El CCM is definitely more fun!!! We are never supervised here. They did not let us take a nap. And I dont´t think they have siestas. But they do eat way more for lunch than dinner. She hurt herself playing soccer and it will take a couple weeks to heal. We stopped caring because I basically died so yeah...

 

This week has been crazy! People went crazy!

 

The madness started when me and my companera went al clinica to check on her Achilles tendon. While we were sitting there talking to the doctor I started to feel really dizzy. Usually blood and stuff doesn´t bother me too badly but right then when he was talking about the bundle of fibers in her tendon I was so grossed out! The way he described it sounded so weird! I was drifting in and out and I wanted to tell them I was going to faint. (I am an expert fainter and know the signs) But I was too exhausted to do anything. When it was time to leave (I don't remember any of this but my companera told me later) I walked in the opposite direction of the door straight into a wall, hit my head on the wall, hit my head on a the frame of a painting as I fell to the floor, and then hit pretty much every part of myself on the floor. I had a HUGE dent in my forehead. When I was conscious again the first thing I thought was, " What the heck happened to my head!" and then I heard the doctor saying," you fainted." NO DUH.  Then I tried to stand up but that didn't work at all so I just lay there until my heart rate came back up. As soon as it did me and my companion started cracking up because it really was funny. Love her and her immaturity. The doctor thinks we are crazy. Correct! I think I fainted because I was dehydrated and because I was having trouble eating. Bad Ella!

 

I didn't feel faint at all afterwards but my head hurt like crazy! For the first day I lost all my Spanish and I couldn't read or write in English. But I was really happy. Too happy. I just lay on the ground all day holding my super cold hands to my head. I was so out of it that it hurt in a good way and I was like this is fun not having a brain! yay! I was scared to go to sleep because I wasn´t sure if I would wake up. But I did! And now I´m fine! And my brain came back! Yip! Yip!

 

The second crazy thing that has developed this week is that now me and my companion now say the same thing at the same time all the time! It weirds people out. Especially our investigators. Sometimes they are too weirded out to answer our synchronized questions.

 

The third crazy thing is that everyone here is secretly nuts. Me and my friends have been going along thinking that everyone is all friends and being normal and stuff like that. But this week there have been an absurd amount of people confessing their love for other people. I understand if you like other people but it is clearly against the rules to do anything about it! Three different districts that we have become friends with left on Sunday. I guess they all thought what do we have to lose? Apparently nothing. My gorgeous companion has had it the worst. She gets weird notes, people ask her for her email all the time, and we even got ding dong ditched. People be cray.

 

In other random news my district heart attacked the president´s house. And en la tienda the other day Elder Henrie offended Elder Crotzer by saying he was stronger than him. All day today they have been having different competitions of strength. I don´t try to understand.

 

The other day me and my companion were practing receiving inspiring questions. Super fun! We were just talking as ourselves but I was her investigator. She asked me about something very personal that I had been worrying about. There is no way that she would have known to ask that if she hadn´t been in tune with the Spirit. I am so lucky to have such a spiritual companion! And it also helped me understand how true it is that Jesus Christ really does know each of our hearts personally.

 

I write a lot here. This is something I wrote when I was supposed to be preparing a talk on the Atonement. Which went well by the way. This is loosely based on an experience I had a couple years ago and my love for the Atonement in general.

 

The inability to support my usual stature tears me by increments to the ground. Eyes slam shut. Legs buckle under. My arms fail to cradle my face as it levels with the floor.

 

Gravity, the thing I used to thrive against, pulls me into its dark embrace. All the previous necessities of life don´t bear significance in the exhaustive atmosphere I now inhabit. I don´t feel the pangs of hunger. I don´t hear the voices tirelessly existing outside the room. I´m unable to shed tears.

 

I do try to take a rattling breath of nourishing oxygen but I only half succeed. Mouth gapes wide. Teeth snag on carpet. Only my heart beats on as it should. Ican feel it thumping hard into the surface beneath me. As if this repetitive meeting can keep me alive.

 

My spirit knows better, one eye trained on the growing depression which is the end. I scramble to find a place in this wrecked body where I can curl up and protect what aspirations I have left.

 

But there is nowhere to hide when the black night weighs down. There is nowhere to go when gravity has made my body obsolete.

 

My soul harks back to the ways of my origin. I open a portal of heavenly prayer. I climb out of my prison, my mind with no thoughts. I clutch desperately onto the back of a lamb.

 

Its wool is blinding. Pristine and comforting to the touch. I drag the rest of my identity outside the gnawing cave. The lamb is quite small, but my spirit has been shriveled to weakness. The sweet animal holds me up in place of my nonexistent strength.

 

Oh dear Lord, thy mercy unending. Take my cares from my troubled grasp. I have been worn down to the devil´s doorstep. Only thy invitation can save me now.

 

Dear Lord, I promise to never forget thee if thou wilt become my stamina anew. I´m unable to take a step without thee. I beg thee to guide my legs and my feet.

 

I thank thee Lord for life, for opportunities. I ask that thou mend my body discarded. My spirit has gasped at the horror of evil. My only desire is to live forever in thy light.

 

Love you!

The difference between speaking Spanish and English is a lot like the difference between reading music for piano and reading music for voice. When you are playing piano you know exactly what note you are playing and it sounds off if you make a mistake. But when you are singing you have no idea where to start so you just kind of plow ahead and it ends up sounding kind of like music but not necessarily what was written. People get the general idea, nod their heads in appreciation, but walk away with a confused look on their faces. Half the time I talk I have no idea what I am saying. And I have that problem I had in Japan where I know what people are saying but I cannot say it in English. Or I can summarize and give people the general idea but I have no idea what the individual words mean. I do not understand the relationship between my brain and language at all.

We have been partying all week! Yesterday was Mexican Independence Day and they really know how to celebrate here! Everything is red, white, and green. On Saturday night they put on this crazy show for us with professional dancers and singers! So many colors! On Sunday night el Presidente let us stay up till past midnight to watch the historical Grito. Afterwards we had to go home immediately because it is tradition to shoot your gun in the air and the bullets could fall anywhere. We keep singing the national anthem. Gringos singing the Mexican anthem with the enthusiasm that only young missionaries have is side splitting. All the Latinos have been SUPER hyper. They keep serenading us en el comedor. Fireworks have been going off day and night for the last couple of days. Viva Mexico!!

It has been impressed upon me that anyone can change. No matter how far down the rabbit hole you have gone God has provided a way for you to make it back to Him. The Atonement is that powerful.

I have taken up the practice of writing out spiritual promptings in the form of letters to myself from the Holy Ghost. It is so much more helpful than just writing it down with the rest of my thoughts, like I used to do. I think it works so well because you are demonstrating your willingness to receive inspiration. Now I have quite a collection of notes from the Spirit. The most amazing thing about it is that an expression of love somehow manages to include itself in each one.

I cannot wait until I know everything there is to know. In the Book of Mormon God is constantly cutting prophets off before they say too much. It is like putting chocolate right under my nose and then taking it away before I have time to take a bite!

I am not sure if that stuff is working or not but I keep using it because it smells good.

My companion found out she has Achilles tendonitis so she cannot do anything on it or else it might rupture. Because of this we decided to go on a diet together. I love dieting! And I love not eating meat! I found out today that one of the mystery vegetables I have been adoringly eating is cactus! Who would have thought. It tastes like Zucchini. Love you!

Hola!
If I think about it rationally I understand why Mexicans illegally immigrate to America (duh market forces! Thank you Mr. Lewis), but when I sit in on the weird spongy bright green grass, breathe in the probably polluted perfectly temperature controlled air and watch lime green parrots chase each other through the palm trees, I wonder why? Why would you leave this? Then I hear another of the many gunshots and I remember that I am not really in Mexico. I'm in some weird heavily manicured version of it that has a very strong spiritual connection to heaven. Plus I hear that northern Mexico is desert. And I think that's where my friends in Illinois said their people were from.
The city is so noisy! Even at 6 in the morning when I run! There is a constant mixture of people holding down their horns FOREVER, guns (I swear some people have actual cannons), people selling things over the loud speaker like in japan, fireworks, and really loud party music. El CCM is relatively quiet. But because we´re not allowed to listen to music people are always singing or whistling. We made it a rule in my district that you have to say El CCM the musical! con excessive drama before singing any song.

Every night when it rains the roads turn into rivers and it is impossible to stay dry. By the time we get anywhere, even with umbrellas we´re already soaked through so we decide we might as well play in the rain. The puddles are knee deep and so much fun! I think I might have gotten sick from this...
One of my American friends (ex roommate) joined a Latino district because her Spanish is so good. Her parents are native speakers and she looks Latina so people speak English around her and assume she does not understand. I now officially know everything about everyone. Check that off my list.
All the elders here are so nice! It is a rule that you have to let las hermanas cut in front of you in the food line. But they´re also nice when they don´t have to be. Especially the ones in my district. I´ve been really sick this past week. I had a nasty cold and they all kept buying me tissues and random stuff a la tienda. Our district is even closer now. We listen to an illegal episode of someones life story every night before we go to bed. It is amazing how entertaining everything is when you don't have TV! I don't think they really no what to make of me. I think I'm having an identity crisis surrogated by them. One of the hermanas in my district goes to BYUI too. We want to be roommates when we get back.

El CCM has movie night every Sunday. This week we watched legacy. BEST CROWD TO WATCH MOVIES WITH EVER. We've all become so sheltered that everything, and I mean everything, comes at quite a shock to our poor little souls. Most people felt the need to cover their eyes during the kissing.

We´ve watched or listened to two of Jeffrey R Holland´s talks given to the Provo MTC in the last week. He is so strict with missionaries! He yells the whole time! I find it frightening.
I really like it here. Not just the location but what we´re doing. I´ve found something here that I realized I've been looking for for a long time now. I now recognize my feelings before I came here as anxiety. My spirit was so anxious to get here! There are so many things that I've learned here that will help me with the life I want to live after. I can see the course of my life very clearly now. Lookin great!

I have two new "investigators" now and two new teachers. They´re all so nice! My old "investigator" got "baptized"! Sarcastic whoo! One of my teachers is more like a student teacher and he doesn't speak any English so I translate what people in my class are saying and translate what he is saying for them. The problem is that he is sooo giggly and I´m super giggly so I´ll be saying something in Spanish and then he will start snickering at my broken Spanish and then I start because I really do sound ridiculous and before you know it giggle fests are happening. And no one else can understand what we are saying so they assume that I said something really funny in Spanish when really I probably said something about Jesucristo. It is bad. Rulllll bad. One time Elder grange was practicing getting to know an investigator with me. I was the investigator. he asked if I was married and here is a very loose translation of what I said:

No, I live with my boyfriend. I think he might be in the mafia because he is always trying to recruit my cat. Not that I blame him. That cat has excellent ninja prowess. Or he might be a firefighter. I have trouble telling the two occupations apart.

 

Anyways I had Hermano Hernandez on the floor slapping the tile. (Add him to my fan club) Elder Grange only could pick out a few words. His jaw was dropped. My other teacher, Hermano Castellanos, came over, palm to face, shaking his head and said, "Just because you can say it in Spanish, doesn´t mean you should." Duly noted Hermano Castellanos.

 

Ha! I know exactly what I am doing here. But thanks. You should definitely learn espanol! It is such a beautiful language! It sounds way better in hymns and prayers and everything! I want some of that salad! Making something that looks healthy or weird is a classic smith move! Cheer tryouts!? Someone obviously needs more sleep. Thank you for telling me about home! I like it. Love you!

 The hermanas in my district en el CCM today.

 My companion and me.

This is my district at the temple.

Hola! El CCM is so nice! It is so beautiful here! There are lots of palm trees and flowers and it always smells good because it rains everyday at 5:30. It feels like vacation. It is always Cardigan weather. The best kind! You can see outside the walls two mountains on either side with little colorful concrete houses. One of the mountains has a huge B on it but I have no idea what it stands for. The whole CCM is 90 acres. I live in one of the casas. Each of the casas have 6 bedrooms and bathrooms with 4 Hermanas to a room.

 

There are about 800 missionaries here right now. For every Hermana there is about 10 Elderes. There are maybe 20% Latinos attending here, everyone else is American. Very few people here speak English or Spanish. Its all Spanglish. They only teach us Gospel Spanish here but we are supposed to speak Spanish all the time so most people speak English in a Mexican accent combined with whatever Spanish they know. It feels really weird writing this letter in English. Its so much easier to spell en Espanol! The Latinos tell us that the accent we have picked up only exists en el CCM. Sad but awesome! My favorite thing to do is make up words that sound Spanish. My teacher is always yelling at me, "No es palabra!!!!" or something along those lines.

 

I have a fake investigator right now. His name is Louis Valdez. He is Catholic and super nice! it is so much easier to speak in complete Espanol to him than anywhere else. He is super fun to teach. When we´re not teaching all we do is learn gospel and Spanish. Its so relaxing. It reminds me of when I always took 3 hours to do Seminary in France. Out of any place I´ve lived Mexico City reminds me the most of France. But it is still very different from that.

 

I love my companion. She came at the same time as me and will be my companion the whole time. She is from Holiday and she went to BYU for a year. She really does look a lot like Amber except skinnier. She looks like a fashion model so I feel like I am in a continual photo shoot. Fashion shoot al comedor! Fashion shoot al bano! Clase! Y casa! She is also super nice. She is a lot like me. Classy with a crazy creep streak. She is probably type 4/1. it feels completely normal to do everything with her. She is not being very good training fro how to deal with companions. We wake up early every morning to go jogging and then play soccer or something else during our Gym time. And we eat the same. No meat and lots of chocolate. The food here is really good! Its mostly Mexican food. And they always have Nutella! They must pray about everything.

 

We also have an amazing district. We´re one of the only ones with two sets of hermanas. And then we have 7 Elderes. We have all gotten really close because we spend so much time together studying. Sometimes we get really distracted. Our teacher is great too! She just got off her mission. She worked in that Mormon Battalion Visitor Center we went to! She was embarrassed when I told her that I had been there haha. She is so cute!

 

My Branch president is nice. He is Mexican and he used to speak English but that was like 30 years ago so its really sparse. I have become his new favorite Spanish to English dictionary because he says he likes the "funny" way I explain things.

 

I had a pet snail named Romero but someone stepped on it and it died... It was so cute!

 

I got to go to the Mexico City temple today! It was beautiful. All Aztecy. And I´m told that the inside looks like the South Jordan temple. I got to see the old movie!

 

There were probably about 50 on my flight? I don´t know maybe? I am really bad at counting.

 

Her name is pronounce Joi or Hoi. Its Dutch.

 

I think I will be fine.

 

I miss you too!!