Week 2 CCM (MTC)

Hey everyone!

Ive been here in Mexico 2 weeks now! Its been such a humbling and uplifting expirience! I want to start off by sharing an expirience, Almost every day we do whats called "Progressing investigator" Its where one of our 2 teachers pretends to be an investigator and we teach them a lesson. What was really special, and what me and elder bartlett did not know at the time, was that our teach hermano vera took his investigator storys from real life situations. In his real life his cousin, carlos, (Who he pretends to be) is not a member of the church. His other cousin, Alan, fell down the stairs (im talking like long tall metal stairs) on sunday and is in the hospitol in a coma in critical condition. As we tought "Carlos" we could see real pain and worry, so we were promted to not go through our entire lesson, but instead focusing on how the savior loves all of us and through the atonement of jesus christ we can all be happy! We shared a fe scriptures like john 3 16-17. And the spirit was so strong! despite our language problems! Afterwards our teacher talked to us and expressed how gratefull he was for the love we showed. That is the key to missionary work i feel like! dont go about trying to shove a lesson down someones face. Just be a vessel for the spirit, care and love your investigators so that they can feel the spirit in their lives. That is how we can bring about true conversion in peoples lives. My purpose is to invite all to come to christ. I must try to do that in the same way the savior did. Through love for all men :)

Other then that, ive had multiple spiritual expiriences every day! i receive so many blessings in understanding both scriptures and spanish! I still need to work harder on my spanish but it is comming along! I want everyone to know that " Yo se que jesucristo es el salvador y por medio de la expiacion nosotros puedamos familias eternol" That is probobly pretty rough... (I can spell in english, how do they expect me to in spanish!?) but basically what i said was "I know that jesus christ is my savior and through the atonement we can be eternal families." i know that is true :)

Somthing really cool happened on the 4th for us! We were all down because we missed our families and being at all the 4th activitys, so.... The people at the comedor (the cafeteria place) Set up all red, white, and blue table cloths! they served us what was about as close to pulled pork sandwiches and aple pie as you can get in mexico! it was such a nice gesture! Then, after we all thanked the kitchen staff, the 250 ish of us that where in the room stood up and sang the star spangled banner! it may not have been home but it was an awesome expirience non the less :)

Its weird being here every day, but im still in the habit of waking up early to work out, and with the addition of gym time, you have plenty of time to  be active and enjoy yourself1 it helps alot with study too, HUGE STRESS RELEIVER!!!

I have a lot more things i could say i am sure, but id like to share just one other expirience. On monday, one of the sisters in my district ( Hermana Collins ) seamed to be having a dificult time. I talked to her a bit and she was just stressed and worried about her family, i offered to her that if she ever needed a blessing that any of us in our district would be more than happy to help her out. Yesterday night she asked for one but because of the lateness it had to wait till morning, so this morning after breakfast, me and elder bartlett gave her a blessing of comfort. I may have physically been speaking the words, but they were not from me. I could feel the power of the holy ghost surge through me and the words literally just came to my mouth! You could feel the peace that came into the room and it was just such an awesome expirience to be able to be an instrament for good in the hands of the lord! What ive come to realize is by holding the priesthood i have a responsibility to act as christ would. that is my duty. The cool thing is that you can never use preisthood authority to help yourself. only other people! That is the true love of christ! helping others, not yourself :)

anyways, im out of time here, but i want you all to know that the work is real! and this church is true! Its the most important thing we could ever have in our lives! love you all!

-Elder Steele