.

My companion apparently has seven different girls emailing him. SEVEN. The only girls that have emailed me are my mother, my cousin, my sister, and my grandmother. I don't worry too much about that, though. It seems like a lot of work!

I had to give a five minute talk on Sunday in Spanish! I turned out not to be too difficult. It was about enduring to the end. I mostly talked about how in the early days of the church, there were many people who did and many people who didn't endure to the end. I think it went pretty well.

We're still trying to memorize scriptures in Spanish. Our teachers are memorizing them in English to help motivate us. I have fifteen memorized now, and Hno. Acosta has 16. The latest one I memorized was Gálatas (Galatians) 5:22-23 "Pero el fruto del Espíritu es: amor, gozo, paz, longanimidad, benignidad, bondad, fe, mansedumbre, templanza; contra tales cosas no hay ley." Also, I have been informed that Santiago = James because Santiago = San Tiago. Tiago is an older form of Diego, which comes from Jacob. James is the English form of the Hebrew name Jacob. I still think it's super complicated, but at least it makes some kind of sense.

Anyway, not a whole lot else happened this week. Life will get more exciting when I'm actually out in the field. Here at the CCM, everything's on a schedule, so all the weeks tend to be pretty similar. Lots of Spanish, some devotionals, and some teaching. I've enjoyed all the Spanish and all the teaching, and I've loved the things I've been learning.

Email me with any questions, comments, etc.!

Elder Rowe