First Week Done--Life in the CCM (Missionary Training Center)

He's on the left...new haircut! I think this may be the group he traveled with from LAX

The group of elders that arrived the same day he did...May 14. There was another pic of the sister missionaries taken. Let's see...starting from the sister, count two rows up and two to the right if you can't pick him out :)

His disctrict. He's the 4th one from the left.

(From his first emails home...)
Anyway, things are going. First few days were pretty rough, but Fri afternoon things started picking up. Sundays are the best though/ Also, excuse symbol errors because this keyboard is Spanish but it's programmed as an English keyboard so basically all the symbols are wrong. Currently, there's ~120 nativos (Latin Americans) and 20 nortes (North Americans), and only a few of the other nativo missionaries speak any real English. A few learned in Grade School or travel, though. From what I've heard, that ratio's gonna switch, possibly before I leave, since Americans are going on vacation and nativos back to school. That'll be weird, cus right now the nortes are a bit pampered because they understand how it is to be limited in conversation and everything's just harder for the lot of us. They don't even have an advanced Spanish track, so you're here for 6 weeks or 2 and everyone is in the same class. It's good because I can help the Elderes who don't have any Spanish experience, but it does make it harder to improve my own barring practice with the nativos. Some of them I can understand pretty well, but others not so much, for probably an average of 50% comprehension. They can all understand me, though, so that's bueno. 

Oh, and the CCM is getting rededicated in just over a week I think, so that'll be spiffy. It's kinda weird cus at least the nativos change out every 2 weeks, so they'll be gone soon and we'll have new roommates and all that. Plus, fair warning: until you get acclimated to the CCM, it's extremely unpleasant and stressful. The first few days, everyone is just having difficulty and all, but after that, it does get much better. Especially if you work. I haven't felt particularly hot here, but that seems to not be representative. It also hasn't rained, though it's usually overcast. The CCM is more conservative in culture than the Provo MTC, but that's at least in part because the nativos don't have the same cultural background and need certain conservative customs to keep them from going rogue. E.g., it's specifically emphasized that no stealing or anything of the sort is permissible. Stuff like that. You get used to it pretty quick and they're a bit laxer with the nortes. There's a little truck that comes to the CCM on P-Days and sells missionary stuff, and some of it's cool but it's also rather expensive, unlike everything else.

Oh yeah, we only have one sister from the US in our District cus all the others are on the Native track (one of whom was in my Calculus class @ BYU). But yeah, my Spanish is pretty solid actually, especially since I've had a lot of practice. Just need a bit more comprehension and vocabulary, and then review some of the more advanced tenses. I am wondering if that'll affect anything, but probably not. 

Let's see, we go to the Temple on P-Days and it's otherwise just been chilling today. We've taught one "investigator" four times and that's been going well, especially since Elder Carver and I have been putting a lot of effort into improving our teaching and doing things right even though he started with no Spanish and I'm at least able to manage conversations with most people. It's been pretty good with him, he's a hard worker, well-motivated, all that. He's working really hard on the language too.

So I don't particularly have many emails to put in this mass one so if you know someone who wants it feel free to forward it/have them give me their address otherwise I won't be able to send them anything. 

Elder Newman