Semana dos in the field!

Hey family and friends! Here's what happened this week.

Monday - First P-Day! Spent the morning doing our personal and

companion studies, and then cleaning the house, doing laundry, etc.

Then we had zone activity where we played some "get to know each other

games" and also some basketball and other sports. It was fun to get to

know some of the other missionaries. Only thing is that zone activity

was super long and so I didn't get to finish a lot of stuff that I

wanted to do. Oh and I finally got a bike! I was going to just buy one

but they said that there were some bikes floating around the mission

that weren't being used, so our zone leaders went and got one for me.

Tuesday - Crazy day today! Tons of walking and biking. In the morning

we had our usual studies and then went to teach our investigator

Fabian. We biked to that lesson which was fun because it was mostly

down hill...the only problem is that we had to come back afterwards

haha. My legs were pretty sore afterwards. The lesson went really

well! We taught him about the plan of salvation and the atonement of

Jesus Christ. He has a lot of sincere questions and a sincere desire

to come closer to Christ. He's a cool guy. After that we went to help

a sister in our ward clear some branches out of her yard and ate some

delicious home-made pizza after. Then we went to visit another family

but we walked so we could do some street contacting. We talked to a

lot of people! It was definitely the most street contacting I've done

so far. Before I came I never would have been able to do that sort of

thing. We visited a less active member and I gave her a blessing of

health in Spanish! Then we had choir practice,  and a lesson with a

lady who's 17 year old son is a member, but she's not. After that we

went to give one of the sister missionaries a blessing with the zone

leaders and came home and passed out. I definitely slept well Tuesday

night :)

Wednesday - We did so much service on Wednesday. We started off with

our normal studies in the morning, and then we had to go to a meeting

that the zone leaders held (because my companion is district leader).

By the time we were finished it was lunch time. Then from lunch until

dinner we were doing service...The county does this thing where they

place dumpsters all throughout the neighborhoods and people dump all

their old refrigerators and couches or whatever it might be that

they've been keeping in their backyards or garages or whatever. Well

we got a bunch of calls from people asking if we could help. So we did

that (and dumped just about any random thing you can imagine) and also

helped an elderly sister from our ward mow her lawn). We barely got

home in time to shower and get ready for our dinner appointment. Then

after that we had mutual activity where my companion and I shared a

short message to the young women about the sabbath day.

Thursday - today we ate breakfast in the morning with a member at

McDonalds, came home for personal studies, then went to have our

quarterly interviews with president Palmer. It was a crazy morning.

After that we had weekly planning and lunch. We took our investigator

Fabian to temple square and showed him around and taught him about

modern day prophets. He really enjoyed the whole thing. I don't

remember if I mentioned this last week or not but he is preparing to

be baptized the 6 of May. When we finally got home we ate dinner at a

members house. My companion thought it would be funny for them to give

me a hot pepper to try. It was probably the hottest thing I have ever

eaten! Haha. The pepper was called chile serrano. It's weird because

at first it tastes like a sweet pepper but then all of a sudden it

just lights your mouth on fire. I was tearing up so hard. After all

that fun we had a lesson with some recent converts, la familia

Hernandez and then went home for the night.

Friday - On Friday we had zone meeting right after our morning studies

which lasted for a couple hours. It was pretty good though! Then we

went home to finish weekly planning and then to go pick up our dinner

from a member in our ward. The lesson that we were supposed to have

after dinner cancelled so we walked to the bishops house and talked to

people we met on the way. One guy cussed me out when I held out my

hand and tried to introduce my self...but everyone else was nice :).

We talked to a nonmember Hispanic lady who was really nice and when we

introduced the Book of Mormon she said she knew it was true, but at

the same time was trying to tell us how religion was an addiction and

some other kind of odd stuff that didn't really make sense. We also

talked to a really nice Catholic guy who surprisingly started the

conversation with us instead of vice versa. He told us that he wasn't

interested in our message but that he knew what we were doing was

really good. Anyway, after all that walking the bishop wasn't home. So

we walked to the ward mission leaders house (which was the

missionaries house until where we live now), grabbed a snack, and made

our way to one last house before we went home. It was the house of a

part member, less active family. They are in some tough circumstances.

We didn't teach them but just visited with them and tried to find out

if there was byway we could help.

Saturday - We had studies all morning, then went to Hermano Carrasco's

(the ward mission leader) house for my companion do work on some

college stuff since he's leaving in July, then we started walking back

home in the rain. Thank goodness a member had mercy on us and gave us

a lift. We picked up our umbrellas and coats and did some contacting

in our apartment complex and in the trailer park. After that we had a

lesson with Jose who is a recent convert. We are also teaching his mom

who I mentioned earlier. He is 17 years old, has cancer and is

probably nearing the end of his life. Despite all of that though, he

has stayed strong in his faith. He is an awesome kid! He's really good

friends with all of the missionaries and so we have a great

relationship with him. After our lesson with him we had dinner, went

to the adult session of general conference, and then went home for the

day.

Sunday - We had stake conference! Elder Alin Spannaus was the visiting

authority and he great talks, both Saturday night and Sunday. We had a

less active that I taught with a member of the bishopric come! We were

happy that she came. After we went to home and ate lunch with some

other elders and then sent our weekly report to the stake president

and bishop and finished some other reports. We finished they day off

visiting some less active families.

Also, I can't remember which day it was but my companion and I ate

tacos de lengua! (Cow tongue tacos). They were actually pretty good!

I'll send some pictures in a separate email.

It was a busy but good week! My companion is really helping me become

a better missionary and I'm getting lots of practice in Spanish! My

mission president told me that due to lots of missionaries going home

soon I'll probably be serving in both Spanish and English wards at

some point in the future, which is a little sad because I wanted to

really focus on Spanish, but I'm learning more and more that the

mission isn't about me, it's about serving others. I'm grateful for

Christ's example of service and I know that as we strive to come

closer to him and be more like him by serving others, our lives I'll

be blessed!

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Baxter

Utah!

Dear family and friends,

Crazy week this week! Sadly I'm not in Mexico anymore, but I'm loving

Utah so far. As much as I miss Mexico, it's good to be out in the real

world again :)

Monday - Last day in the MTC. It was super busy. We ran a last load of

laundry, finished packing, cleaned our casa, said a lot of goodbyes,

and did some pre-flight document checks. It was sad and really

exciting at the same time. Unlike most of the other missionaries in

our "generation" though, we left at noon. Everyone else left super

early in the morning, so I was greatful to get a good nights sleep. In

the Mexico airport we met a Mormon couple headed to Utah too. It was

really lucky we ran in to them though, because they changed our flight

to a different gate at the last minute and all of us almost missed it.

If we hadn't been with the couple we probably would've missed the

Spanish announcement over the intercom. The flight was kinda funny

because there were a bunch of other missionaries going home from

Mexico so the flight attendants (and EVERYONE in SLC airport) thought

we were arriving home. It was hilarious. President Palmer met us in

the airport and he and his wife took us out to eat. It was WEIRD to

eat American food again! I didn't think the food in the MTC was any

different at first but when I got back and ate at Cracker Barrel it

was pretty strange! After dinner we stopped at the mission office and

president Palmer showed us around and showed us who our new companions

were. After that we got picked up by a pair of zone leaders and stayed

the night at their house.

Tuesday - woke up and went to the mission office for new

missionary/trainer meeting. We got our iPads! As well as a bit of an

orientation. My new Companion is Elder Gee! He is great. We have a lot

in common and he is a great missionary. He told me that he has had a

lot of hard companions though, so I'm a little worried about that! We

spent most of the rest of the day moving in and getting unpacked

because the mission closed the home that Elder Gee had been living in

previously, so we had a lot of stuff the move into our new apartment.

The apartment is pretty darn nice! It has two bathrooms and two

showers, so it's a perfect missionary set up. It's just me and Elder

Gee there, so I'm definitely enjoying the the cushy part of state-side

missions right now. :)

Wednesday - I taught my first real lesson! It was a guy named Fabian.

He's from Columbia and he's just a few years older than me. We taught

him the restoration and read with him out of 1 Nephi 1. Then we spent

some more time cleaning up the old house the elders were in and moving

stuff back to our apartment. After lunch we went to the trailer park

(we spend a decent amount of our time there) to talk to some less

actives. It started to rain and we didn't have umbrellas. Sooo we got

soaked! Good times. That night there was youth activities. Elder Gee

and I went on splits so that we could teach two different lessons

(both at the church). I taught a less active member with a member of

the bishopric while Elder Gee taught a couple who were getting

baptized in a few days. Then we played volleyball for a few minutes

with the youth and then went home.

Thursday - we spent a lot of the day in our apartment because we had

weekly planning, and we already have more study time in the morning than

most other missionaries because as Spanish speaking missionaries we

have an extra hour of language study, and also, since I'm being

trained, we have an extra hour for that. So when you add on a 3 hour

weekly planning session it pretty much takes up most of the day. After

all that, we went to eat dinner at a member's house, and then went to

the church for choir.

Friday - we spent a bunch of the day moving furniture from the old

apartment to the mission storage shed. Then we spent some time

contacting in the trailer park. Nothing super interesting.

Saturday - We had a baptism! It was the couple that I mentioned

earlier. I actually hadn't got to teach them at all, but my companion

asked me to baptize the Hermana that was getting baptized. And of

course it was in Spanish! It was a crazy day because there was so much

to do to get ready for the service. It was interesting because I've

never seen how much preparation goes into it from the perspective of a

missionary! We had to write the program, we had trouble printing it

up, etc etc. it was a bit of a struggle! But when it was finally time

for the service it was all worth it.

Sunday - church in Spanish! It's funny because some days I feel like I

speak Spanish fluently, but then other days I realize just how much I

don't know yet. Church meetings usually make me feel good about my

Spanish because I know church vocabulary pretty well now, but when it

comes to our ward mission leader talking about the cars he's fixing or

really fast Spanish speakers I feel completely lost.

Gotta go, but I love you all and I'll talk to you next week!

Hasta luego,

Elder Baxter

Out to lunch...

Random text that came to SaraLyn's phone just now:

I was able to take your son and his companion out for lunch. He is a great kid and is loving what he is doing. His Spanish is very good. Thank you for raising a wonderful son. His companion, Elder Gee, is one of my son's best friends. 

Made it to Utah!- address included

Text to Eric Tuesday afternoon (arrived in Utah Monday night):

Hey Dad, its joshua. I made it safely to Utah. Im serving in Magna for my first area. Address is 8543 W. Elk Mountain Rd. #619. Love you all!

Final Letter from Mexico!

Dear family and friends,

I don´t have as much time this week because we´re going to the temple again today, but I´ll try to fill you in as much as I can! Aside from sickness that tore through the entire CCM, I had a pretty good week.

Friday - Normal day except our service project was to help clean the kitchen! I´m not sure how much we helped, but it was a good time. They´ve got the biggest pots and pans I have ever seen. Miriam and Amy could probably fit into some of them, maybe even sophie too. 

Saturday - Generaly conference! We had a few classes in the morning before conference, and then all the english speaking missionaries went to one building and all the spanish speakers went to another. I really loved elder Holland´s talk on Sunday. All of the talks were really good and I felt like I learned a lot about what I need to do personally to come closer  to Christ and also about what I can do to help others do so. We spent almost all day in one building because of conference, which was unusual, but we had the comfy theatre chairs, so I wasn´t complaining :)

Sunday - Sunday was pretty much the same deal as Saturday. We spent most of the day in the auditorium. After the last session of conference though I was feeling really sick, so we got permission to go back to our dorm to rest.

Monday - Monday I woke up feeling terrible. We found out that around half of the MTC had come down with either a stomach virus or food poisoning. I don´t think they were ever able to figure it out, but either way, we went to the enfermería to see the doc that morning. We spent an hour and a half in the waiting room becuase there were so many missionaries waiting to see him. He gave me some pepto bismol and I went on splits with another elder in my district who was also sick so that our companions could go to class while we stayed in bed. It was a rough day. Luckily though, It only lasted for that day and I was able to go to class the next day without a problem. I ended up getting to go on splits with both of the other elders in my district though because of people getting sick at different times. It was fun to spend a day with each of them.

Tuesday and Wednesday were both normal days, except that my companion (who didn´t get the first sickness) came down with something different and so we had to spend a lot of time in our casa so that he could rest. I got some good stuff done, but I was still sad because we had to miss some class and also we had to miss our last TRC last night. We also had to go to the main office here so that they could check our travel documents and give us info for our departure. My companion and I are leaving on Monday at around noon. I am really excited, but also really sad to be leaving mexico and all the awesome people here. 

Hope you all have a great week this week! Next time I write you I´ll be in Utah. Thanks for all your prayers.

Love,

Elder Baxter

Semana 4 at the CCM!

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy belated Día de Pascua! I had a pretty good week this week! Here are some of the highlights:

Thursday and Friday-Nothing besides the ordinary p-day activities (laundry, house cleaning, gym time, etc.) and classes.

Saturday - Nothing much on Saturday either. We just had our normal classes and activities. We did have a short zone leadership meeting with all the teachers of our zone. It´s a little tricky because we have to do our reports completely in Spanish, but other than that its just a normal old meeting.

Sunday - Sunday we had a different schedule. They didn´t do a very good job about publishing the altered schedule though because there was a lot of confusion about where different branches were meeting. We did a lot of walking and ended up not being able to find our own branch and so we attended another branch´s meeting. It was also fast Sunday because of general conference, so that made the walking extra fun :)  As usual we had a bunch of devotionals and the usual Sunday night movie. All the devotionals were about Jesus Christ and the resurrection. I teared up so many times! haha. The movie we watched was Joseph Smith, the prophet of the restoration. It´s different to watch it now as a missionary because the restoration is so critical to missionary work. It definately gave me a different perspective.

Monday - Up until Monday our practice lessons had only been with the teachers acting to be someone else. On Monday though, our district all had to create investigator profiles (based on someone we actually know) and so now we teach fellow missionaries too, bringing everyone to a total of 3 investigators each. It´s funny because it feels like its busy to prepare for three different investigators, but in Utah we´ll have so much more!

Tuesday - Only thing interesting about Tuesday was the Tuesday night devotional. We watched a talk given by Elder Nelson where he talked about focusing on families and getting people to the temple in our missionary work. It was really good.

Wednesday - We had TRC Wednesday night...only thing is we taught REAL INVESTIGATORS! It was really cool but a little scary too. It was a really cool experience because the day before while we were preparing, my companion and I were praying to find a specific chapter in the Book of Mormon that would apply specifically to the ''members'' needs. We both felt really good about sharing Mosiah chapter 5. but then when we found out we were going to be teaching real investigators, we kind of panicked a little and we were debating about whether we needed to change our lesson plan to teach the restoration. We ended up not changing it, and when we began talking to the family and trying to find their needs, the father said he believes in God but has a hard time believing in Christ and he wasn´t sure if Christ was really his savior or if he needed Christ. He also wasn´t sure if God, Christ and the Holy Ghost were separate. Well Mosiah 5 was the perfect chapter to explain and emphasize the need for Christ, and we also shared the scripture in Luke where Christ is baptized by John the Baptist to show to explain that they were separate beings, but one in purpose. Anyway, I don´t know if the lesson changed his life right then and there, but I think he felt God´s love, and I felt the Spirit testifying to me of what we taught, so hopefully he did too :) Despite how awesome the lesson was, TRC was a little discouraging for me because during both lessons (especially the second) I had a really hard time understanding what they were saying and I kept having to ask them to repeat or clarify. I also couldn´t remember where one of the scriptures was that I was trying to share, which was a tiny bit embarassing. Anyway, I learned a ton, but I also learned how much more I have to learn, so it was a little bit discouraging. Overall it was a good TRC though.

Love, 

Elder Baxter

Semana 3 in the CCM!

Dear Family and friends,

Time is flying! It almost seems like I just wrote home 2 days ago! I had a great week. Really busy and crazy as always, but good. Here are some of the highlights:

Friday: Elder Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came and spoke to us! It was really awesome. My companion and I both sung in the choir--really fun to sing in that big of a group! Both Elder Cook and Sister Cook spoke to us. His wife talked about how we´ve been preparing for our missions since primary...she talked about a couple of the primary songs that taught us such basic truths about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and the Gospel. She also told us that as missionaries we will have a bigger influence than we perhaps will ever know. Elder Cook spoke about a bunch of really good stuff. One interesting thing he said was that during the mission assignment process, they usually feel prompted to send a missionary somwhere based on one of three things. They will feel prompted to send a specific missionary to a certain mission president, a certain area, or a certain people. It made me curious to know what factor played the biggest part in my mission call. Also he told a story about the Washington DC North Mission and President Matsumori (btw I met an elder here who is coming to DC North! His name is Elder Omdahl, so watch out for him in the Glenmont ward!)! That was pretty cool. He told us that one of our most important jobs as missionaries is to BE the message. My favorite part of the talk, though, was when he gave us his blessing and bore his testimony of Jesus Christ. He blessed us that we will do what the Savior needs us to do and that the mission would be particularly special for us. He then bore testimony of Jesucristo and told us that he knows the Savior´s voice and knows His face. I have never felt the spirit so strongly. It has strengthened my testimony so much! I know the Savior lives. Afterward, he shook all of our hands. It was an awesome night!

Saturday: Saturday was pretty much just another normal, busy day with classes and lots of Spanish and teaching!

Sunday: awesome as usually but nothing really new or noteworthy to tell you guys. I didn´t get selected to talk (probably because I did last week) which was nice. :)

Monday and Tuesday were also just normal class days except for the Tuesday night devotional. Elder Nicolas Castañeda spoke to us. He reminds me of  President Uchtdorf, just a latino version. The biggest thing I took from his talk is to just be humble and obedient.

Yesterday was also a normal day except that we had TRC that night (TRC is when we have a real lesson with a real person, usually a member). TRC made me really nervous the first time but I really enjoy it now. This week we taught a guy named Zoram and a lady named María. Zoram is a returned missionary. We taught him about receiving answers to prayers. It was kinda funny because he kept correcting our Spanish. We had a really great lesson and discussion. María is a nice older lady who we taught last week as well. She talks EXTREMELY fast. But we were actually able to keep up with her pretty well! We also taught her about prayer and had a great lesson with her. The only bad part was that I accidentally called her ''hermano'' (brother) instead of hermana...but luckily she just thought it was funny and forgave me! I was super embarrased.

Today: is Preparation Day! It´s always nice to have a change of pace once in a while. Our district usually hangs out together a lot. I love my district! We have four elders (including me) and a triplet of sisters. We all get along pretty darn well!

Here´s some random stuff about the CCM Mexico that people have asked me about:

The food. The food here is pretty good! Sometimes its better than others, but I´m not too picky. They always have rice and beans out but luckily they have other options too, so I haven´t gotten tired of it. They also have tortillas out for every meal...most everything they serve can be made into a taco of some sort. I love it! They do a good job of making sure there´s variety so im usually pretty happy.  My companion hates the tortillas but they´re not too bad. He´s just a little picky. 

The weather: The weather here is awesome. It´s not too hot, not too cold...its absolutely beautiful! The only problem is that the pollution here is really bad. We´re right in between two mountains so the smog gets pretty bad.

Love,

Elder Baxter

Mexico Update #2

Dear Family and Friends,

I can´t believe I´ve already been here for a week! Sometimes it seems like time flies but then at other times it  doesn´t. Here´s what my week looked like:

Last Thursday we went to the Mexico City Temple! It was really cool. It had a lot of artwork that I´d never seen before. Also a cool part about going to the temple is that we get to leave the sanctuary of the MTC! The streets here are pretty crazy. There doesn´t seem to be a set system like there is in the US. I don´t think I even saw a single stoplight. People just go where they need to go and hope that everyone else stops for them. It´s a pretty funny thing to watch! Also there are many motorcyclists who squeeze between cars/busses whether there is space or not. Good stuff! The sad thing is that my camera was dead (even though I hadn´t used it at all during the week), but I had an elder in my district take a picture of me in front of the Temple so hopefully he´ll send it to me and I can pass it on to you guys next week. The rest of Thursday we only really had time to do laundry because of how long the temple took. 

Most of our days here in the CCM are mostly the same schedule, so I´ll just give you and overview of what my typical day looks like. I wake up everyday at 6:25 and have about 45 minutes to get ready for the day. Breakfast is at 7:15 and then we have personal study time for about an hour. Personal study time isn´t really all that ''personal'' because we´re always supposed to be reading and praying for things that will help us bring our investigators (real or not) come closer to Christ. But it seems like I always get something new for myself when I´m preparing for our lessons. After personal study we usually have language class in which we have a bunch of different activities, all in Spanish of course. Most days during part of language class we have practice scenarios where we practice teaching another missionary. These are always challenging but I can see how much it´s gonna help in the field. After language we have additional study and then lunch. Every day after lunch we have TALL (technology assisted language learning) in the computer labs. It´s basically just a computer program that teaches us grammar and has practice activities. I´m pretty sure TALL has some secret component because it can be really hard to stay awake in there sometimes. It´s not uncommon to see people suddenly get up and start walking around or doing jumping jacks to stay awake. :) After TALL is language study which is when we translate our lessons for the day into Spanish and/or make sure we know all the vocab words we need for that particular lesson. After that we head to gym for 50 minutes (super fun--they have a gym, outdoor basketball courts, tennis courts, a full sized track, baseball fields, weight rooms, etc etc. Its pretty darn nice!) then head back to our dormitories to shower up and get ready for the next class. We have a daily planning session everyday where we use our handy dandy agenda diaria del misionero to plan when we´re going to accomplish the endless assignments (sometimes it almost feels like school) and lesson preps that we have to do. Dinner is at 5:15 and then we usually have more language class (but with a different teacher--actually he was our first investigator, ''Carlos'' :)) If we don´t have language class then we have a lesson and more personal or companionship study, which is always good. We have to be back in our houses by 9:30 and then lights go out at 10:30. I´ve been sleeping pretty darn well! And gosh it´s a whole lot easier to get up at 6:30 if you go to bed at 10:30! (I wish I could have had it that good during seminary days, but oh well). My first few days here it was really hard to get comfy on my new bed...it took me at least half an hour to fall asleep. But now I´m sleeping great which I´m really greatful for.

Sundays, Tuesdays and P-days are the only days that are very different. I forgot to tell you last week that my companion and I are Zone Leaders, so Sunday is filled with a couple different leadership meetings, and then of course the normal Sunday meetings. We have a devotional every Sunday as well as movie night where we watch a church movie. Sundays are one of my favorite days. It´s always a reminder to me of why what I´m doing is so important, and I always feel an added sense of my Savior´s love. One fun thing about Sundays is that the branch president randomly chooses a couple people to talk. But no one knows until we get to sacrament meeting, so everyone has to prepare a talk whether they actually end up giving it or not. :)

Tuesdays are mostly the same except that we have a devotional at night. Those are always awesome. The cool thing about this week is that Elder Quentin L. Cook is visiting tomorrow! There will be a special devotional for that. Elder Wride and I are both singing in the choir for that as well. It should be a really awesome night!

I wanted to send some pictures today but I forgot the cord for my camera and my companion understandably didn't want to go back and get it. So next week I´ll make sure to send some pictures! One cool thing that I haven´t gotten a picture of yet is the palm trees and birds! They have palm trees all over the place here on campus and some pretty cool birds! I was shocked the other day to see a bunch of green, wild parrots squawking like crazy! I tried to teach them some spanish but none of em picked it up ;)

One last thing: We just started TRC last night. It's just a normal lesson...except its real live people, some investigators, some members. It´s pretty scary! but I think it went well and I was surprised at how well my companion and I were able to listen and communicate despite the real (FAST) Mexican spanish. We didn´t catch every word but we were always able to know what the person was talking about. I feel the Holy Spirit most when I teach and bear testimony. Its a great experience!

I love you all and hope everything is going well in the US! I´m having a blast here in Mexico and learning a bunch everyday. It´s crazy when I think of how far I have to go as far as teaching abilities and language skills. The schedule can be tiring and the teaching can be difficult, but I am learning like crazy and can see the blessings and help that Heavenly Father is blessing me with! Lots of love.

Elder Baxter

Elder Baxter's Primera Semana

Dear family and friends,

My first week has been great! I have very little time to write this email...I promise to do better next week! So much to tell and so little time.

On Wednesday I arrived at the CCM with a group of 21 other missionaries! I met two other elders at my connection in Atlanta...both of them are in my district. One of them is going to my mission and he is my companion, which is great. We get along pretty darn well and he really wants to be exactly obedient, which I am very grateful for! There are some companionships that struggle because of differences like that, so I'm happy that we're on the same page. After arriving we were processed through some new arrival stuff. We got name tags (perhaps one of the best parts of the day), had  medical checks, ate dinner and then went straight to our new dorms/casas to unpack and head to bed.

The rest of the week has been crazy! We have already started teaching an investigator....in Spanish ( our investigator is just one of the teachers here, thank goodness). That has been really hard. The first two lessons weren´t very good but since then my companion and I have been nailing them. 

Life here at the CCM is hard sometimes, but its a lot of fun, and I am loving it! I feel like my spanish is already a lot better and I am really enjoying the spiritual growth I am experiencing. All the people here are awesome and I'm really grateful to be here. I am out of time now but I will finish filling you guys in next week! 

I love you all!

Love,

Elder Baxter