Week 4 at the CCM

This week was a really fast week as normal.  Not a lot happened this week, just the usual class, teaching, studying.  But I definitely learning a lot and my Spanish is getting better little by little.  The highlight of the week was earlier this morning.  We got to go out of the walls of the CCM and make a visit to the temple.  It was really great being able to see out of the wall of the CCM and see the real world again.  It did make me appreciate how nice we had it in the CCM.  Driving through Mexico City was an experience as normal, it´s just so much different than any other city I have ever seen.  I just stare out of the bus window the entire time in awe because every street there is something new.  It was funny there were guys that would walk into the street during red lights and sell newspapers, or wash windows.  To me it´s just so cool to watch how different it is compared to the states. 

  Once we got to the Temple grounds it was a great experience, right when you got onto the grounds you could just feel a change.  Even though we couldn´t go through the Temple because of the renovation, the Spirit was there for sure especially when were in the visitors center in the room with the Christus. (statue of Christ)  The background of the world behind him is so cool, and to think that God created the Earth through Jesus Christ is amazing.  Then also thinking of all that he went through while he was on Earth just because of his love for us.  The Temple grounds and Visitors center are super nice, it is way cool especially because right across the street from the temple is Mexico City again.  I can´t wait to be able to go through the temple again, it makes me appreciate more when you don´t go through it for a while.  We got to go the the Temple with our favorite Latinos, they are super funny and we always talk to them.  They are only here for about 2 weeks, but they have been way nice to us.  I will send some pictures!  

Elder Geddes and his CCM district at the Mexico City Temple Visitors Center

Well it sounds like everything is going well in Utah. We´ve been getting hail once in a while here as well!  I´m sure Jordan gave a great farewell talk, he´s going to be such a great missionary especially with his hard work ethic and great personality!  I can´t believe that Eric Moore is already back, wow time really flies by, I feel like he left just left not too long ago.  

  Everything is good here I luckily haven´t really gotten sick, there was a virus that was going around but I never got it.  My companion Elder Heaton sort of got it, but not near as bad as most people got it.  It´s been an interesting experience being in a trio companion. Me and Elder Heaton get along really well which makes things nice.  Our District is pretty great as well, I get along with all of them.  I still can´t believe that I only have 2 weeks left here in the CCM, it is so crazy how fast time has gone by here! 

Well I hope that all is going well at home I love you so much!  

Love,

Elder Geddes

 

Elder Geddes and Elder Weese

Elder Geddes' district receiving 20 pieces of mail in one day!

Elder Kuhn, Elder Geddes, Elder Dalton

Week 3 at the MTC

  Wow this week has really flown by.  It has been kind of a crazy week as well. First off we had 2 missionaries from our district go home:  Elder E. who had severe depression, and Hermana T. who had Major Anxiety.  It was really sad to see them go, but they both needed to get better help.  They are both planning on  coming back, Especially Hermana T. because she really didn´t want to leave.  It´s a sad time for them but it ended up being a blessing for our district.  

   Before Hermana T. left our Teacher Hermano Carmona wanted us as a district to teach her the plan of salvation.  We acted like we were practice teaching her as an investigator, but really the lesson was directed for her.  We mainly focused on  ´´Our life on Earth´´.  Hermano Carmona shared a video during the lesson called ´´The Will of God´´ It was about a Gardener who cut down a currant bush in order for it to grow stronger and bear fruit.  It related that to how the Lord is is our gardener and how he will give us trials to make us stronger.  He loves us so much that he would ´´cut us down´´ because he knows it will make us grow.  That really is amazing he would do that for us, and shows his unbelievable love he has for all of us.  The spirit was really strong in that room, such a cool experience.  It really related to what she was going through at that time, and something that she needed to hear.

   The next day after she left Hermano Carmona wanted us to prepare and teach a lesson to Elder E. This time we didn't  act like he was an investigator.  We taught him as Elder E. We taught him the plan of salvation as well mainly focusing on the Atonement and relating it to how Jesus has gone through all that we are going through. Ever since I heard about Elder E's and Hermana  T´s struggles, I just felt like we needed to watch a conference talk by Jeffrey R. Holland ´´Tiny Vessels´´ as a district.  A little into the lesson I introduced that video.  I don´t know if you remember Mom, but while I had my concussion you told me to watch this talk.  It really comforted me at that crazy time.  It was honestly the most powerful conference talk I had ever heard.  Thank you for having me watch that talk, because now I was able to pass it on  to Elder E.  We couldn´t watch the entire talk during our lesson to him, but we watched the story about Stephanie Nielson´s plane crash, and how she wanted her life to end.  This story and Hollands closing words brought tears to Elder E's eyes, it was exactly what he needed.  It brought an overwhelming spirit to that lesson, that stayed with us the entire time.  We proceeded to teach him, and everything that anyone said was just amazing.  Towards the end of the lesson (Elder Weese) told him to ´´never ever forget the love he felt from us in this lesson´´  You could just tell Elder E. felt our love so strong.  Then Elder Weese said ´´now times that love by a thousand and that´s how much Jesus loves you´´.  I know for a fact the spirit guided him to say that.  The spirit was unbelievably strong in that room, the words Elder Weese said really hit me so hard as well as the rest of the district. 

Later that evening in our room, Elder E. told me that the lesson that we had for him was the strongest he has ever felt the spirit in his entire life.  I´m so glad we were able to do that for him before he left. I know we were all put into district 12 E for a reason, and those experiences really strengthened my testimony as well as everyone in our district.

  So now I´m in a trio companionship.  It´s me, Elder Heaton, and Elder Beatty.  Also our district is now just 7 Elders. Hermana T's companion Hermana Thompson had to be transferred to another district because they were the only Hermanas in our district.  We are the smallest district in the CCM and probably the only all Elder district.  It´s actually really nice only having 7 of us, we get more personal focus with the teacher. I

  Surviving is a great word for the CCM food haha. Yeah it´s always great running into people that I know.
We´ve had a couple big rainstorms, but it really doesn't rain too much.  Probably rained more in Hawaii than here, but the storms here are pretty crazy.  We never get to step a foot out of the CCM except for one time where we go visit the Temple.  But the facility is big and nice so it is not bad at all.  Every day we have gym time, we normally play handball it´s like ultimate frisbee but with a ball and goals.  It´s super fun, and then sometimes we'll play ping pong, basketball, volleyball and other things.

I hope that everything keeps going well with you!  Everything here is going well for me here in the CCM.  

Love you so much,

Elder Geddes

District 12E

Beautiful sunset at the CCM

Adventures at the CCM!

Week 2

Hola Famillia!!  

   This week has gone by really fast, I can't believe that it is already another P-Day!  I've been learning a lot of Spanish and so many other things!  It's pretty great when things click and I actually understand Spanish.  I can understand quite a bit now which makes it a lot easier to make it to the teachers.  Our first ´´investigator´´ turned into our 2nd teacher which is really nice, because he knows what we need.  His name is Hermano Carmona!  We learn so much when he teaches us because he is fast paced and keeps the lesson moving along.  Hermano Tapia is still our morning teacher and he is just so nice, I just love when he is in the class he laughs at all our dumb jokes and he is just always happy.  

   Some of our District (12E) have been really struggling with Anxiety and all that stuff.  We pray for them a lot and we hope that they can get better soon.  Depression is real and it's quite a scary thing.  Hermano Carmona showed our District some conference talks before class one day that he felt would help us.  The first one was By Bednar and MTC Devotional and it was about listening to the spirit. He told a story when he was a young Missionary  and how he gave Elder Packer 20 marks for food that night when Packer was boarding a train to east germany with his wife.  Long story short that 20 marks got his wife into east Germany somehow because they wouldn't take her passport.  Things could have gone really really bad if he did not have that 20 marks to ´´bribe´´ that guard.  You probably have heard the story before but it was amazing!  Listening to the spirit is key, and sometimes it may not even seem like a spiritual prompting but it is.  The next video he showed us was ´´The atonement and Missionary Work´´ with Elder holland and I forgot who else was in it.  It is just incredible that Jesus would give his life for US not very many people would do that, but he knew that it had to be done.  The spirit was there for sure during those 2 videos.  I hope that it helped the 3 people in our District who were struggling. (a hermana is struggling as well)  I told Hermano Carmona that I want him to show us the Talk ´´Tiny Vessels´´ by Elder Holland.  I think it will really help them as they struggle with all the emotions they are going through.  It is the Talk you sent me in Hawaii and that talk really hit me, such an incredible talk.  Elder Weese (one of my favorite missionary in our district) had also been telling his companion that he though we should watch that same talk! So I really hope Hermano Carmona will show it.

   This week I memorized 2 scriptures in Spanish and then In english!  The first one I memorized was Mosíah 16:9  ´´El es la luz y la vida del Mundo; Si, una vida que es infinita, que nunca se puede extinguir.  Si, y tambien una vida que es infinita, para que no haya mas muerte´´  ´´He is the life and the light of the world; yea, a light which is endless that can never be darkened; Yea, and also a life which is endless that there can be no more death´´  Yes I did those both out of memory!!  It is so true that Christ is the Life and light of the world, without him we would be nothing, he is our everything.  Also memorized James 1:5!  It's actually kind of fun memorizing scriptures that will be really useful.  That quote from Uchtdorf is awesome, I think someone actually shared that this week!  It's so true though.  

   Well 2 weeks down and the food is pretty old already, but they have some decent stuff.  There is UNLIMITED Nutella which is pretty unreal.  They serve half american food and half mexican food, remind me of BYUH but it's mexican food not asian food.  Mexican food is not the greatest for breakfast, which happens pretty often.  My Casa is pretty sweet, a lot nicer than my dorm!  Spanish is coming long, I just gotta realize that it takes time and that it won't come automatically.

I love you  so much!

Elder Geddes 

MTC Week 1

   I have made it through the first week of my CCM experience!  Flying into Mexico was way cool, seeing the city was nothing like I had imagined.  I flew into Mexico with probably 40 or so missionaries and then there were a ton more missionaries in the airport when we got there.  We got onto the bus and it was about an hour drive through the City, wow that city is way crazy!!  There is graffiti everywhere, the bus driving was the gutsiest driver ever.  I was with Elder Ryan Call, and Elder Colfack for most of that day which was pretty nice, and I met a ton of other missionaries.  I couldn't stop staring out the window and looking out at all the shops and other things on the side of the street.  One of my favorite things to look at was all these hole in the wall Mechanic shops like very 50 yards, there were so many of them!  It reminded me of the shop on the movie Cars.   Once we got through the crazy city we made it to the huge nice looking fenced off area the CCM.  Prounounced Say Say eh may.  The campus is actually super nice, everything is taken care of and really manicured. Once we got to on of the buildings we unloaded the bus.  Once we got inside it started to POUR rain for about 4 hours straight just dumping buckets.  It rained super hard the next day with these crazy lightning storms but hasn't really rained since which is nice.

The language is coming along pretty good, I basically know how to pray in Spanish, and I have a learned a ton of new words.  There is so much to learn at one time though, it´ll come eventually especially with the Lord's help.  Our Teacher is Hermano Tapia, he's from Mexico and served his mission in Vera Cruz.  He only speaks Spanish to us, but he throws in a few English words here and there which is helpful.  I think he knows quite a bit of English but they're only supposed to talk to us en Espanol.  Most every meeting and devotional are in English though because they want us to be able to understand all the important information that they give us.  My companion is Elder Heaton  from St. George!  And surprising enough he is going to Little Rock with me, we're the only 2 here.  He's straight out of high school and we get along really well, especially the last couple days now that we´ve gotten more comfortable.

 The weather is just the greatest here, seriously it is perfect all day long, especially on the days where we don't have to wear suits which is every day except Sunday.  I don't get any blood noses which has been really nice.  I'm really surprised that I don't hate wearing church clothes all day, it hasn't been bad at all. Most the time I feel like i'm just wearing normal clothes.  Time has started to go by a lot faster here which is nice, and I got the best P-day because it is devotional day.  That means we don't have to teach any lessons all day, everyone has told us it's the best day to have!

One cool experience I will share real quick is that bunch of missionaries were in the same room and we got to ask questions to these investigators.  One of the investigators names was Juanita, we got to know her and here background.  Then a missionary bore a really strong testimony to her about overcoming the trials we had in her life.  The spirit was super strong in that room.  It was way cool.  Then a couple days later we saw a picture of her in our building sweeping as a Sister Missionary probably from a couple years before.  They totally lied to us saying she was a real investigator!!  Still a cool experience though.

A missionary from our Casa came into our room one night and shared a scripture.  It was D&C 35:13 ''Wherefore, I call upon the weak things of the world, those who are unlearned and despised, to thrash the nations by the power of my Spirit''


I love you all so much! Hope you are all doing well!
Elder Geddes

Mexico City

Arriving at the MTC

Leaving on a mission! Heading to the Mexico MTC to learn Spanish.

Saying goodbye at the airport

Elder Braden Geddes

The missionary group waiting to board the plane