First week in the CCM

Wow! I've been looking forward to checking my e-mail all week! That took forever. Haha, It's been a long week for sure, but it's also been a good week! My flight was long, but I made it. We were driven to the CCM, and I got room 420, so that's fun, and my roommates are all pretty chill. Our second day here, we got our companions, and mine is a kid named Elder Raps. (No, he doesn't rap, but he does beatbox, so I've been doing all the rapping) He likes singing, and he went to a year at BYU before the mish. He has a very quiet personality, but not like shy? I don't know, but we definitely have different personalities! Lol. Also, our second night at prayer meeting President Romney started calling District Leaders and I was shocked to hear my name in the mix! It's been a humbling experience trying to figure that out, but I've already learned a lot from it. 

The weather here is definitely amazing! It rains all the time, and I've already been completely soaked more than once! It's a dream come true :) The humidity isn't bad at all in the CCM, but outside it really gets to ya. I sweat even when it's raining! It's a beautiful country though and I already love it even though I've hardly been able to see any of it.

As far as the language goes: Español es muy dificil! That being said, I've learned more in a week here than I did with two years of high school Spanish, and I don't know whether to thank the gift of tongues or my excitement for learning for that one. Either way, I'm learning tons every day, and I'm constantly learning new words! I talk to the Latino missionaries a lot, and they're always so funny! I just can't wait until I don't have such a hard time understanding anymore!

Some fun things about the country: The food is great, I love rice and beans, and we pretty much have that every lunch and dinner. The  soup is crazy, they throw corn cobs in, and yucca root, and stuff like that. Outside of the temple grounds, there's always garbage on the sides of the streets, and there are a lot of high rise buildings that it looks like they started building, and then just gave up on. Also, they have backup generators here, but even then the power goes out all the time, and we just keep having class or whatever, so that's interesting.

Finally, I just want to say that things are great and I'm learning lots. Sometimes when we have practice investigators, there is a lot of awkward silence because I don't know how to say what I want to, but I keep getting better every time. I feel the spirit a ton here, and I've had some cool experiences. We watched a devotional in which Elder Neil L. Andersen spoke about faith and the spirit, and something that stuck out to me is what he said about praying with real intent. He said something along the lines of: Real intent is not asking just for curiosity, but is asking with a sincere heart, and the intent to act on the answer that is given. (That's a paraphrase, but a pretty good one) So that's my thought for the week, if you really want to feel the spirit testify to your heart, intend to act on the answer that you receive! I love you all, and I'll talk to you again next week! Vida es bien, Dios is mejor!

Love you!

Elder Anderson