Semana 1 en el Campo Misional!!!!

October 2nd and 9th

Holaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!

So yeah this past week and a half has been a whirlwind! Saying goodbye to the lifelong friends that I made at the CCM was extremely difficult.  

Watching General Conference ... see if you can find Elder Gurney!

Friends from the CCM

with Hermano Vazquez, he's the man, best teacher at the CCM!

District 9C

the trio with Hermana Velazquez ... the other best teacher at the CCM!

with Elder Barnum!

with Elder Wallace ... sweater gang!

with Estaban!

But regardless here is my week:

Leaving the CCM: So Monday morning, we woke up at 1 am to go weigh our bags and so we could get to the airport on time. However, since it was 2 in the morning, we got there smoothly and there was no line, so we had a nice 2 and a half hour wait... and we were all too excited to sleep! Some of the Latino missionaries went and shared the gospel with some people... us gringos did not have the courage to go do the same.  But yeah so the flight was way cool! I got a window seat and Mexico is gorgeous! The flight went by super quick, it was only an hour. And soon enough we were meeting our mission president, President Palmer, and the assistants.  They are all incredibly nice and seem super fun.  After landing, we all crammed into different cars and drove to the mission home. Oh and when I say crammed, I mean CRAMMED! We had six missionaries in the back seat of a truck.... It was quite the hoot.  So yeah we got to the mission home, ate food and then had orientation. It was hard to stay awake during that with only two hours of sleep .... but it was good! Oh and thanks for the package Mom!!!!!! Getting to the mission office and having a package waiting for me was super awesome! I have a couple letters I was going to send to you (for your bday) and the fam but I forgot to send it and we can only send mail from the mission office... So it´ll be a couple weeks before I can send them! So sorry! But yeah, after orientation, we had interviews with the Mission President, and then we met our companions!  

Arriving in Veracruz

After the ride from the airport ... six Elders in the backseat of this truck!

In front of the Veracruz temple

My trainer: Elder Mendez! He is latino, from Monterrey Mexico, and speaks ZERO English!!!!! Hahaha but it's all good cause he is super outgoing and laughs at literally everything (which can be super difficult when I´m speaking Spanish and he just randomly laughs....). But he is way nice and the members and investigators absolutely love him.

My area: My area is called Tres Valles, it's in the very west of the Veracruz mission and apparently it is one of the hottest area in Veracruz ... which is one of the hottest places in Mexico! So as you all can probably guess... It is WAY hot here! It's not even just heat, it's also the humidity... Right now it is the rainy season so it´s not the hottest it gets but it is the most humid it gets.... The first day here it was pouring rain, and yet I was still sweating a ton! I was literally drenched from the rain and sweat, it was bad. It is not the richest area either, there are stray dogs everywhere!!! The second day here I was curious how many so I started counting them...I saw 43 dogs.  When I told my companion this he thought it was hilarious that I counted them so to humor him I count them everyday now! Haha and everyday I count more than 30. But regardless, the people here are extremely nice, and they LOVE feeding us.  The food is way good too! So it's awesome! However... since my Spanish isn´t the best, and since I´m partially deaf... I don´t always know what is being said...

The food incident: So yeah we were at an investigator's house (I'll tell you more about them next Monday) and they offered us some food after our lesson. So we said sure! I had already eaten breakfast but by then it was like 12ish so I was hungry.  They fed us this way good soup with noodles and chicken and it was great! When I finished I was pretty full and the investigator asked if I wanted more... but I thought she was just asking to take my bowl... so I lifted it up and said oh gracias! And sure enough she came back with a second bowl with two chicken wings.... I looked at my companion and he just gave me the, "you have to eat it" look.... So bite by bite, I was barely able to finish it off! But I did! Only for her to take away my bowl and bring out dessert.... I thought I was going to explode! But yeah, after meeting with them, we were walking away and I asked what we had next, and my companion turned to me, and with a massive smile on his face, said that we have lunch with the Bishop and his family next.  I was crushed. So yeah, I didn´t have dinner that night!

The Spanish: The spanish is way hard.... The people of Veracruz have an accent and they apparently talk faster than most Latinos... So most of my time is spent just trying to understand what is going on. I'm coming along well and I can definitely feel God helping me cause now I can have a decent conversation with people and for the most part understand what is going on during our lessons! Which is a huge improvement ... the first couple days I just smiled and said sí to basically everything! 

My testimony: I just wanted to finish this email off with a quick testimony, in spanish: Sé que esta Iglesia es verdadero.  Sé que Jose Smith es un profeta que trandució el Libro De Mormon con el poder de Dios.  Sé que Dios nos ama y que Él bendicenos cuando seguimos sus palabras. Sé que he sido llamado por Él para declarar su palabra a las personas en Veracruz.  Estoy muy agradecido por este llamado. Les amo mucho y comparto esto en el nombre de Jesucristo, nuestro Salvador, Amen (Have brianne fix that up if anything is wrong plzz) (We decided to now have Brianne fix it ... so he can see his progress!)

But yeah, all is good here! Sorry this was so long but this has been a wild week so yeah! Love you all!!!!!! And miss you all!!!

Love,

Elder Gurney

P.S.  Real quick, I thought I would share how I'm now giving piano lessons every week and how I play in sacrament meeting... I'll share more about that next week since I'm out of time, but yeah tell the boys to practice their hymns cause it's a huge help on the mission! If you have any easy hymns I could learn quickly please share, I'm learning one right now for next week so Ill let you know how it goes! Got to go! But I love and miss you and thanks for teaching me piano!!!!!!!!