August 22, 2014

Week 4- Mexico City CCM

Wow this time has gone by so fast it seems! But also it seems like it has been a really long time. I am now fully accustomed to missionary life in the CCM. I am beginning to really enjoy it here in Mexico but I want to be in Nicaragua so bad!! But more on that later....

With Elder Scheffler from Bonneville.

It's his birthday today!

Morgan played soccer against him
multiple times before officially meeting at
the Mexico CCM

 This week went by really quickly. It started on last p-day with a really intense soccer game. Probably more than it should have been. We get together every p day and play with random districts. Not to brag but our district has 3 players on it that received all region or all-state honors.....were pretty good. It was a lot of fun but there are other good soccer players here. I took on responsibility to mark a kid who was really really good. He got frustrated when he couldn’t get by me or I would win the ball......He got really aggressive. So I quickly realized that I needed to settle down too and just have fun. I am here to teach people by the spirit and if I can’t have the spirit how am I supposed to teach? I have realized that I have a lot I need to work on as a person and a missionary. I have a lot of goals to become nicer and more Christ like.

On Sundays we have devotionals. During these devotionals either the CCM presidency speaks or we watch old devotionals from apostles. I love listening to the words of our apostles.  This week was full of Mormon messages and other small segments from their teachings. First was Elder Hollands hour devotional. WOW! It was such a great talk. He really helped me understand why I am here and what a mission can not only do for my investigators but for me. He taught me that these two years will shape my life forever. That reminded me of how dad always talks about his mission and how he remembers the lessons he learns and thinks about his mission almost every day. I want my mission to be the best it can be so I can have the same experience after my mission. He also quoted and taught from the 21 chapter of John in the New Testament. I challenge you guys to read it for family home evening this Monday or as a Family sometime. It is now one of my favorite passages of scripture. Christ told Peter to feed my Sheep. Leave all that the apostles knew (which was fishing) and take care of those in and out of the gospel. Feed them the teachings of Christ and bless their lives forever. Being a disciple of Christ isn’t for a moment or even two years. It is a lifelong pursuit to serve him with everything we have.

Another part of my week was while we were in class we watched a clip from Elder Bednar and A Mormon Message from Elder Christofferson. Elder Bednar told a story of President Packer and him that taught that the spirit works in a lot of different ways. He began his address by stating if you are worried about if it is the spirit or just yourself, stop worrying about it! As long as you follow the prophets live your covenants and be a good person the spirit will guide you. You don’t even have to know it is the spirit. Elder Bednar said that most of the time we are prompted by the spirit and we don’t even know it’s the spirit. We just do it. Other times he said we know it was the spirit. But what it comes down to is living the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we will be blessed. The Mormon Message was about the overgrown bush on a farm. And of how a gardener needed to trim a bush. It was related to how we have trials and God is going to shape us into what he wants us to become if we let him. My favorite line is, Thank you Mr. Gardener for loving me enough to cut me down. Wow this past week has been inspiring.

 I am so ready to get to Nicaragua. Don’t get me wrong, I love it here but I want to teach

Finally!  Some mail from home!

real people. We now teach the other missionaries in the district but it’s still not very real to me. I can now teach all of the discussions without looking at any sources in Spanish. My Spanish has really improved. I feel totally comfortable having a gospel related discussion but outside of that is really hard. We have a set of Latino missionaries in my apartment and we try to talk to them.  It’s really hard. They cut words in half and talk really fast. I think Spanish in Nicaragua is going to be really hard at first. Oh well we just keep working. The lessons that are really hard to teach though in Spanish are the Law of Tithing and Chastity. Ya I need to learn the Vocabulary for those two commandments. haha

Love,
Elder Morgan Anderson