Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2013 12:53 PM
Subject: Halfway to the Field

 

So this week just flew by suuuuper fast. I´ve started feeling a lot more comfortable when we teach lessons so I feel like I can actually teach by the spirit more and be a bigger help during the lesson. In the past I´ve just let my companion go for it because he likes to lead the lessons. But I decided I needed to fell more comfortable teaching so I made him give me sections to teach haha. This week we got two new roommates. Elder Latu is Tongan but grew up in Hawaii/Utah and Elder Acaca (the natives think his name is funny because its a bad word in Spanish) was born and raised in Hawaii. They are pretty awesome and they are the District leaders for their district. On the other hand, Elders Saldaña and Zarko left this week which is a huge bummer because we would talk to them every night to try and learn more Spanish. They were super funny and were always willing to help us out. Sad day when they left.

 

We had this activity this week called TRC. Its teaching investigators lessons for 1 hour. Our teacher told us they were real investigators. Our first lesson went well but then while we were teaching the next lesson the "investigators" told us that they were church members and it just completely blew my companions mind ahaha. I figured that they weren't real investigators from the beginning but my companion didn't think that fast so I kinda just got stumped halfway through the lesson and had no idea how to recover. It was a pretty terrible experience but good for learning so I guess it was a good experience overall.

 

So Spanish is annoying. I can say all the stuff to teach a lesson but I have no idea how to ask where the forks are and junk like that. Its pretty annoying because I start to feel comfortable with the language and then I go talk to native and have no clue what they are saying and no clue how to ask for everyday stuff. We´ve been having English fasts though which helps a bit. We just decide not to speak English at all from the time we wake up until like 4 pm or so. We don't usually make it till 4 but we try and I think it really helps. This week I met the boss of the CCM kitchen and Temple Kitchen. He runs both of them and has like 40 people working for him which he is pretty proud of. The best part about it is that I found that out with only using Spanish because he knows absolutely no English Whatsoever.  So I guess I can kinda talk about normal stuff-ish.

 

This week there were storms like 3 days in a row. Pouring rain. I got really wet walking to class. Lots of Thunder/Lightning which is awesome. It just lights up the whole campus. I guess we are like 7000 ft in elevation so I'm thinking that it makes it a little cooler of an experience. Also people set of fireworks all the time here during the night. Or there's construction using explosives, not really sure. The point is, I feel like I'm in the hunger games. Every night I count how many tributes have died. its a lot, Probably like 100 haha. They go off like 15 seconds apart for a few minutes, stop, go on for like 15 more seconds. Its pretty cool I guess.

 

This week we watched a devotional from Elder Holland form about a year ago. He's scary. I´ve never heard a general authority be so passionate about their subject. You don't really get to see their whole countenance in General Conference. I assume its because they don't want all the old ladies to be crying about what they could be doing better haha. But yeah, If Elder Holland wants to give you a lecture I would try to avoid it because he's one scary dude when he talks about something he thinks is super important, in this case, missionary work.

 

The older districts left this morning. Every week the districts that leave sing "god be with you till we meet again" in the comedor. The mission president didn't like it thought because the comedor is a pretty crappy place to sing it so he made us wait till after the Sunday night devotional. The whole MTC was there to sing it though. It was awesome because we starting off singing in our seats and then all the people who were leaving started standing up and eventually everyone in the auditorium was standing up. It was a pretty awesome experience and you could feel the spirit suuuuuper strong. That was probably the highlight of my week.

 

My district has to be in the choir for the devotional on Thanksgiving day. They just pick random districts and mine got picked. I hate singing, especially in front of a ton of people. But whatever, It´ll go fine. This week I heard two different special numbers but they were the same song, "Come Thou Font of Every Blessing" (I think that's the name of it). I´m pretty sure that its my favorite hymn now.

 

We got to slackline last P-Day to. The Doctor guy walked by and didn't yell at us for it so I think we are fine haha. He was actually pretty close to trying it out. He;s a senior Missionary from the US. We also got one of the CCM workers to try it out too. We are going to go out and do it again today and our teacher is going to come try it also. Im pretty glad I brought it. Mom asked me what I did for exercise last week and I don't think I answered. We have gym time every morning for about and hour right after breakfast, We usually play volleyball, Basketball, mess around in the little weights gym, whatever we feel like doing. Every once in a while we find someone with a frisbee so that we can play ultimate frisbee. I really wish I had brought a frisbee right now because I think there's only one on the entire CCM campus.

 

To answer your questions from your e-mail, the dearelder didn't come yet, it'll probably get here this week. It takes about 2 weeks for those to get here I think. We go to the temple every other week on P-Day. So I went this morning. It was pretty awesome because We got to do everything in Spanish. Last time is was like half and half. I was bummed because our bus driver didn't hit any cars on the way back today. I can e-mail anyone I want as long as I do it in the hour I have to read/write email. I don't print mine out because Id have to buy paper but I could If I really wanted to.

 

I have some requests. Can you tell the bank I'm in Mexico so that if I need to use my card it doesn't get shut down. Also can you send me the link to my blog so that I can see what you guys get to see and so that I can give the link to anyone who wants it? The last thing is more a request for Paul I think. Id like to have a flashdrive sent to me in Missouri that has itunes on it with all the church music from my computer (Dad can send it in a zipped folder to Paul, or Paul can help dad just set up everything). It'd be nice so that if I want specific music from Mormon Tabernacle Choir and stuff then I can actually add it to my MP3 player. I really wish that I had more special arrangements in hymns because the normal ones are a little boring. But yeah, that would be awesome. Thanks in advance.

 

   Love

      -Elder Nyholm

 

P.S. I'm going to send some pictures in another e-mail so if your at the computer right now just wait a minute.

 

 

So we've got a slackline.

Me with Elder's Grzan, Zarko and Saldaña.

The nametags from everyone in our dorm as of sunday night.

 

 The nicest dentist office in Mexico city.

Here's our district with some natives, The two dark guys haha.