December 20, 2017

Hello everybody!

This week has been crazy. I am amazed every day with how I learn more and more every day about the people and the language. It is weird to me how now I can carry a pretty good conversation with any of the latin missionaries here. It is so much fun and they are always willing to correct our spanish and help us learn the best they can. 

Also this past Saturday, we had something called TRC. Where inactive, active, or sometimes investigators come to the CCM and let us practice teaching them all in Spanish. It was crazy cool. IT blew my mind how much the spirit helped me to understand and communicate back to the people we taught. 

Also, this week the prayer our district has been having for hamburgers in the comedor has been answered. There were tears of joy and screams and hooray yesterday at lunch. Such a much needed taste of home and it was amazing.

The biggest part of the week however was when I had crazy pain in my toes on either foot. I went to the clinic here at the MTC and they extracted huge ingrown toenails from each of my big toes. It was so insanely painful. Especially afterward. But after a priesthood blessing and some ibuprofen, the pain went away. The next day my companion had the same thing happen though his was not as bad of a case. But now we are matching for the next week with bandaged toes and flip flops. First time I have ever worn sandals with a suit.

But besides that, this MTC experience has been amazing. I can't wait to get out in the field as I have seen pictures and heard from so many people how Beautiful Puebla is. This gospel is amazing. And I love this Christmas season even though I won't see any snow on the ground for two years. Until next week, Merry Christmas to you all!! I love you all so much!

December 13, 2017

Hi everyone! We went to the temple this afternoon here in México City and it was so beautiful. We had a small transfer in our district and so I am no longer with the Trio. I am now companions with Elder Frederiksen. He is really cool. From Nampa Idaho and loves baseball. I get along with him really well and today, we got some haircuts. The ladies in the MTC salon spoke absolutely no English and that was a little scary. It all turned out okay though. They just asked what number we wanted on the sides of our heads, and they took care of the rest. Honestly a really good haircut. It was funny though how they couldn't reach our heads unless we slouched down in our chairs as much as possible.

The language continues to get better. As time goes on I understand more and more and am able to communicate back my ideas more and more. Even if I have to start over my sentences because I don't know how to say one thing. It's a struggle, but one I'm beginning to enjoy.

The devotionals every Sunday are amazing. We get up, go to sacrament meeting which is all in Spanish, and then have a district meeting which I would compare to Sunday school. Then we go to priesthood and have really great lessons from a companionship in the branch. After that though, it is all devotionals from the MTC presidency. And the spirit is so amazing in all of these lessons. We watched the Joseph Smith movie and then had two lessons from Presidente Bennet and his wife. They are such cool people.

And man I love my district. They are all such cool people. We've all decided to join the MTC choir and we had our first performance last night for the Tuesday "new missionary" devotional. We sang "Cantan santos ángeles" and it was so much fun. The spirit that comes from singing and praising our Lord is unbelievable. I can't wait to get out in the field and feel that spirit be so strong when teaching real people the gospel. 

This week also was the 12th of December which is a huge holiday in the Catholic culture of the Mexican people. It is the celebration of the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe. They believe that the virgin Mary appeared to a man here in Mexico. I don't really remember the name of the man. But it is a really interesting story. 

I love this Gospel. It's amazing.

With Love,

Elder Stephen Parr

Mexico Puebla North Mission

Friday, December 8, 2017

Hi everyone! 

The past week and a half have been crazy. I never run out of things to do which is nice. But I do miss you all so much. The MTC is crazy. The spirit is so strong all the time it's amazing. Guaranteed to have a life changing moment in every devotional we have. We've listened to so many talks and such from Elder Holland and I love it. He's such a powerful speaker that it makes me want to be just like him once I get into the field. Speaking of crazy, my companions and I helped in saving a Sister's life this week. We were in our classroom in the early evening on Sunday packing up and getting ready for a devotional when our teacher burst through the door and yelled a bunch of stuff in Spanish. All we heard was "Ayuda me! (Help me)" and "Infirmary". We threw what we had in our hands down and sprinted to a different classroom where there was a sister sitting in a chair who looked like she was having trouble breathing. And in a lot of pain. We three picked her up still in her chair and carried her while running to the clinic. Some Latino elders joined in at one point also. We were told she tried to take some pills but inhaled them by accident. That was the craziest thing to happen so far. 

Today we went to the immigration office to extend our visas I believe. Mexico city is so insanely beautiful in its own urban different way. SO much going on all the time, I love it. It took about two hours to drive there, and an hour back. I took as many pictures as I could. The way they do traffic here is so crazy but it just seems to work. You could easily reach out and honk the horn of the car next to you, but it runs so smoothly it's insane. 

The picture below of those towers have confused us since the day we got here. Lots of dumb theories of what they are. Including giant Lego hands. Turns out they're just weird cell towers.

The CCM is so amazing though. I've learned so much Spanish that for the most part I can carry a conversation in Spanish. And we have gotten to the point where we can teach an entire lesson with no notes or anything completely in Spanish. I've truly felt the gift of tongues. It's amazing. And even cooler is I've seen the interpretation of tongues come into play also. I am able to almost completely understand what my teachers are saying when they teach all day every day in Spanish. A fun game we play with our teachers is "¿Quien es el Latino(a)?" Or who is the Latin? The game is that at the beginning of the day we pick one missionary to be a Latino. They have to do their best to speak only Spanish all day. And then at the end of the day, the teacher guesses who it was. The key is though to have all of the missionaries in the district also speaking Spanish all day to try and trick the teacher. So far it is 3 points to the missionaries and 1 point for the teachers. We're doing so great!

I love this place, the people, and the food is really really good. Though the Mexican pizza is gross and the ranch dressing is really really weird. Everything else is great though. I love this Gospel. I love this church. And most of all I love you all at home who have given me such support that I can barely believe it.

 

With Love,

Elder Stephen Parr

Mexico Puebla North Mission

November 29, 2017

Hi everyone! My goodness I've missed you all so much. This MTC (CCM en Español) experience has been a wild and yet also an awesome time. 

;">Turns out, I have two companions lol and both of them will be going to my same mission in 5 weeks. Their names are Elder Bell and Elder Erickson. I get along with them great and we've kinda taken over as the (obedient) class clowns. My district also has 4 Hermanas going to the same mission and It has been great. 

I have two teachers both natives to México and they're super nice and patient. From the very first day of class we had to teach a lesson to a fake c Hi  haracter named "Rigoberto" in Spanish. It was so hard and stressful and we basically wrote and read off of a script the whole time. We have progressively gotten better though and this week made a goal as a companionship to not use any notes whatsoever and use our limited Spanish to the best of our ability and use the spirit. It's actually been going great! We still have a lot to improve though. 

Thanksgiving was great though I seriously missed you all. We had a thanksgiving feast for lunch in el comedor and it was interesting what a Mexican take on turkey gravy tastes like. It was still good though. And I absolutely loved the pie you sent me Mom! It was so yummy. I shared it with my district and also with the CCM president, Presidente Bennet. He's awesome and shared such a powerful testimony last night at a devotional. 

On Thanksgiving night we watched a broadcast of a devotional given in Provo by Elder Bednar. IT was AMAZING. I am also amazed at while I don't know everything that's being said, I can still feel the spirit in all of our gospel related classes and meetings. Sacrament meeting this past Sunday was all in Spanish for our branch and we were all required to write a talk in Spanish just in case the branch president decided to call us up. It was amazing. And I love singing the Hymns in Spanish also. It's such a beautiful language. Here's a little bit of Spanish I heard at the devotional last night that I just adore. "¡Gloria a Dios en lo Alto!"

On the way to the CCM

My new (temporary) home

My District

Our classroom

Today's Breakfast!

Beautiful Mexico City

My companions and me: Elder Erickson (Left) and Elder Bell (Right)

The guys in my district

My whole district