September 24, 2014
Family and Friends!!
Whats up??? Hows the USA??? Mexico is the BOMB. this past week has probably been the best week of my life. Mexico is as crazy as all the sterotypes make it out to be...and ive seen all the crazy stuff just like we saw in Guatemala. But I dont even know where to begin...The MTC here is amazing. its beautiful. so i got here and they threw me in the fire...i was asked to give a prayer in the opening orientation meeting in spanish!!! as soon as i agreed to it i went home and wrote out the prayer and practiced it like ten times so i wouldnt mess up. But so how it works here is that all the missionaries are divided up into "districts" with like ten or so missionaries, and then there are like 15 branches with like 3 or 4 districts in each branch. our branch just so happens to be the smallest, however, we have 4 elders and 4 sisters...and it just got smaller today, we had one elder go home..ill explain later. But then they have these houses all over campus, like 50 of them, and each house has 5 bedrooms each with their own bathroom and holds 4 missionaries each, so 20 missionaries in each house. My house only has 8 people in it right now, and it is all 4 of our elders in our district, along with some elders from other districts. Each district has their own classroom and teacher, and our teacher is awesome. we spend pretty much all day with our district, so we have gotten very close. everyone here is so nice and friendly, its awesome. the food isnt actually that bad.
So my companion is THE MAN. He is honestly like the coolest guy ever. His name is Elder Cook, or "cocinero" (which is cook/chef in spanish). He is literally like all of the Cannon brothers (my mom's brothers) mixed into one person, with a whole lot of Uncle Curtis. He is hilarious and makes our whole district laugh like all the time. he can do like all sorts of accents and funny laughs like Curt. He is also short like Curtis...as you can see from the pictures. He is also 24 years old....and this is his second mission call, the first one didnt workout, but he is here now and he is just as exicted to be here as i am. he already graduated from college, and so he is a lot wiser than the rest of us. its weird that we are comps and yet we are 6 years apart...and his birthday is in like 2 weeks so he will turn 25. hes going to serve in the New Jersey Morristown mission.
so the first day here I was called as District leader by my Branch president, which has been AWESOME. my district is literally so much fun and we have gotten to know each other really well. About another hour after i was called, a sister in our branch, Sister Underly, came over to our house and asked if I n would give her a blessing. So i was able to find some oil and give her a blessing. That was cool. Then the next day we gave our first lesson to an "investigator" all in spanish!!! it was crazy!! but we actually did relatively well considering it was our second day in the MTC. the spirit was so strong, even though we were probably saying all sorts of nonsense.
That same day, however, in our morning class, one of the elders in our district, elder Fullmer, had a seizure in class. it was so scary. I immediately jumped up and ran out the door of the classrom with my companion across campus to the nurses office, where we summoned the nurse. He regained consciousness after like a minute, but then decided to take him to the hospital, which is about 20 minutes off campus so his companion, elder Agren went with him, and apparently he had two more seizures once he got to the hospital. he had to stay the night and was told he would be there for at least three more days. So we made a schedule so that all three of us elders could switch off who stays with him. Elder Agren stayed with him the first day and night, and I went to the hospital the next day, Saturday. I rode over there with a Senior missionary and Elder Cook. we went in and there he was, sitting in a hospital bed. The weird thing about all this was that he had never had a seizure or anything like this ever in his life. The doctor said it was an Epilitcal attack or something. But so then i was slated to be with him all day saturday...so I took all my studying materials. When i got there Elder Fullmer asked if i would give him a blessing, and i of course did. Another great experience. but after being there for about three hours, the doctor came in and explained to us in spanish that Elder fullmer is doing better than expected, and would be able to return home in just a few hours, at like 3 pm, instead of being there for three days. tears streamed down my cheeks as the doctor explained all of this, because I knew it was an answer to all of our prayers. It was truly the first miracle i have experienced. He was able to return back to the CCM with me later, and return to life as normal. unfortunately, however the MTC president wanted him to return home to the US where he could stay for three months until deemed completely healthy to return to the field. So we just put him in a van and said goodbye to him...it was very sad, its amazing how close as a district we have gotten in one week. Its also weird cuz like i am one of the youngest in our district, yet i am the leader, so everyone has been looking to me for help and guidance and leadership. i am in charge of leading all of our nightly district meetings, and for teaching our districts sunday school lessons. Church is so cool, we have sacrament and priesthood meeting as a branch, and then sunday school as a district. I have attached a picture of my schedule so you all can see exactly what im up to.
The Lord has blessed me with complete confidence. Everyone has been talking about how nervous they all were coming here and meeting people and riding on an airplane, and teaching people and everything, and yet honestly i can say that i havent been nervous at ALL. it is an answer to prayers. I think that might be why i was called as district leader, because everyone has been having nervous breakdowns and stressed out and i just havent had any of that.
Anyways, time is up, but I love you guys. I know this church is true, and this has been witnessed unto me on many occasions. Keep me updated on whats going on back home.
con mucho mucho amor,
Elder Todd
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