Getting Ready to Leave the CCM

Buenos dias familia y amigos! 

Once again it is so great to hear from you all again!  Thanks mom for the advice for my bags, I’m still glad I can receive these talks even thousands of miles away. haha jk. I’m so jealous I missed Peyton's and Dad's b-days.  I really missed being home on both of those days cause I knew exactly what was going to be going on back home, but it's all good.  And yes, I am so glad I missed that St. Patty's day meal back home.  The smell still haunts me all the way down here in the Ciudad de Mexico.

B-Mount from our athletic field. Four fires on the mount just this week.

That is so crazy about Taylor, it truly is so awesome he is coming out here to serve! Tell him that it is NOT EASY and he needs to work hard.  Trust me, I am learning the hard way every single day here.   I'm so glad to hear that life is still going on and hasn’t stopped. Sometimes I think that there is no life outside these walls. haha.

Well I will start off by telling you something that happened to Elder Dougherty and I about a week ago, maybe a little longer.  So we were at TALL which is our online computer class and both of us were terribly

Check out the "Lego" houses on the hill behind me...pretty cool.

sick with either a bug or something. Either way we needed to go to the bathroom soooo bad so we left and were wandering the halls of this building we hadn’t really ever been in before. There was no power in this part of the building, haha but we found a bathroom and were stoked out of our minds! So after that we saw that we needed to get back to class it was about 7 pm and class gets out at 7:45 pm so we tried to leave, but realized that all the doors were shut and someone had locked them.  So we were locked in this dark little hallway with 6 locked doors.  We were trying to find a way out but couldn’t. So we just sat there and waited hoping some elders would find us.   An hour later they found us laying on our backs in this pitch black hallway, it was hilarious.  We gave this place the name "the Mines of Morriah" from Lord of the Rings because it really is just dark with tons of doors.  So now whenever we say we’re going to the bathroom, we say we are going to Morriah.  haha.

These purple trees are beautiful and all over down here.

Also there are fires here constantly. The mountains all around us caught on fire like 4 times this week and the people just let it burn.  No fire crews or nothing.  I just hope none of the Lego houses burn because it has gotten pretty close at times. Between the all night music parties and constant fireworks being lit off ALL DAY and these are the really loud ones that make a huge boom like the ones at the 4th of July fireworks shows.   I guess it is a Catholic celebration or something, but literally multiple times an hour these go off and echo in the classrooms.  Super weird.

Okay now for the serious side of things. This past week has been hard in fact probably the hardest week minus my first one here in the CCM. The language isn’t really showing too much results and we are all very frustrated and nervous to be leaving here in a week.  Yesterday we had TRC which I HATE! Ugh, it literally is the worst.  The first time we had it was the time I wanted to go home like 3 weeks ago because it was just a horrible experience with Leslie.  Of course, my companion and I got set up to talk to her again, but she had a different profile she was playing.   Anyways, my teacher told us that she is a less active member who doesn't enjoy church etc.   So we planned a lesson with the 10 minutes they give you to plan a lesson about the importance of church.   We go in and start to ask and get to know her and it turns out that she decided to change her profile, and become a fully active member.  She said that "the highlight of her week is church" my companion and I looked at each other with this look of terror because we had absolutely no idea what to say now, and we had to teach for 30 min.  At this  point we had been in there for about 3 minutes.   So yeah, bad news.  ha. We asked her if she is having any struggles or needs help with anything and she responds with just NO... we’re like okay...?? and bear in mind we barely understand what she says she talks so fast and uses words I

The running track.

 have never heard before, so it was just not looking to good.  We literally had nothing and it was so embarrassing we were mad, disappointed and just wanted to get out of there.  She asks to see our Libro de Mormon and so we hand it to her and she starts flipping through the pages not even listening to what we are trying with all our hearts to mutter out in the most broken Spanish we can form.   So I try bearing my testimony and so does my companion and we end and say usted entinede? and she goes huh?  She completely ignored what we even tried to say.  Well our time was up and we left the room and just left the building and went to the outside basketball courts where we both lost it.  I am not one to cry ever, but yesterday hurt and it hurt bad.  I was so mad and disappointed in myself that I just broke down and so did my comp.  We didn’t know what to do we just sat there for about 30 minutes talking about why this happened.  I was hurt because I had worked so hard to try to learn this language and the gospel and we wanted to succeed so bad, but we failed in the worst way possible and embarrassed ourselves in front of everybody.  We later talked to our teacher which was hard because he can’t explain himself in English that well and we can’t in Spanish.  So it was just a hard and long day for sure.   I’ll be honest I still don’t feel good about it today, and honestly I am terrified to go out into the mission field next Tuesday.  I feel so unprepared and can only hope the Lord can help me with this prueba.   But last night as I lay in bed, I had a thought pop into my mind and it was one of my favorite scriptures in Ether 12:6.  I don’t have my scriptures with me to write it out here but please whoever is reading this email take a look at that email and know of how true it really is.   It made me realize that I am being tested and need to show the Lord I can overcome this test by hard work and faith.

Well I'm sorry for the depressing email familia! Just had to tell you how I really am down here, but just know I love and miss you all and know you all are proud of me being out here.  I just hope I can continue to make you proud throughout my mission. Have a great week and next time we speak I’ll be in the USA!

Hasta Luego! Much love

Elder Woffinden aka Superman