Week 3

So. This past week was pretty awesome in a lot of ways. I'll try to go in order, but no promises. Here. We. Go.

Thursday 4/9/15

Pretty average. 12 hours of classes, spanish, study time, and fundamentals. It is crazy how fast-paced everything is here. There is no break except for p-day and gym time. Anyway. We got to be good friends with  a lot of people, namely four Hermanas who adopted us as their children. They were probably my 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th favorite mothers that I've ever had. They are, in no particular order, Hermanas Ortiz, Butterfield, Chantry, and Henderson. They were pretty cool, had a lot of advice and were leaving in 3 days. I have pictures with our district and them in the batch for this week. Next. We made friends with many latinos that we went to the temple with. They were our buddies and hung out with us and chatted all of the time. The only issue with being friends with latinos here is that every two weeks, they leave and another batch comes in, so this new batch that got in today is the final one for me. I'll make more friends and then they'll leave again... Oh well. 

Fridayyyyyy

My companions and I lived another normal day until the evening, when I received a package from my momma :) Then everything was different. On our way back, a group of about 6 Latinas asked us in spanish for help with a vending machine. I think that that instance may have been the first, and probably the last time I will ever have helped someone with a vending machine. Anyway. We went back to the casa and had a feast of IBC root beer (translated as cervezas de raiz) and then subsequently ate death by chocolate cake (see pictures). It was wonderful, but the cake was so rich that we could not consume it in it's full glory. 

Saturdayyyy

So. BIRTHDAY. Thank you all for the birthday wishes, those that I could see and those that I could not. It started off with gifts from my district and happy birthday wishes from my teachers, which was awesome. Then we had TRC which is something like Teaching Resource Center, or a place where we can be paired with investigators, less active members, or active members of the church. It just so happened that we got paired with a husband and wife. They had a lot of good advice for us and helped us with our spanish. Lunch came around and I shared my cake with many people. Some of my latino friends, americano friends, and workers at the CCM got to partake in the pastel de muerte por chocolate. I even ended up on instagram haha with one of my buddies. He is a chef here at the CCM and is a pretty cool guy. I talk with him every day and he wanted to share me to his following apparently. I guess I'm just that cool. ha. ha. ha. I had all of my favorite people who were leaving sign my transfer journal. 

Sunday. Day of the tie trade, meeting with Pres. Torgeson and departure. 

Today many of my friends left for the field, to have success in bringing the children of god closer to him. They will be successful, guaranteed. Anyway. I traded for some sweet corbatas and made some pretty sweet deals. One of the counselors in our branch is a pretty cool guy. He works at the United States embassy, for an "agency"in the united states. Yeah. pretty sweet. We had a devotional and it was good. 

Monday

AWESOME. Received about one dozen donuts from a confidential source and shared them with my district. It was quite literally in every way a sweet treat for my birthday. Today there was NOBODY here. AT ALL. We had everything to ourselves and it was sweet. But anyway, nothing else notable happened except we were able to teach Israel one of our best lessons ever. It was incredible. 

Tuesday. 

I was chosen to be on a panel of 4 missionaries that got to speak in spanish to a member of the 70 in front of everybody at the devotional that evening. It was crazy. I was preparing all day, and then we had GYM/Service Project. GYM was fun, but Service project was awesome. Here at the CCM, everybody drinks ONLY bottled water. This requires office-style water coolers and five-gallon water jugs. Everywhere. This means that for service project, we hand delivered 80 water jugs all the way across campus. FUNNNN. It was crazy. They didn't really tell us what to do or how to do it, but we just got up there and I only answered two questions completely wrong. It was especially bad because they chose four americanos to answer the questions in front of many, many latinos. They were chuckling at our spanish. I felt pretty silly haha. Anyway, our district sustained an injury following the devotional. 

As for today, we didn't do very much before emails, but we took some illegal photographs from the roof, but it was okay because the door was open and we didn't know, and also Elder Denhalter wanted to take a picture looking like he was trying to escape from the wall. Silly. 

Random and miscellaneous facts: In one of our first lessons, we were trying to teach about the restoration of the gospel through the prophet Joseph Smith. The way it happened was that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph smith. En Espanol, it goes like "Yo sé que Dios, nuestro Padre Celestial y Jesucristo aperecer a José Smith." but, instead of using the verb "aperecer" or to appear, we used the verb "apedrear" which means to stone or to kill with rocks. So in essence we were bearing testimony that God and Jesus stoned Joseph Smith with large rocks in the Sacred Grove. Pretty embarrassing... 

Here's another one: the other companionship in our district was trying to share a scripture with the investigator, but instead of sharing 1 Nephi 3:7, which says in essence I will go and do the things the Lord commands, they shared 3 Nephi 3:7 which is part of a story where wicked brotherhoods commanded others to join them in their wickedness. Look it up to know for real, but it was really funny hahaha. 

Spiritual thought for the week: The sabbath day is a holy day, and it isn't ours. Give it completely to Heavenly Father. He gave us everything. 

I'll update you in a week

Peace to the Out

Week 2

​So, there you have it. Week two consisted of conference conference conference. Thursday and Friday were pretty normal and we finished teaching our first investigator, "Jorge". We then found out that Jorge was our new night teacher and that he had nearly perfect english skills. ​He was a cool guy, though, and he knew much, especially in the areas of companionship teaching unity and such. He has really helped us. The thing with the CCM is kind of interesting. So sometimes there will be two teachers in the room, but lately there have been three, four, even six in the classroom at the same time. May not seem like a lot, but when there are seven missionaries being taught, it is quite interesting. It is the slow season here, though. There is a lot of construction going on, and a lot of cleaning as well. They say that as soon as high school ends in the states, they go from having about 250 missionaries here now to having 1200 or more. Crazy. It is pretty nice to have this place pretty much to ourselves though. 

Saturday and sunday were completely devoted to conference, with small study times and a short devotional between. It was really relaxed and calm, which was awesome. And umm I saw you Caleb Hoyt in the Sunday Afternoon session singing in ASL. Yeah. In Mexico City I got to see Caleb Hoyt. Oh and in Priesthood session? Yeah, Marcus Weatherred, Andra Johnson, even you Hank Hansen. I saw y'all. Good job in that choir. And How about Elder Holland's talk? And Elder Uchtdorf? Yeah. Crazy. 

Something that Gérald Caussé said in his talk that was totally true and totally pertained to missionary work. Something like "Seek the companionship of the Holy Ghost because it will sharpen the senses and improve the memory." Hearing that here, where it is crazy difficult to learn a new language, it is really important to have the Holy Ghost as your companion or else you will learn nothing. 

Monday began with getting not one, but two new investigators, which was interesting. We now plan twice the lessons and twice the scriptures in the same amount of time. Craziness. Oh, and on Monday we finally told Elder Lamoreau that we pranked him. Yeah. We had thoroughly convinced him that he was pranking us, so it was harder when the joke was up... It was pretty much hilarious. 

Tuesday our entire casa left. The house is completely vacant save for our little trio of companions. We own the place. We each have our own showers and bathrooms now, and we received an heirloom from district 5B that was wonderful. It is a bible of each of the missionaries that has passed through that specific district. Since their district died out, the bible, along with the other heirlooms, were entrusted to us. So. We get to add our own books to the bible. 

Today was sweet. We got to visit the house of the lord. The Mexico City Temple is in the top 5 largest temples in the world. Crazy big. But it was closed. The visitors center was beyond comparison. We thought that we had it good in the states, but we are wrong. The church is thriving here. It is really cool to see. The gift shop was cool too. 

"Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy. Both, I want to people to fear how much they love me"

-Matthew Busi

-Michael Scott

Yeah. In all seriousness, though, it is really important to love everyone. I have taught lessons here where all I have done is communicate the doctrine. Let me stress how well that tactic worked: IT DIDN'T. Where there is love, there is the spirit also. Be interested in other people. Be interested in the gospel. 

Yo sé que la iglesia es verdadera. 

Most sincerely yours,

Elder Busi

​-----------------------------

Title: Week 1, Week of the giant lego hands.

Title: Week 1, Week of the giant lego hands.

So. Lego Hands. See the picture, and you'll understand.

Wednesday 3/25:

Arrived in Mexico City. The flight took a while, but when I got to Salt Lake, they upgraded all of the missionaries to Economy Comfort on Delta for free, and we each got windows and aisles with an empty seat in between. The flight attendants were all LDS, which was cool. We got snacks and stuff and it was sweet. So, 4 hours of flying later, we touch down in Mexico City. We got to go through Customs and Immigration and it was really boring. I got red lighted so I had to have all of my luggage searched through. No bueno. We get to the CCM (MTC) after about two hours of driving and then the fun begins. The orientation was cool, and there was a lot to remember. Anyway. It is always 72 degrees here and it rains pretty much every afternoon, which is SWEET. The CCM is in the middle of Mexico city and is surrounded by 10 foot walls with 10 foot fences with razor wire. Inside it is an oasis, but outside it is not very nice. Thank goodness we get to be inside all of the time.

Thursday 3/26:

The fun begins. Waking up at 6:30 has never been so difficult. I had gone off of 3 hours of sleep the previous day, and it did not cut it. Anyway. We explored this new place. Everybody here is nice and speaks very little english. The way that it works is everybody from the states basically goes back or serves in Chile or Mexico, and all of the Latinos serve in Central or South America. It's a little weird.

Okay, so I'm done with doing each individual day. Here are some awesome and weird things about the CCM and Mexico City in general.

Two miscellaneous things, 1, I am the District Leader, and 2, I like to receive emails.

#1 My companions are Elder Lamoreau and Elder Denhalter.

Elder Denhalter: born and raised in the beautiful desert of Layton, Utah, he is the son of two loving parents. His mother, who is half Indian, is an elementary school teacher for special education. No se sobre su padre. He is quieter, but somebody who I would probably be good friends with outside of the CCM.

Elder Lamoreau: Born and raised in the beautiful land of Bath, Maine. None of the workers here at the CCM can even fathom where that is.

Also, this morning (April Fool's) we pranked Elder Lamoreau... We woke up at 4:30 and set all of the clocks to say 6:55. Normally, breakfast begins at 7:00 and we have only a half hour until our next activity. Elder Denhalter and I convinced him that we were running late because we were dressed and the clocks said so. He got up and got in the shower, but then we quickly changed out of our clothes, changed the clocks back, and got back in bed. By the time he emerged from the shower, it was 5:00 and we were "asleep". He was so confused, but we were just like, hey get back in bed. He was convinced he dreamed it and followed the advice, but then we convinced him that he was trying to April Fool's us this morning. We put him on defense and now he is convinced that he sleepwalks. It is marvellous.

#2 The Comedor, or cafeteria.

The Comedor is an odd thing. We will have bacon cheeseburgers one moment and banana-wrapped tamales for another. All of the warnings from the elders here are about the food and the adjustment period it takes your stomach to get used to it. I have a stomach of steel (knock on wood).

#3 The scenery

It is gorgeous. I took some pictures of the scenery and the lego hands and the houses and even my casa (47) which is pretty cool. We sleep on bunk beds, but the top bunk is low so I don't even come close to hitting my head.

#4 The Hermanas/ the rest of my district.

Odd creatures that they are, the sisters are separated from us some of the time here. We are to have very little personal interaction with them, but I've found some people that I know here. The two hermanas in my district are an interesting combination. Hermana Riding, the daughter of a member of the Tabernacle Choir, is really sweet and really strong. Hermana Betbeze is also really strong, and a convert to the church. Elder Gardner (probably related to him) is really funny and from Washington state. He has done a lot of construction work, which is pretty cool. Elder Brewster is one cool dude. He hails from Utah and is really chill, but has a really good testimony and probably the best spanish in our district.

#5 Gym time/ service projects

Every day we get to go to gym time. Anything from foosball to tennis to basketball to beach volleyball is available here. Take that, Provo MTC.

#6 The other districts

There is competition sometimes. Districts call out other districts in games of whatever sport. It's pretty sweet.

If you desire to send packages, missionarymx.com is the way to go.

Well, time for the testimony. Here it is en español.

Yo se que la iglesia de Jesucristo es verdadera y yo se que Jesucristo es su hijo de Dios. El Evangelio bendicen familias todos los dias. En el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen.

Hello momma and fam,

I made it safe to the CCM!!! It is beautiful here and I haven't died yet. We made it to the airport and then met a member of the CCM Presidency and his wife. I have my first companion, Elder Denhalter is my new companion, and there are only 10 of us that came in to the MTC today. There were 4-5 very chatty sisters that came with us, and it is great. I get to sleep in a house with a trio, and I haven't met the other elder yet. My Preparation day is on Wednesdays, so you can expect pictures, emails, and etc at that time. I love you guys so much. I will be drinking only bottled water. 

Your Missionary's mailing address is:

Elder Busi

06/05/15 - A

Carretera Tenayuca-Chalmita #828

Colonia Zona Escolar, Gustavo A. Madero

07230 Mexico, Distrito Federal

Mexico

The estimated departure date for your missionary is May 6th. the use of the

above address on all correspondence will greatly faciliate delivery to your missionary

at the MTC. Please don't send packages.

Love

ELDER BUSI