First Week in the Mexico MTC

All week I was anxious to hear from Nic and how he was doing.  I was a little concerned with his writing skills, so I wrote him an email full of questions.  He did an excellent job of answering them below.  Basically I wanted to know how his day was......

I'll answer your questions first and then tell my story. My typical schedule is wake up at 6:30, go study at 7:00, Breakfast at 7:45, then gym from 8:25-9:15 (I think there should be more time), then back to the classroom from 9:45-12:00 where we do miscellaneous work. Next comes lunch, then back to the classroom to study and prepare a lesson for an "investigator."  Dinner is 6:15-7:00 and  after that we study, maybe there is a devotional or something similar, we gotta be back at the house by 9:30, then lights out at 10:30. That is a basic day so far.

 I room with my companion, who is from Sandy, Utah and we have been able to get along very nicely. He likes Star Wars about as much as I do. My Spanish is coming along greatly and I feel like I can speak it so much better. We don't speak it every minute of the day, but we do speak it a lot. Tell dad that my accent is better than a lot of the people here!  I learned that we do not go outside the CCM unless we have a Temple visit scheduled. What I have seen of Mexico is pretty crazy, traffic here is like nothing else, there is barely any space to move around cars, but they somehow do it. The flight and everything about it was easy, the Elders that I met up with were really cool. I have not felt homesick or stressed, in all honesty I don't feel like I'm in Mexico right now. I am a little sad to be away from all of you but I can deal with it and this whole experience has been a happy one. In all honesty I feel the spirit extremely strong here.

Now, my story. I'll start of by saying that I have had refried beans at every meal that they have been available, but don't worry I'm not too gassy. Some off the food is really good, but a lot of it looks strange so I choose what looks good. One of my favorite meals was the asada, basically grilled meat. I put it on a tortilla with beans and rice and made a mini burrito. I think it is a little weird how lunch is there big meal of the day. 

I taught my first "investigator" on Friday (he is a real member). It went pretty well, I feel like I was able to get my message across and get to know him a little bit better. I taught him again on Sat and Mon, same feelings there. The first two days were really long and boring because of all the orientation and meetings that we went to, but since then it has been pretty good.  Ever since I got here, I have been told two things, make it to Sunday, then make it to P-Day(Preparation day, his "weekend"). I can say that they were right. Sunday was the best experience ever. In the morning I didn't really feel the spirit overwhelmingly, but there was a devotional that night that I began to feel it. The devotional was about staying on target for the reason that you are here. After that we went to dinner and then a movie. The movie we watched was the Testament, the one about the Nephite boy joining Cohor and then finding redemption. All throughout the movie, I kept on feeling the spirit especially when it flashed to Christ, and when He was being crucified, then when he came down to the Nephites. It was all so amazing. I love this movie because it shows how the Nephite boy was able to be redeemed even through all the bad he did, and I just loved the feeling that happened. After the movie, there was a little good bye for the missionaries that are leaving this week and we all sang till we meet, it was beautiful and the Spirit was just radiating then. After this we went back to our classroom as a district and had a mini testimony meeting, and again the spirit was almost tangible. I loved the feelings that I got that day. 

Monday night was fun because we celebrated the Mexican Independence day. There were dancers that came to dance some traditional Mexican dances. It was really beautiful.  After the dancers, we all stood as the flag was presented and shouted viva many times. On the final "Viva" fireworks went off, then we all sang the Mexican national anthem, it is a beautiful song, . 

I love the CCM, and i love my district and my Zone is really cool. My district is really close knit, we have a little trouble focusing because of it, but we get our work done. 

I love you and pray for you and miss you, Elder Atkinson