No i didnt forget to email you. My P-days are on thursdays during my time here at the MTC. I have only one hour to read all of my emails and write back and there is no printer to print them so its really hard to get everything in especially because i have a lot to say. Again i am sorry for the typos, spelling, and grammer errors but im typing on a spanish computer, i feel rushed, and everything is in spanish so it is trying to autocorect my words. anyways, i officially have my visa so i will not have to go home after my time here in the CCM. On the first day here at the CCM they lead of all us elders near the basketball court and into the gym. in the corner of the gym was a chair and supplies to cut hair. every single one of the elders, my self incuded got a hair cut. All our hair is super short. it is just barely longer than a buzz. It is dark here by 630 every night but there weather is nice. its nice and sunny and is never too humid or hot. the first day it rained and none of that seattle rain, it rained hard and we were able to play basketball and vollyball in the rain during "physical activity" time. The food here is not very good, its like scout camp food and lunch is the main here in Guatemala so it is always the largest. Unlike the provo MTC we only get one ice cream a day and that is at lunch. the meals are not that large so i think i actually might be losing weight. I am surprised however as so far there have not been any beans. I am not sick yet but the elders who have been longer (new elders come in every 2 weeks as the older ones leave) say that everyone usually gets sick around the two week mark. My poop is still solid while a few others in my district have "the runs" so i am still happy that i am not sick. My campanion is in the class "L" and goofs off a lot so it is hard to plan lessons and study with him. The CCM also does not provide hangers so all of my shirts and pants are just folded in the drawers, hopefully i will be able to buy some. My spanish has improved since i have been here but just slightly. I would now say i am a 4/10 because even though speaking spanish i have not really improvied i feel like i can understand it more and can read spanish fairly well. Everything is in spanish including the lessons so it makes things difficult and is really annoying at times. I can however say prayers and bear my testimony in spanish. All the hymns we sing are in spanish and before we all knew that i could not sing but you should here me now, i have gotten even worse. Spanish hymns are impossible to sing. We are also only supposed to be speaking spanish but all the missionaries still just speak english to each other. our district decided to have a punishment for speaking english. after three strikes (three times speaking english) we would have to sing "as sisters in Zion" in spanish to the Latinos. I unfortunatly was one of the few that had to do that before we got rid of that system. Sunday is fantastic though because everything is mostly in english. the only thing that is in spanish is sacrament meeting because we are combined with Latinos, Latino missionaries are only in the CCM for two weeks before they go out into the field and we are always practicing our lessons with them. During sacrament they will randomly call 8 missionaries and those 8 missionaries will have to give a 5 minute talk, in spanish. Sacrament was very nerve wracking as i really did not want to give a talk. I am going to buy a nice pair of spanish scriptures today because the scriptures they give us here at CCM are just the basic free ones and seeing as all my mission i will be using spanish scriptures i think it'll be nice to have a good pair. I will just walk up to the distribution center today and buy some. there is also a little "store" that comes on wednesday and thursday for the missionaries and they sell a bunch of misc. things. I am going to buy a nice leather case for my scriptures as well that look pretty cool but take two weeks to make. I will send a picture of them when i get my camera back out in the field. Every P-day we get to go to temple and do a session so i was able to do that this morning. The temple is really small and is a 2 minute walk from the CCM and the session was all in spanish with the excpetion of the veil. it was a cool experience and i look forward to it again next week. Right next the CCM is also a club so on friday and saturday nights we can here their music blasting from our room. I also have some bed bugs and my room is not scheduled for a deep clean until next week but it is not awful as of now. We have also heard a couple of gun shots and it seems like police and ambulances are always driving by with their sirens on. we are all well protected here though as there is 24 hour security gaurds and as we walk up to the temple we are always escorted by one. Last tuesday we were supposed to go listen to Elder Nelson talk but on monday the vice president of Guatemala was arrested and there are now major riots/protests in the city because they want the presidnet kicked out now too so Elder Nelson cancelled the trip. Last night we saw a group of protestesters holding signs run past the CCM and the cars in the streets went crazy with horn honking and what not, it was the highlight of my week ;) I feel like i am almost in prison because with the excpetion of the temple we can only stay inside the CCM and cant ever go walk anywhere else. it is like sitting inside the house all week and not doing anything. i can not wait till i am out in the field. wake up at 6:30am and go to sleep at 10:30pm. all day we are in class, personal study, or studying spanish. the days are long and we also have to prepare lessons for our "progressive investigator" who we have to teach a lesson to, in spanish, each night. hopefully i didnt miss anything and you can read it all with out any problems. Days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days, it is kinda crazy. -- Sincerely, Elder Gruber
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Arrived safely. I`ve only got 5 minutes today to write so i cant write a lot. everything went smoothly and my bag arrived on time. the MTC is right across from the temple and is completly gated in. we arrived in bus just like the one photo mom showed us. i didn`thave to go through cunstoms in LA and the gate in LA was right next to where i got off my flight from seattle. there were a total of 39 missionaries who flew from LA to Guatemala on the same flight. going through customs in Guatemala they didnt ask me any questions, just took my passport and stamped it. the first thing they did when we arrived here at the MTC was give us our name badges and take our cameras so no photos for the first couple of weeks.everything here is already in spanish inlcuding the MTC, english is rarely spoken. even the computers here are all in spanish so it makes it difficult to type because it shows every word is misspelled. I read all of your letters, it made me cry again. That`s all i`ve got for now. I love you guys SO much! -- Lots of Love, Elder Gruber |