Week One in the CCM

 ​Hermana Cook and I outside our class building. 

Hola family and friends! I can´t believe that just over a week ago I was with all of you, they sure do keep us busy here and the time really flies. The first day was really surreal and long. We didn´t get to the CCM until around 5 in the evening and they had us do a couple things then we were able to eat dinner and go unpack our bags in our houses. It´s really beautiful here, the campus is huge, like 90 acres, but we spend a lot of time in our classrooms. But yeah, so the second day was so long. It was pretty much our orientation day and we just went from presentation to presentation, but after that day it´s been really great and every day just flies by.

  We spend a lot of time in the classroom. Just lots of companion, personal, and language study really. In one of our devotionals we listened to a talk from Jeffrey R. Holland just about missionary work. Some things that I really liked were that he said we better come home from our missions with at least one convert, ourselves. He then talked about Preach my Gospel and how beneficial it can be for us, that it is meant to convert us (missionaries) so that we can learn the gospel then teach it to others. Preach my Gospel has so much information, and I really encourage you to read it. I know it´s a lot harder to focus on, because I really didn´t read it before I came here for that reason, but now that my time is for learning and studying every tool I have, I´ve been able to see the difference. 

   On Friday we got our first investigator and we taught him until yesterday. We have about 3 hours in the afternoon for that, because in our district we have 10 people and we´re supposed to teach him 30 minutes for each companionship... It ends up more like 15, but it´s good. The language in coming slowly, but it´s really cool how much I´ve been able to learn already in just a week! I understand a lot, especially in our lessons with our investigator. At first I had no clue what was being said, but in our last lesson with him yesterday I was able to understand most of the conversation and I didn´t have to look at my notes to know what we were talking about. I´m really lucky because my companion is really good at Spanish and keeping the conversation going, when it comes to talking, I´m still pretty quiet but it´s coming. Just last night I was able to already tell the difference with how much I´ve learned though. A couple friends wrote me some notes in Spanish before I came here and I had no clue what they said, but last night I was able to read them just fine, it was just cool to already see the difference.  

   My district is pretty awesome. There are 6 elders and 4 hermanas. All of us hermanas are from la fabrica (the factory) aka Utah. My companion (hermana Cook) is the best. She knows so much and we work really well together. She´s going to Tuxtla Gutíerrez too! There´s also an elder going to the same mission too, so at least we´ll have each other for the journey there. We´re really hoping we´ll fly, because it´s like an 8 hour drive... Hermana Cook and I are really hoping that we´ll be companions at some point again when we´re in the field too. 

  It really is great here though! It´s beautiful, and I´m learning so much everyday. The workers are so nice to all of us too! I really love it here, and I´m so excited to get to Tuxtla. We were talking to one of the teachers yesterday, and she was telling us about Tuxtla a little bit and just Mexico in general. She said the history of Mexico lines up with the Book of Mormon so closely, and was telling us that when she was in Tuxtla once she just felt that the people there were lamanites. She also showed us that the first line on the title page of the Book of Mormon says that it was written for the lamanites, and I have the opportunity to show them that! I´m really grateful to be here, and I´m really grateful that I have the opportunity to learn and share the gospel all day everyday. 

I hope you all are doing well, and I really encourage you to study from Preach my Gospel everyday. It doesn´t matter how much, just remember, line upon line, precept upon precept. 

I love you all! 

Hermana Leavitt

Our district! Elder Morvec (second from the left, with the glasses) is also going to Tuxtla Gutiérrez with Hermana Cook and I.