Hey!!
I will start off with a few things that I forgot to mention last email. I did find my toiletries that I lost. I guess I left them in the shower too. My brain is just not working like it used to. The CCM used to be a stake center and its a little smaller than the one back home. The rooms here are super tiny with a lot of people in them. We switched rooms today. Now I have a huge room but I think I have 11 elders in there with me! Elder McGee had a great way of describing this place and I though it was hilarious. He said that it is basically like a prison. Here is why... We have a small confined space with a fence blocking us from the outside, we get one hour to go outside and do sports and what not, we are only allotted 3 meals a day with no snacks except for the few hours on Pday, we are kept to a strict schedule, and we get super excited to get to go beyond the fences or communicate with the outside world.
Spanish Hymns are awesome!, except for when it is a hymn that is only in Spanish so you have no idea how to sing and end up sounding super stupid, but its all good. We get to go proselyting next week!! I'm super stoked but am also terrified that no one will be able to under stand me.
All the Elders here are awesome! A huge group left this morning for their missions so we are getting about 50ish new people tonight and tomorrow (Latinos, Americans and Hermanas) so we won't be downsizing that much. We got to go to the temple again today! I did the whole session in Spanish which wasn't too hard, but i definitely did not catch anything. I think I forgot to mention that last time in the temple I hit my head on a lamp because everything there is so small! But good news, I remembered where the lamp was this time and I completely avoided it..yeah!
Not much has happened in the 4 days since I emailed you except for the temple and classes. Oh, I can tell you about my investigator, Pablo. We finished with him yesterday and we had him set for a baptism on Friday. During the lesson Hermano Pita (Pablo) stopped us and reviewed us from the beginning. He said that we did very well and had really good unity and that the last lesson that we were doing was our best. We just need to improve in asking more questions on the follow up of the investigators reading or anything that we challenged them to do. We also had CRE, which is when you knock on a door and teach a new person for 20 mins. However, you are also being recorded because then you go back and watch yourself. Luckily, the camera wasn't working so we didn't have to suffer that awkward torture. But after you get feedback you go back up and do it again, and then get more feedback. Our teacher could still see us teaching because he could still watch the live stream, so that is how he was able to give us feedback. Apparently you never use the tú form here except to tiny children because its disrespectful to the elderly and it tells younger people that you want to be more than just friends. And of course, I would accidentally use the tú form during our CRE session, and yes we were teaching a Hermana. So, she definitely let me know that I need to remember that.
Well, that's about it. I will try to send some picture to you from when we went to immigration. Oh yeah! We went to immigration last Pday after we got to email. That was so much fun to be able to get out! Our next Pday is next Friday, but the schedule is messed up all the time here so I'm not sure when we will email. Thanks again for all of your support! Love you guys!
Élder Richmond
I will start off with a few things that I forgot to mention last email. I did find my toiletries that I lost. I guess I left them in the shower too. My brain is just not working like it used to. The CCM used to be a stake center and its a little smaller than the one back home. The rooms here are super tiny with a lot of people in them. We switched rooms today. Now I have a huge room but I think I have 11 elders in there with me! Elder McGee had a great way of describing this place and I though it was hilarious. He said that it is basically like a prison. Here is why... We have a small confined space with a fence blocking us from the outside, we get one hour to go outside and do sports and what not, we are only allotted 3 meals a day with no snacks except for the few hours on Pday, we are kept to a strict schedule, and we get super excited to get to go beyond the fences or communicate with the outside world.
Spanish Hymns are awesome!, except for when it is a hymn that is only in Spanish so you have no idea how to sing and end up sounding super stupid, but its all good. We get to go proselyting next week!! I'm super stoked but am also terrified that no one will be able to under stand me.
All the Elders here are awesome! A huge group left this morning for their missions so we are getting about 50ish new people tonight and tomorrow (Latinos, Americans and Hermanas) so we won't be downsizing that much. We got to go to the temple again today! I did the whole session in Spanish which wasn't too hard, but i definitely did not catch anything. I think I forgot to mention that last time in the temple I hit my head on a lamp because everything there is so small! But good news, I remembered where the lamp was this time and I completely avoided it..yeah!
Not much has happened in the 4 days since I emailed you except for the temple and classes. Oh, I can tell you about my investigator, Pablo. We finished with him yesterday and we had him set for a baptism on Friday. During the lesson Hermano Pita (Pablo) stopped us and reviewed us from the beginning. He said that we did very well and had really good unity and that the last lesson that we were doing was our best. We just need to improve in asking more questions on the follow up of the investigators reading or anything that we challenged them to do. We also had CRE, which is when you knock on a door and teach a new person for 20 mins. However, you are also being recorded because then you go back and watch yourself. Luckily, the camera wasn't working so we didn't have to suffer that awkward torture. But after you get feedback you go back up and do it again, and then get more feedback. Our teacher could still see us teaching because he could still watch the live stream, so that is how he was able to give us feedback. Apparently you never use the tú form here except to tiny children because its disrespectful to the elderly and it tells younger people that you want to be more than just friends. And of course, I would accidentally use the tú form during our CRE session, and yes we were teaching a Hermana. So, she definitely let me know that I need to remember that.
Well, that's about it. I will try to send some picture to you from when we went to immigration. Oh yeah! We went to immigration last Pday after we got to email. That was so much fun to be able to get out! Our next Pday is next Friday, but the schedule is messed up all the time here so I'm not sure when we will email. Thanks again for all of your support! Love you guys!
Élder Richmond