Week Seven

Hey Ma! My trainer is great! His name is Elder Ward from Utah, and he's only been here three months! But he´s really obedient and has taught me a lot.  I just hope I can help him a little eventually when we teach lessons, cause right now it's all him. Haha! The weather is kinda rainy some days and always at least a little windy. It gets cold at night and our house is nice, but it has cracks that lets the cold in and the back door doesn´t close right.... Other than that it's great! They do celebrate Halloween here, but its not as big. 

I'm in a city called Las Piedras. But my area is actually outside the city in little neighborhoods. My mission president seems really cool and is a good guy! I'm glad to be here! The flight was long and exhausting, but I made it alive and my bags made it too! Haha!  

I'll send pics next week. You would love it here Ma! No one brushes their teeth so you would have a hay-day cleaning them! It makes it really hard to understand people, especially the older people cause they're missing teeth so they don't enunciate very well. Its been hard, I don't understand most of what people say, but everyday I start to understand a little bit more so maybe by the end of two years I'll actually be able to have a conversation with some people! Haha! 

I haven't had any doors slammed cause people don't have doors here... They just have curtains, so most of the time they just tell us to come back later! Haha!

Let me know how your trip to Utah is if you go and tell grandma I love her! 

We have two baptisms coming up this Saturday and I didn't do anything, but I'll be there to smile in the pictures Haha! People here are kinda different sometimes, but its good! I got to teach part of a lesson by myself this week which was terrifying, but it went well and I think I'm kinda understandable... I had to get up and introduce myself this week in Sacrament meeting... it was interesting! Haha! Anyways I love it here! I LOVE SEEING PICS! Love y'all! 

- Elder Cole

Pictures I (Jaycie) got from the internet of Las Piedras

Week Six

Hey Ma! I head out today (Monday Oct 24). The last few days have been good... It´s been a good experience here at the CCM. I don´t have much to say. I gave my first Priesthood blessing yesterday and that was a really cool experience! Our district gave eachother blessings before we all split up and I got to bless Elder Christensen and he blessed me. I feel ready for the field now... or at least as ready as I can be. Haha! Its just me and Elder Christensen left - the rest of our district left early this morning so we aren´t doing much of anything. Love y´all! I´ll sleep as much as I can on the plane. In 9 weeks it´ll be Christmas and then we can probably Skype, just have to make it to there.  Anyways, I´ll probably be able to email you sometime tomorrow when I get to the Mission Home. Love y´all I hope everything is going well back home.

Love,

- Elder Cole

 

Elder Cole and his mission President and his wife - The Eddy's
They are younger than Chad :)

His last day in the MTC with one of his instructors - Sister Gutierrez

 

Week Five

The last few days have been really great! The General Young Women´s President of the Church came and talked, and she toured our class so that was kinda neat! She said hi to me haha.

I also had a really cool experience in my class this last week. We teach our teachers, as they pretend to be non-member investigators. Me and Elder Christensen haven´t had much luck teaching one of the investigators. So we decided to try something new and we didn´t teach really any doctrine or share scriptures, we just shared our testimonies.  I shared a story about my dad and how he really didn´t go to church as a youth, and that I was grateful for the decisions both my parents made because I was born in the church, have a great life, and I´m now on a mission! After the lesson I thought it had gone well because I was able to share that story in Spanish and it was understandable, so my Spanish was obviously improving! Haha! Elder Christensen didn´t enjoy the lesson because he felt like he didn´t know what to say throughout the lesson. When our teacher gave us feedback, she told us that the lesson was good... and then she started to cry. She said that our lesson was what SHE needed to hear, not her fake investigator, but her. She said that the things each of us said touched her heart. But I know that it wasn´t what I said because nothing I said was significant in any way, but the Spirit was there and helped her understand what God wanted her to hear. I´m so glad I was able to see the Spirit work through me! I can´t wait until I can help bring these feelings and changes to people in Uruguay! I´m so glad to be on a mission it´s been a great experience so far and I´m not even in Uruguay yet!

We got our travel plans this week and I´ll be headed to Uruguay Monday night! It´s an 8.5 hour flight to Chile, we´ll have a 3 hour lay-over there and then it’s about 2.5 hours to Uruguay Tuesday morning! I´m super excited... but with all the new books that I got here at the CCM, my bags are too heavy so the next few days I´ll be figuring out exactly what I need to survive in Uruguay! Haha!

Anyways I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is God´s church and I´m so glad I get to share that with the people of Uruguay next week! Not sure when I will be able to email again, but I love y´all and I hope everything is alright back at home!

Love,

Elder Cole 

The view outside the wall

Week Four

This week has actually been really boring and normal. Haha! On Saturday we got to teach real people from outside ¨the wall¨ and that was really cool! We taught 2 teenage girls who are members of the church, but they were really nice and spoke really slowly for us to understand! Haha! 

Then I got the chance to lead all the music in our sacrament meeting; and I never really did that before except a couple of times when I was 12, but it was good and I´m pretty sure they´ll have someone new do it this week haha! 

I´m getting super pumped to go to Uruguay, but I´m also really scared because I am not sure I´m all that ready for it! But I know I´ll learn a ton as soon as I get out there! And I´m so excited to start teaching people about the Gospel and see it bring joy and blessings into their lives! I know it’s going to be hard, but I would not be learning much if I wasn´t having to struggle all the time! I´ve had so many spiritual experiences now and I know that the Lord is leading me every day cause there’s no way I could do this by myself! 

I´ve been trying to memorize right around 220 words a day so that when I leave the CCM I kind of have a basic Spanish vocabulary, but we’ll see how many words I actually get memorized haha! I love it here and I´m looking forward to seeing the people of Uruguay! 

This week our district has been helping the newest missionaries learn Spanish and it’s so awkward because I feel like I don´t know anything haha! Anyways love y´all! I pray for everyone back home every day! Hope y´all are doing well! I will be emailing on Wednesday next week and next week and my last week here in Mexico! See y´all in less than 2 years! 

Love,

Elder Cole  

A little from his family email:

I heard from another missionary about the politics going on at home... I´m kinda glad I won´t be in the US for a couple years... Yes, we get recess every day for an hour and we play basketball or volleyball most days, it´s really nice to just let go and not have to think about Spanish for a little while. Today for P-day we did some cleaning, 

That’s so cool that Mariah will be serving right next to me! That´ll be awesome to talk about our missions in 2 years! 

This week was kinda rough for my Spanish cause I´m still really lost and they are cutting our study time down so that we can teach more ¨investigators¨ so I have absolutely zero time to study just Spanish except during meals. I´ve been receiving a lot of personal revelation lately! It’s been incredible! I can be so lost with what I am going to teach my investigator next, and then I pray and I just feel the Spirit and I just know what needs to be said, and I´m not even teaching real people yet!  

Last Sunday I lead the music in sacrament meeting! Good thing I learned when I was a deacon or that would have been really embarrassing!  

Overall the CCM is great and I´m loving it here! Love y´all! See ya in 699 days! 

-Elder Cole

Ps: My umbrella broke.

Week Three

This week has been a ton of fun! I feel like the days are starting to get easier! Here at the CCM the days are long and the weeks feel short. General Conference was so awesome! It was so cool to be a missionary and watch General Conference in the CCM. My favorite talk was by Elder M. Russell Ballard! I just loved it and how he talked about remembering those moments throughout your life when you've felt the Spirit the strongest! 

My district is now the oldest district in our zone and its kinda weird cause we just got here Haha! But its fun to see the new guys come in every week and remember what my first day was like! This week has definitely been easier than the ones before and I´m really starting to feel the Spirit and love being here! 

This week we had to eat Serrano chilies as a penalty for speaking too many English words during our English fast. I got the biggest one and it was pretty hot, but I survived and the Mexican guys say that if you eat chilies you´ll speak better Spanish! Haha! I´m so lucky to be here! I´ve never been more sure that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet! I love talking about the gospel and I'm starting to feel more comfortable in using my broken Spanish haha! I started enjoying it so much more after I just decided that my Spanish was going to be bad and I was gunna talk anyway! Haha! 

Anyways I hope y´all´s week has been great! Miss y´all but there's nowhere I´d rather be right now than here! I also met an Hermana from Royal! Hermana Noftle! She said she was supposed to find me and say hi from Curtis and Lue! Haha! That was pretty cool to see someone from home! 

Love,

Elder Cole

A few tidbits from the family email:

Hey Ma! This week has been great! General conference was a blast here at the CCM. We got to watch it in English so that was nice and I´ve never enjoyed General Conference more. Its kinda funny though cause all of us missionaries are dead tired all the time and so whenever we aren't actively doing something, we crash and it was so hard to stay awake for conference! Missionaries were asleep everywhere haha! 

Our lessons are going well, but its still hard sometimes.... I'm just glad I´m not teaching real people yet. The weather has been pretty nice, it rains in short bursts every so often. We ate our chili's this week from last weeks English fast and it was really hot! I ended up with the biggest pepper! But it was good, I survived and feel more prepared for the food in the field now Haha! But they say that people in South America don't like spicy foods so we´ll see. 

We practice taught with another district yesterday that has been here the same amount of time and it was great because I realized that I actually have a pretty good handle on Spanish and the gospel, I´m not cocky, just excited that I´m doing a little better than others haha! Most of that district is going to my mission too so I might see them there. I looked at a better map of my mission and it isn't as big as I thought! My mission is almost exactly half of the country.... the south eastern half. So my mission has all the coast and the other is all inland. 

Love,

Elder Cole

Us at the auditorium for General Conference.

I got the biggest pepper.

This is the case I got for you Ma.

This is mine since I will be baptizing hopefully.

The temple