Beware The Red Chicken (And The Green Enchiladas)

Hi friends!


Time already feels like it is flying by, and it's only been 3 weeks into my mission!


Saturday
I figured I'll mention just a little bit more about today, now that it's a week later. After writing last week's email I went out and played Basketball with my district. I'm not really a basketball player, but we played pretty casually and I had fun being part of the team and getting the ball passed to me. I even got a ball into the hoop at one point! 


Sunday
Today, my district and I decided to try to join the choir. We sang the song 'Where love is' (In Spanish the song is called 'Donde hay amor') and it was an amazing spiritual experience. The music was beautiful, the feelings were beautiful, and over half of the CCM was part of the choir for that song. The only bad thing that happened relating to choir was that a sister missionary fainted because of dehydration at one point, but they turned out fine.  


Along with singing in the choir, me and my companion also visited the family history lab and printed out names for initiatories because we will need them when we go to the temple on our P-day.


The MTC President held a short devotional for the new missionaries, and when they asked if anyone could play the piano I raised my hand as high as I could and was allowed to play for the devotional. I'm so happy I was able to share my love and talent for the piano with other people, and I was able to secure a spot playing sacrament hymns next Sunday so more piano playing for me.


Monday
Today we finally enacted our new district schedule, this time with no errors in timing! We were given specific time for personal, companion, and language studies, and I decided to utilize my personal study time to research humility. I want to learn and adapt the Christlike attributes for myself so I can be better connected to God.


The food has started catching up with us today, and some of my district companions are feeling it today in their stomachs. I'm going to pray that everyone (if they get sick) gets sick at different times because we only have one toilet.


Tuesday
It seems that I have mostly been naming my newsletters off of the events of Tuesday, and this week I got the inspiration for this newsletter today too!  On Sunday for dinner we had the Red Chicken (basically Mexican buffalo wings), and on Monday we had Green Enchiladas, and neither of those foods have sat the best in most of our stomachs. Sadly, Elder Larking didn't take the food as well as both of us, and he ended up in the infirmary feeling pretty ill and dehydrated. Gratefully, these guys are used to ill missionaries and they treated him right away. He missed class as he was getting fluids and taking pills, and when we could, we visited him and gave him a Priesthood Blessing. By the end of the day he was feeling better and was back with us.


We had a devotional on changing ourselves to become disciples of Jesus Christ and it was fire.


It was pizza day today! Little Caesars pizza was a nice energy booster for us Americans!


New missionaries came today as well, so we aren't the newest missionaries anymore!


Wednesday
A bunch of cool things happened today, and one really sad thing happened. 


I'll start with the sad news. Elder Chairez was moved out of our district today. He had been having trouble getting along with his companion, and they ultimately decided to move him to another district. Now our district has 11 people, meaning a bunch of pairs of companions and one three-some. 


On the brighter side! We were able to have lunch with both of our teachers. There are very specific rules surrounding when the teachers can come to the Comedor (the cafeteria) and if they can eat the food (sometimes they have to pay for the food), but today everything worked out and we were able to eat with them! My teachers (Hermano Salado and Hermana Flores) are so cool and I'm so glad they are my teachers. Lunch was pulled pork sandwiches, and they were almost perfect. The only thing they were missing was BBQ sauce.


At dinner time my companion decided to drink a mystery drink for 20 dollars. It was so gross I couldn't even look at the drink, so I was shocked when he drank ALL. OF. IT. I don't think I'll let him do that again, and I'll make sure he pays tithing on what he earned.


Finally, I got a package from the post office from my family with a bunch of sweets (including a lot of Dr. Pepper). Thanks fam!


Thursday
Today we did our first service project at the CCM. For the service project we helped clean and prepare the Comedor for the next meal. It was very nice getting to see the people who work so hard to feed us, and to help them a bit too.  


Today we did a bunch of roleplaying to practice talking to people, and while it feels weird to be roleplaying with your friends, I actually learned a lot from it and had a lot of fun as well. 


In our morning class we did the roleplaying activity, but in our afternoon class we practiced praying for other people in Spanish. We were tasked with asking other people (specifically Latino people) if we could pray for them, and what they would like us to pray for. We found a group of LDS members taking a tour of the CCM and asked if we could talk with them for a minute, and I was able to talk to Fernando. I didn't have a lot of time to get to know him, but he sounded like a cool person, and he asked me to pray for his family.  Me and my roommates (because half the district is in one room, and the other half in another room) all said our prayers together for other people, and I can testify that group prayers are special and bring a very powerful spirit to those involved. Don't forget to pray together as a family!


Friday
P-day today! It is currently pretty early in the morning, so I don't have much to report for the day. But I can say that I will be going to the Mexico City Temple later today, and I'm so excited for it!


Scripture of the Week
Ether 12:27 - "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."


Spanish word/phrase of the Week
la cafetería - the cafeteria; A lot of the stuff I mentioned this week happened in or around the Comedor. I find it funny that we don't call it the cafeteria, but Comedor sounds better.


I mentioned illness coming around my district because of the food this week. I'm lucky enough to have been spared the worst of it, and I would rank my health right now to be a 90%. So don't worry about me too much


Check out my photos! https://photos.app.goo.gl/g2QAHn4xdMnPx4JT8
Don't forget you can email me for any reason. I won't bite! mgrant@missionary.com


Until next week!
 - Elder Grant


Pictures:
4. Building 47 room 5 gang!
7. Elder Larkin fell asleep on the bus ride home during the first temple trip.








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