"Don't Dirty Jesus' House! We In The VIP Section"

Well ladies and gents, howdy!!

How are ya? What's up my homies? I'm doing pretty great! This week has gone by crazy fast, and I'm now approaching my last full week here at the CCM. AHHHHH!! And then I leave for San Diego on the 15th! It's insane how fast time has flown by here, and some days I don't feel ready to go at all, and other days I'm just itching to be teaching actual people. (Not just my teachers pretending to be investigators, haha). But this week has been pretty good! I've learned a lot about connecting with others and how to better study my scriptures! (I'm going to attach the file I got from Elder Larson on "Feasting on the Word", it's a pretty good method for if you want to get even more out of your studies). But it's been great, and morale has stayed high!

Last Friday I was blessed with the opportunity to go to el Templo de la Ciudad de México! (The Mexico City Temple). IT. WAS. BEAUTIFUL. And there are so many cool and unique stories about that temple. One of my favorites is this: there is a metal pole that stands about 6 or 7 feet tall, (I can't remember exactly how tall), that resides in one of the flowerbeds outside of the temple. Mexico City was built on a lake AND it was also built on a fault line. (crazy, right?!) When the temple construction was complete in 1983, the temple sat at where the top of that pole is. That means that since 1983, the Mexico City Temple has SUNK 6 or 7 FEET. AHHHHHH. It's so crazy!! But they've since done some reconstruction to the foundation of both the Temple and the Visitor's Center so that both buildings are able to take the movement from the earth below!! It's pretty interesting if I do say so myself. (ALSO, if you'd like to know more about the Mexico City temple, or just temples in general, PLEASE email me or message me over messenger, and I will tell you more about it). I get to go back to the Mexico City Temple today as well, I feel so incredibly blessed. (It's also cool to know that both Hermana (Ellie) Grimm and I will both have been into the Mexico City Temple... not at the same time, but still. We're definitely making plans on coming back to Mexico City post-mission so we can do one temple session together).

There have been a few MINOR natural disasters that have happened over this last week. One day my district and I walked out of class and half of a mountain was on fire. We're still trying to figure out if it was a controlled fire, or what, because only half of the mountain is charred up now. So that mystery has yet to be solved. And yesterday, before my morning class started the earthquake sirens went off. None of my district knew what the siren was when it went off because to us it sounded like a vacuum cleaner... so we stayed in our class until our teachers frantically ran into the room and told us to go outside to the "green dots". (There are big green dots all over campus that you have to go to when there's an earthquake or other emergency... but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me because if there were an actual big earthquake, all the trees and lampposts surrounding the dots would totally fall down on you... so idk what to think about that... at least it's a tree and not a building?) We didn't actually feel anything during the earthquake because it was in the neighboring city of Veracruz, but they sounded the alarms as a precaution. (DON'T WORRY MOM, I'M OKAY. A TREE DIDN'T FALL ON ME I PROMISE).

My companions and I have continued teaching our "investigators" Lucia y Carla, and Oscar (and maybe eventually his family?.. we'll see, we've only got one more week to make that happen)! We were truly humbled this last week when we thought we would be able to teach the entirety of the Plan of Salvation in detail to Lucia y Carla... in 20 minutes. We learned pretty quickly that you cannot, in fact, teach in detail the entire plan of salvation in 20 minutes... we only made it through the "premortal life". But after a few mentoring sessions with our teachers, we have started teaching more simply, and the quality of our lessons have improved!! Both sets of our "investigators" are considering baptism right now, so hopefully they will fully accept the invitation to be baptized next week. But man, I'm so ready to teach real people, you can only teach fake ones for so long.

Next week is my "senior year" here at the CCM... woah..

I love my district, we still laugh so hard together. And we all have our own animal names now. (we all chose an animal that reminded us of that person). I'm a zebra... I still couldn't tell you exactly why, but I'm rollin with it. I'm so excited to spend this last week with them and to laugh even harder, work even harder, and learn more about Jesus Christ together. I've also eaten a lot of good Mexican chocolate... yeah Hermana (Ellie) Grimm, you may have to mail me some for our birthday haha.

Mosíah 18: 7-11

"7 Y sucedió que después de muchos días, se hallaba reunido un buen número en el paraje de Mormón, para oír las palabras de Alma. Sí, todos los que creían en su palabra se habían reunido para oírlo. Y les aenseñó, y les predicó el arrepentimiento y la redención y la fe en el Señor.

8 Y aconteció que les dijo: He aquí las aguas de Mormón (porque así se llamaban); y ya que adeseáis entrar en el bredil de Dios y ser llamados su pueblo, y estáis cdispuestos a llevar las cargas los unos de los otros para que sean ligeras;

9 sí, y estáis dispuestos a llorar con los que lloran; sí, y a consolar a los que necesitan de consuelo, y ser atestigos de Dios en todo tiempo, y en todas las cosas y en todo lugar en que estuvieseis, aun hasta la muerte, para que seáis redimidos por Dios, y seáis contados con los de la bprimera resurrección, para que tengáis cvida eterna;

10 os digo ahora, si este es el deseo de vuestros corazones, ¿qué os impide ser abautizados en el nombre del Señor, como testimonio ante él de que habéis concertado un bconvenio con él de que lo serviréis y guardaréis sus mandamientos, para que él derrame su Espíritu más abundantemente sobre vosotros?

11 Y ahora bien, cuando los del pueblo hubieron oído estas palabras, batieron sus manos de gozo y exclamaron: Ese es el deseo de nuestros corazones."

I love you all!! Keep me updated on everything!! Also if you could all say a prayer for my mine and my district's stomachs, that would be great.

Until next week,

Hermana Grimm

Pictures:

1. The Mexico City Temple with all of our name tags :))

2. My district and I with the Christus Statue in the Mexico City Temple Visitors Center

3. My companions, Hermana Bywater & Hermana Michaelis in front of the temple

4. The pole in the garden I was talking about

5. My district and I after our service project (we cleaned one of the houses on campus)

7. I met Hermana (Ellie) Grimm's MTC teachers while I've been here.

8. Hermana Horton, Hermana Bywater and I just gettin swol in the gym