September 18, 2013

Here are some photos of the fiesta and some other fun things! hope you enjoy haha 

and that is president and hermana pratt at the fiesta 

and this is my zone hermana dodson elder hart elder whiting and elder christiensen

and elder brasseaux is the one up on stage

these are the natives that were going crazy at the fiesta haha

WEEK FOUR! im on week four. already. that is so weird. because that doesnt sound like ive been out for that long, but it seriously has felt like ive been here for a year. no joke. but its also weird to think ive only got two weeks left in the CCM. that will be a sad but exciting day!

okayyy so this week has been fun! on saturday we celebrated mexicos independence day and I will say that was SO MUCH FUN! the natives here were going crazy! If you can imagine what a typical mexican party is (sombreros, the dancing mariachi girls, fireworks, the arrrrrriiiibbbbbaaas and ayayayayayas and ahahahahahahas and MEXICO,MEXICO,MEXICO!) thats really what it was like! and thats all you could hear haha! and then we sung the mexican anthem which is a fun anthem 

--- Here is a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck5fjxHoubg

(: its fun to listen to) and Mexicans really have so much pride for their country. 

then on sunday, the mexican tradition is that you stay up all night until the next morning, because the actual independence day is on the 16th, but as missionaries 11 o clock is good enough haha i felt like it  was two in the morning! so at 11 o clock we all met at the gym to watch the president of Mexico ring the bell of independance at this ancient palace, and from what i remember president pratt telling us that this place that they meet to ring the bell is a meeting place that the Mexicans have met at for centuries, even before the spaniards came, and so its a very old tradition. im really interested to find out more about it sometime! 

---Here is a link to a bell ringing ceremony with the Mexican President:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOuNPassFvc

haha okay so its been raining  SO MUCH! right now there are two hurricanes on both sides of us so we´ve been getting the side effects of them here. Mexico city is actually built on a lake and so the ground sinks every year. at the temple  they were telling us that the temple has these big poles that go down to the bed rock that help the buildings from sinking and in one part of the courtyard of the temple they showed us a pole that they said was when they first built the temple it was under the ground, and now its probably sticking four feet  out of the earth! it was crazy to see! so this whole week the ground has just been a swamp! haha you REALLY have to watch where you step. needless to say i learned my lesson. on saturdaywhile we were waiting to get into the gym for the fiesta, i had to run back to my casa,and my casa isnt that far away from the gym, you just have to cross the field of grass to get to our back door. so it was getting dark and my shoes were already wet because here your shoes are almost always wet haha but i got maybe half way out and i basically just sunk into maybe two or three inches of mud and water and grass and my shoe almost didnt come out with my foot hahaha it was the funniest thing and then my shoe was all squishy with mud the rest of the night. it was gross. but tis the life of a Mexico CCM missionary haha (:

so my ´´investigators´´ who are my teachers right now, hermana valdez and hermano hardy, are awesome!  they choose investigators they taught on their mission and pretend to be them. hermana valdez is amanda right now and its really cool to be able to practice teaching and finding out that i can teach! and in spanish! really bad spanish, but ive learned that speaking isnt as important as what the holy ghost does in the lessons. its the coolest thing and even though they arent real investigators, i love teaching them and im so excited to go out and teach! 

okay so one fun thing that has started up this week is a game our district calls ´´what are the odds´´ haha and its a dare game basically. so ill explain with what one of the elders did haha so the salsa here is soooo good! but the salsa lately has been extremely spicy, even just a little bit sets your mouth on fire for a week (jk more like an hour) haha so one of the elders went up to hermana livingston during lunch and said ´´what are the odds that you eat a spoonful of that salsa´´ haha and you have to pick at what odds you have to do it by picking between 1 and 15 and you can make your odds higher by only choosing numbers between like 1 and 5 or 1 and 7 ect. so hermana livingston chose her odds between 1 and 7  and so hermana dodson counted one, two, three! and they both yelled out their numbers and they both yelled out ´´four!´´ haha and since they both  said the same number, she lost the odds haha so she had to eat a spoonful of salsa haha and she was dying! haha its been funny to see what people have had to do. i made elder hart lose his odds and every time elder whitting talked to elder hart, elder hart had to repeat anything he said to him as a question. haha and elder whitting didnt know he had to do that haha

anyways this week has been good. there have been great days and hard days but everyday has been a day of change and learning and im so greatful for this opportunity to learn and grow and to make my weaknesses strengths. love you all! love hermana ficklin (: