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
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