Letter #2 - Guatemala City CCM

hola familia

como estan?

well thanks for the email updates, and a quick shout out to Summer Townsend for writing me an email! well i have been here a week and that is super crazy!!! so between all the emails i got a lot of questions and ui guess i will try and do my best to answer all of them. the CCM (centro de catapaccion misional) (aka MTC in spanish) is a pretty nice building. we have about 150 missionaries here and that is the most it has ever had. all that are here are serving in central america. half are nortes who stay 6 weeks and the other half are latinos who only stay 2. the food is alright nothing special but it keeps me alive haha. in the rooms there are 6 beds, 3 desks and 6 closets and thats it. in our room we have me, elder saunders and two other nortes who have a week left before they head out to el salvador. the building is nice enough but not super nice. i would send pictures but they actually took our cameras when we got here because apparently they have a problem with people stealing cameras, so ill get that back next week when we leave the CCM for a day to go to walmart. i love it here, and i not felt overwhelmed at any point, but sometimes i feel like i am living in a jail... we are stuck inside all day and then we get an hour to go outside a play, to make matters worse there is a big fence surrounding the CCM haha. i am assuming that you may be curous about what i do all day everyday so i will let you know haha. we wake up at 6:30, eat breakfast at 7:30, study the scriputes for an hour, study spanish for an hour, have classes about the gospel and spanish til lunch, more classes after lunch until 3:30, then we have an hour an a half to play frisbee or basketball, then dinner, and then we usually spend the evening teaching. my campanion is elder saunders and holy crap is he awesome. he is from morgan utah, and he knows the comptons, how crazy is that?? but anyways he is a great guy, he played football at dixie state and he is just a hilarious guy who knows how to work hard, and testify with amazing power. my other companion got switch so i no longer have elder thun with me... so now that i have done my best to answer all of the question i will go ahead and tell you a little bit about what went down this week. on thursday, our second day, we were introduced to hermano lopez, who is investigating the church. we were able to teach him on thursday, friday, and saturday, as well as monday. the first lesson was a little rough, but we nailed the lessons on friday and saturday. we discussed the first vision joseph smith and the spirit was so strong. on saturday after we finished teaching we asked him to kneel and pray with us right then to ask if the book of mormon was true and if joseph smith really saw God and Christ. he did so and the spirit was sooooooo amazing. right after that we asked him to be baptized and he said yes!!!! so that was so crazy and exciting to know that i have already committed someone to be baptized, im pretty that is some sort of record haha. this last sunday was fast sunday, making it the second week in arrow that i fasted but anyways during the meeting i went up and bore a simple yet sincere testimony in spaish which was a very cool experience. so i think that is all i have. i love it here. the gospel is true. having the spirit with you is the greatest thing ever. all is well dont worry about me. please continue to write me and update me about things going on there, including sports haha.

con amor

elder meyer

1st letter from the CCM (MTC)

Hola familia!

well hello family. i know it has only been a day, but it feels like it has been a lot longer than that. not that much has happened but i will try and tell you all about what has gone down. so after you left me at the airport i went on to the plane and sat down and then was forced to move because i was sitting in the wrong spot becuase i am an idiot,but whatever. (just soyou know the spacebar only works like half the time, so if the words go together dont be upset) so i ended up sitting next to this nice mormon lady on the flight to salt lake, andthen once in slc i ran intoabout 15 missionaries and we all flewto la together. afterwe gotthere we wandered arroundand ate food and just got to knoweach other. after chilling in the ariport for like 4 hours we got onthe flight to guatemala. we have been at the CCM (MTC) since 6:30 this morning and have already started speakingspanish and learning stuff. so thats about ithere, nothingtoo excitingyet, but i did get a haircut... i had a cool experience ontheflighttola that i wanted toshare withyou. the flight was only 2 ish hours and i didnt do much, but i talkeda littlebit with a woman who was a student at UVU. she was pretty quite and we hardly talked but as i was gettingoff theflightshe gave me a note that read: "what you are doingis so improtant. people need what you are going to bring to them. this world is slowly forgetting God and light, butthey will recognizeit if you share your testimonty without fear. thank you, thankyou, thank you for your sacrifice oftime. iknow it makes a difference. God bless!" this little act touched me so deeply. it is things like this that remindme why i love people. it reminded me of the importance of missionary work. i need to be here so that thosewho have lost thetruth can findit again. anyone who chooses tosacrifice andspred the gospel will blessed. i know this gospelis true and i love it!! sothats all fromme, ohthanks forthe notes forall the fam,it was sowonderfultoread them!! im not sure whatdays p days are so i dont know when i can write again but it willcome at some point. so yeah. the end.

love

elder meyer

so it looks like i have a few more minutes to write, so i guessi can tell you about theCCM. there are about 110 missionaries herethat are allgoingto serve in CentralAmerica (missionsinclude guatemala, belize, el salvador, costa rica, panama, honduras,and nicaragua. we have "nortes" (the white people/gringos) who stay 6 weeks and the latinos who only spend2 weekshere. i am already in a district there are 13 of us (9 elders all going to retalhuleu and 4 hermans 2 goingto honduras and 2 going to nicaragua) i am in a tripanionship with elders saunders and elder thun from utah and montrose respectively. they are both great guysand it will be a blast working with them overthe next few weeks. i cantthinkofanything elseto say so ifyouhave questions let meknow.

adios