Hola Everybody!! Today is finally p day and let me tell you it is much needed. They say p day stand for preparation day, but it honestly stand for party day. Life at the MTC isnt what I expected but it has been awesome. Quick note, the keyboards here are wacked so sorry if there are spelling and grammar errors.I will try to email as many people as I can individually, but we have a very limited amount of time here so I am sorry if I am unable to..
I don´t even know where to start but I will do my best to remember everything.
The grounds
I will start with the area here. We are located on a huge piece of land here in Mexico and all the buildings are disconnected with giant courtyards between everything. The weather here is amazing. It rains once a day at dinner time, but other than that is a constant 70 degrees and not humid which is super nice. The loco are mowing lawns every single day haha. There are some mountains and all the buildings on them are painted bright, vibrant, colors. My house is white and peach in fact. It´s a very safe place, but at night you can here gunshots at times outside hahaha! I swear we hear sirens every hour of ever day...
The gym here I love! We just barely started being able to use it. They have ping pong tables, foosball, basketball courts, soccer courts and fields, volleyball, and weights. It is very refreshing to clear my head by facing off against the elders in a game of futbol.
There are also mosquitoes. Mosquitoes for days. Mosquitoes por vida. When we open up our door from our casa in the morning there are roughly 50 to 100 mosquitoes all swarming around. They are in the bathroom, the bedroom, shower, classroom, lab...there is no escape. The other elders actually joke around with me because I go ham with the swatter. Elder Swatter, they say. Every day before bed I have scheduled mosquito swatting time where I scope the room for anything that flies and smear it on the walls. There are bug smears all over the bricks in the room. It is an odd satisfaction.
Food
They have Mexican food here (duh) most of the time. About 75% of the time. Rice, tortillas, and beans at every meal. It has been affecting a lot of the elders here (upset stomachs) but I have been perfectly fine. The only time I don´t care for it is breakfast. Who wants a salsa corn empenada in the morning? My classroom is right next to the Comedor (cafeteria) which is nice, but my casa is kind of far away from everything else.
People
Where to start!! I love the people here already. My companion is awesome. He is like me in a lot of ways. He studies hard, loves to work out in the gym, skis, mowed lawns, did a year at BYU, etc. We are already super tight. In my house we have 12 elders (and possibly more to come). There are 4 elders total in my room and they are also very cool. After a long day we all chat and goof around a little bit before bed. It has been a little weird calling everybody elder, but it has become a fun game trying to guess everybody´s first name. OH! on the topic of names. REGIS! That seems to be impossible for the natives to pronounce!! I get things like, Reis, Rejeis, Regis (soft g sound), and everything in between. I dont even know how to introduce myself honestly..I think I will go with Rejeis to the natives and normal for all the white kids.(;
I also need to mention this one elder, his name is Elder Barrus. This guy is completely wack. He is so funny. He is far too open about his hemorrhoids. Most of the stories would not be appropriate to share but i´ll update you :,)
My district is fantastic too! I was made district leader the second day I came here (not sure why but it happened..). It consists of Me, Elder Conley, and 4 hermanas. We have gotten very close too.
Our maestras (teachers) are so incredible. They are young single Mexican girls that live here and are SO kind and patient. They know when to be serious but also when to laugh with us.
There are only a couple hundred people here currently, but the number is expected to double by next week!
Language
wow...language..yep..whoopie..
I need so much work with Spanish. If I was going to complain about one thing it´s that I am so frustrated with it!! I´m actually pretty good at understanding what other people say (if they don´t speak mad fast) but I am awful at replying. So during lessons and stuff I understand what is being taught I just have a hard time using it myself. This only becomes a real issue when teaching..which is the other crazy thing. They had us begin teaching full lessons entirely in Spanish the second day we were here. We didn´t even have any formal lesson in it. The stuff I learned in high school came back pretty quickly but we basically had to read the entire lesson.. :( Elder Conley and I taught again yesterday for the third time and it was a little better, but we still both feel really gringo and inadequate at the language haha!
There is a little tienda here where I bought a cool notebook with and missionary flashcards to try and help me. I use those as often as I can.
Waiting for toast? Flashcards.
In the bathroom? Flashcards.
Lunch line? Flashcards.
Companion fell down the stairs? Flashcards.
I know I just have to put my trust in God and keep doing my absolute best.
Typical Schedule
We wake up at 6:20-30 and shower and dress. We study in our classroom.
7:45 breakfast.
Gospel lesson after gym time until lunch.
After lunch we will have roughly 4 hours of study time to prepare our Spanish lesson (this is the most grueling part of the day).
Then lesson teaching.
Dinner.
Study until bed.
The majority of our day is spent in an uncomfortably empty, brick-wall, tile-floor, classroom. But I am oddly attached to that place. My brain is always fried every day but I would not have it any other way.
Sunday here was super cool!! We had lots of meetings throughout the day. District meeting was cool because an older district asked if we wanted to join them and they gave us advice on how to survive the CCM. One hermana shared that you are only allowed on cry per week non spiritually. So I hope they roll over because I may need a few bonus ones later. Been able to fight back so far.
Also, I had to give a talk in Spanish in sacrament meeting! Everyone was like, ´´they never have the first weekers give talks, you are all probably good.´´ well forget that! It was way sketchy! But I got through it somehow.
I love singing hymns in Spanish, even though it is kind of tricky. We watched a video with Elder Holland talking to a group of missionaries and holy cow. The dam of emotions was about to break down. It was so powerful. I would venture to say Sunday is my favorite day.
In the words of Brother Crimin,
Life is good.
Church is true.
God is in charge.
Satan hates you.
The savior loves you.
Mucho amor,
Elder Regis
I don´t even know where to start but I will do my best to remember everything.
The grounds
I will start with the area here. We are located on a huge piece of land here in Mexico and all the buildings are disconnected with giant courtyards between everything. The weather here is amazing. It rains once a day at dinner time, but other than that is a constant 70 degrees and not humid which is super nice. The loco are mowing lawns every single day haha. There are some mountains and all the buildings on them are painted bright, vibrant, colors. My house is white and peach in fact. It´s a very safe place, but at night you can here gunshots at times outside hahaha! I swear we hear sirens every hour of ever day...
The gym here I love! We just barely started being able to use it. They have ping pong tables, foosball, basketball courts, soccer courts and fields, volleyball, and weights. It is very refreshing to clear my head by facing off against the elders in a game of futbol.
There are also mosquitoes. Mosquitoes for days. Mosquitoes por vida. When we open up our door from our casa in the morning there are roughly 50 to 100 mosquitoes all swarming around. They are in the bathroom, the bedroom, shower, classroom, lab...there is no escape. The other elders actually joke around with me because I go ham with the swatter. Elder Swatter, they say. Every day before bed I have scheduled mosquito swatting time where I scope the room for anything that flies and smear it on the walls. There are bug smears all over the bricks in the room. It is an odd satisfaction.
Food
They have Mexican food here (duh) most of the time. About 75% of the time. Rice, tortillas, and beans at every meal. It has been affecting a lot of the elders here (upset stomachs) but I have been perfectly fine. The only time I don´t care for it is breakfast. Who wants a salsa corn empenada in the morning? My classroom is right next to the Comedor (cafeteria) which is nice, but my casa is kind of far away from everything else.
People
Where to start!! I love the people here already. My companion is awesome. He is like me in a lot of ways. He studies hard, loves to work out in the gym, skis, mowed lawns, did a year at BYU, etc. We are already super tight. In my house we have 12 elders (and possibly more to come). There are 4 elders total in my room and they are also very cool. After a long day we all chat and goof around a little bit before bed. It has been a little weird calling everybody elder, but it has become a fun game trying to guess everybody´s first name. OH! on the topic of names. REGIS! That seems to be impossible for the natives to pronounce!! I get things like, Reis, Rejeis, Regis (soft g sound), and everything in between. I dont even know how to introduce myself honestly..I think I will go with Rejeis to the natives and normal for all the white kids.(;
I also need to mention this one elder, his name is Elder Barrus. This guy is completely wack. He is so funny. He is far too open about his hemorrhoids. Most of the stories would not be appropriate to share but i´ll update you :,)
My district is fantastic too! I was made district leader the second day I came here (not sure why but it happened..). It consists of Me, Elder Conley, and 4 hermanas. We have gotten very close too.
Our maestras (teachers) are so incredible. They are young single Mexican girls that live here and are SO kind and patient. They know when to be serious but also when to laugh with us.
There are only a couple hundred people here currently, but the number is expected to double by next week!
Language
wow...language..yep..whoopie..
I need so much work with Spanish. If I was going to complain about one thing it´s that I am so frustrated with it!! I´m actually pretty good at understanding what other people say (if they don´t speak mad fast) but I am awful at replying. So during lessons and stuff I understand what is being taught I just have a hard time using it myself. This only becomes a real issue when teaching..which is the other crazy thing. They had us begin teaching full lessons entirely in Spanish the second day we were here. We didn´t even have any formal lesson in it. The stuff I learned in high school came back pretty quickly but we basically had to read the entire lesson.. :( Elder Conley and I taught again yesterday for the third time and it was a little better, but we still both feel really gringo and inadequate at the language haha!
There is a little tienda here where I bought a cool notebook with and missionary flashcards to try and help me. I use those as often as I can.
Waiting for toast? Flashcards.
In the bathroom? Flashcards.
Lunch line? Flashcards.
Companion fell down the stairs? Flashcards.
I know I just have to put my trust in God and keep doing my absolute best.
Typical Schedule
We wake up at 6:20-30 and shower and dress. We study in our classroom.
7:45 breakfast.
Gospel lesson after gym time until lunch.
After lunch we will have roughly 4 hours of study time to prepare our Spanish lesson (this is the most grueling part of the day).
Then lesson teaching.
Dinner.
Study until bed.
The majority of our day is spent in an uncomfortably empty, brick-wall, tile-floor, classroom. But I am oddly attached to that place. My brain is always fried every day but I would not have it any other way.
Sunday here was super cool!! We had lots of meetings throughout the day. District meeting was cool because an older district asked if we wanted to join them and they gave us advice on how to survive the CCM. One hermana shared that you are only allowed on cry per week non spiritually. So I hope they roll over because I may need a few bonus ones later. Been able to fight back so far.
Also, I had to give a talk in Spanish in sacrament meeting! Everyone was like, ´´they never have the first weekers give talks, you are all probably good.´´ well forget that! It was way sketchy! But I got through it somehow.
I love singing hymns in Spanish, even though it is kind of tricky. We watched a video with Elder Holland talking to a group of missionaries and holy cow. The dam of emotions was about to break down. It was so powerful. I would venture to say Sunday is my favorite day.
In the words of Brother Crimin,
Life is good.
Church is true.
God is in charge.
Satan hates you.
The savior loves you.
Mucho amor,
Elder Regis
Taylor was not able to send pictures yet. Thankfully Elder Conley's mom sent these!