Week One/ October 16, 2013 - Mission Training Center

The MTC (CCM en Espanol) is amazing. I absolutely love it. Such a strong spirit and no temptations. There is no other place I would rather be right now. I am so grateful I can serve the Lord literally 24/7. Elder Baggett is my companion. He is so much like me it is scary. He is very organized, can play the piano, wrestles, and is the oldest of 6 children. He lives in Reno Nevada. We have 8 Elders in my district and 0 Hermanas. I love my district. They are all stellar men. Elder Sanderson and Brown are companions and they are the two I knew before I left because of that website. They are super cool and they are our apartment-mates haha. They are both from Utah. Elder Naea (Naya) and elder Orme (Orm) are companions too. Elder Naea is originally from Samoa and he lives in SLC. Elder Orme is a military child and has grown up on a base in North Dakota. Elder Woodcock(who I met on the plane) and Elder Thacker are companions too. Elder Woodcock is our district leader. He is 21 as well as Elder Naea. The rest of us Elders are 18. Elder Sanderson is 19 but he had his birthday on saturday. We have so much fun together as a district. We do everything together even when we don't have to. We are already so unified. Elder Baggett- Reno Nevada Elder Sanderson- Saratoga Springs Utah Elder Brown- Somewhere else in Utah Elder Naea- SLC Utah Elder Orme- North Dakota Air Force Base Elder Thacker- Somewhere in Idaho. Elder Woodcock- Bentonville Arkansas. Proud home of Wal Mart. These are just a couple highlights of each day from my journal entries. Wed. -The strongest spiritual experience I had today was singing Called to Serve and Army of Helaman with all the incoming Elders y Hermanas. I had a blister today and I can't wait to see how many more I get. Thurs.- I heard the weeks are slow but the weeks are fast. I can definitely attest that the days are slow. We studied for 12 hours today. It was killer. Elder Woodcock is a new convert and he has such great insight to the gospel. I slept like a rock last night because I was exhausted. Friday- We taught an investigator (Francisco) for the first time today. It was a train wreck. Spanish is really difficult. We all fastest today and of course the next breakfast is my personal favorite, biscuits and gravy. We had a speaker that served in Uruguay, Hermano Harris. He said the people are super nice and it is so awesome. The weather is getting really cold and there is usually a slight drizzle that makes me and Elder Woodcock (from Arkansas) tremble. Elder Woodcock and I mess with all the other Elders and say y'all way too much and talk like we are truly from the South. It is pretty funny. i think everything is funny to us because we are always really tired. The funniest thing today was when our investigator asked us, Como Estan Mormones? and Elder Brown responded with, Si Si Si! We also have a fun time trying to sneak spoons in eachothers pockets. It is sad how much fun we have with such stupid stuff but it makes the days go by faster. Saturday- Our next lesson with Francisco went much better. We both were able to testify after without any notes and that was pretty impressive. Someone broke the news about the OU and Texas game because I wore a OU shirt to gym. No one here really understands the religion that is football down in the south. Today went by much faster and I really hope this pattern continues. Sunday- Today was so great. Nice and relaxing. We only studied for 6 hours today and that was quite a break. Elder Baggett and I went into a room and found a piano after sacrament meeting and we just played for literally an hour and a half while we had personal time. I started reading Jesus the Christ and it has such great insight about his life and it is so in depth. We met all the hermanas serving in Uruguay today. They are all super nice. Monday- Today seemed to go much faster than the others. I am so grateful for that. The days are SO long. The food today wasn't very good but after dinner, I got a package from grandma Hickey so that made my day 100X better. Our lesson with Francisco didn't go as well so we are determined to do better tomorrow. Today was just awesome. We had a ton of fun. We play four square (we call it man square) during gym today. We call it man square because it gets super intense. We have also played soccer and volleyball. That is the best hour of the day. I want to just run until I throw up because I am so sick of sitting in a chair for 10-12 hours a day. Tuesday- Today was great too. It started off rough when one of the Elders told us he needed to talk to someone. After that we taught Francisco. We had a great lesson and the spirit was so strong. It is hard to think of all the words in Spanish so we have to go around it a lot of the times. We had the opportunity to listen to Elder Dallin H. Oaks at a devotional. He is such a powerful speaker. This is my favorite thing he said. "I solemly affirm my testimony of our savior Jesus Christ that you have been called to proclaim these truths to all the world. This is the most important message in all of our mortal lives." I thought that was so awesome. We have such a great district. I really love it here. There is no other place I would rather be. I love teaching the gospel and learning spanish. I love and miss you guys! Les amo! Elder Cordy