First Letter

Hola familia!

Ah it was so so so good today and get on my email and see all the emails from family and friends, muchas gracias for all the love. It has been such a long week, especially since our p day is on thursday so we had to wait 9 days till we could send our first official email, but it has been great. sorry ahead of time for my grammer and punctuation in my email the keyboard is so messed up and im trying to type fast.

honestly there is no place i would rather be right now then here in the CCM in Mexico city (case you didn´t know they call the mtc here the CCM). I love being a missionary. It really hasn´t completely hit me yet that i really am a missionary but i have moments. it will probably hit me once i get to el salvador. i will try and answer all of your questions and then tell you about the ccm and my week.

first of to calm the families nerves i am eating better so thank you so much for your prayers, i truly felt them. but actually im probably eating too much now haha. im completely back to normal and im probably gaining wait cause i love the food! haha i´ll tell you more about the food in a minute.

so the ccm. i am so glad im not in provo. not that provo is bad, but the ccm is beautiful. it is so awesome to be at an mtc where everyone is learning the same language. you walk around and everyone is speaking as much spanish as they know and right when you get to the ccm everyone is so welcoming and saying Hola hermanas!! its just so great. i imagine this is what the culture is like all around in central america. the campus is gorgeous. we get to go outside and study and walk around all the time. the palm trees and everything. its hasn{t been that hot, actually sometimes im a little cold (i wish i would have brought more of my cardigans that i left at home) but i know el salvador is gonna be more hot than here so its okay. usually the temperature is perfect though. and when it rains it pours! we had a nice run through the rain across the grounds the other day cause we forgot our umbrella and we were soaked. the ccm is enclosed by a gate, and outside it is completely different. we always hear sirens going off and loud music playing and stuff.

the food. seriously i love it haha. so the first two days i was struggling to eat and really nervous that i wouldn{t be able to get back to normal but thanks to some answered prayers and tender mercies im good. but really by the third day i was fine. for breakfast i usually eat cereal, which is fine...sometimes i have waffles or pancakes but they don{t have syrup (they put like chocolate syrup or honey) or eggs but i don´t like that as much plus you now i love cereal. Lunch is my favorite!! basicially every day i eat some type of meat, they had this bbq chicken that was way good the other day, but other times its just normal chicken or beef or something that your not quite sure, and then rice and beans (which is so weird cause i never have like beans before and now i love them) and then like 3 or 4 tortillas. seriously i love it! i look forward to lunch everyday. which is probably good cause thats basically all im going to be eating in el salvador. also i always have fruit too, usually watermelon or an apple or pineapple or grapes, and then sometimes a dessert or like a pastry thing. the food tasted a little weird at first, and still sometimes does, like you can never quite tell what type of juice they have or dessert and sometimes you cant really decide if it is actually good or not...but you eat it anyways. Dinner is similar to lunch but it just depends. on tuesdays they have pizza for all the new missionaries from the US. Also the best thing about meal time here at the ccm is the elders have to let all of the hermanas go first in line. i felt bad at first cause sometimes the line is SO long for the elders to wait, but oh well...teaches them manners i guess haha.

mi casa. all of the hermanas live in houses and then the elders live in either houses or dorms. we share a room with 2 other hermanas going to el salvador in like a week. and then a bunch of the other girls in the other rooms got here the same day as us. we dont really see them all that often though cause they have different schedules.

my companion. so like i already told you my companion is hermana garbett who i met before a litte. she was really one of the tender mercies i had the first few days. seriously i am so glad she was there to talk to and she was so caring as i was struggling the first few days. It is so neat to pray as a companion too and hear her pray for me to feel better. in all honestly it has been an adjustment to get used to being with someone all the time especially since i am used to my free time alone, but its great. We still are getting to know each other but i am really glad she is my companion.

my district. we have 8 elders in our district who are all going to LA, and then 2 other hermanas hermana hawkins and hermana jones who are going to denver colorado (they both went to byu). and then me and hermana garbett going to el salvador. Our district has really bonded and everyone is so hilarious. Sometimes it gets a little out of hand when we need to be studying but they are great. I cant imagine how close we will be by the end of the six weeks.

We have several teachers and i hear sometimes they kind of change after your first week but we{ll just have to wait and see. We have a guy teacher in the morning and two sisters at night, they are all from mexico and they are great! i especially love the sisters they are so caring and sweet.

the language. dad you were right, i really do know more than i thought i did. Sometimes i feel embarassed that im not in the intermediate class even though ive taken 4 years of spanish, but thats okay. Im glad im in intermediate. I probably know the most spanish of our district though. I know a lot of vocab and grammer and i understand really well. When our teachers talk in spanish (which is basically all the time) i almost always can understand. I am a little worried that although im doing going now, im going to get behind later, but i just need to keep stuyding hard. I can pray and bare my testimony in spanish and we´ve been teaching lessons all week in spanish. the rule here is to speak as much spanish as you can ALL the time. So im not too overwhelmed with the language yet. Mostly its just frustrating when we teach lessons cause although i can usually kind of say what i want to, i can{t use the exact words to say it how i want to. but i know that its the spirit that does the teaching not my words.

daily schedule. so we wake up at 630am, eat breakfast at 715, personal study for an hour after breakfast, then language classes and extra studying until lunch, then after lunch we have TALL which is language study on the computer, then language study in the classroom, then gym time (which usually we go to the workout room on the bikes and stuff or go play volleyball with our district or ping pong), and then daily planning time for the next day (which is kinda pointless cause our day is already planned) and then dinner, and then after dinner we plan and teach our lessons for our investigator. then at 930 we have been going to our branchs choir for 15 minutes and then home and get ready for bed and lights out at 1030. Our scheduel is sometimes different depending on the day and it might change a little next week but that is basically it. I am so glad i worked all summer as an orientation leader cause it really helped prepare me to be going all day long until bedtime. And i still cant fall asleep right away at 1030 but im getting a little more used to it.

sundays are the best because there is not studying language really and it is nice to just get to go to meetings and be uplifted. oh i spoke on sunday. in spanish. about families. haha everyone said i did great but i dont really know. also sunday nights we get to watch a movie so we watched the testaments so that was good.

also tuesdays are great because we have devotionals on tuesday night too. we went the first day we got here and it was great and i really liked this past tuesday becasue it was a broadcast devotional from the provo mtc by neil andersen. he talked on sacrifice and love and it was great. the best part of the meeting was at the beginning though for me. so the opening hymn was praise to the man and obviously the broadcast was in english, but at least half if not most of the missionaries here sang it in spanish (cause we do everything in spanish here) and even though it kind of sounded awful with both the english and spanish at the same time, it really hit me how beautiful it was that this gospel is true no matter where you are in the world. that jospeh smith really did restore this gospel to the earth and this will touch the hearts of those all around the world, to all different languages.

random stuff. so yeah there is somethings i wish i would have brought or left. Mom i think i left my eyeliner at home, but oh well i dont where much make up anways but just if you see it in my room. also um remember how we bought gym pants two sizes larger cause we were worried they would be too tight? i dont know why we did that cause 1 they fall off me and 2 everyone has tight gym pants here but oh well. also for my bday or christmas i would love some of those uofu shorts dad got mom. i cant remember what else i really forgot probably nothing too important.

colby, i leave the ccm on october 1st.

sorry this message is so scatter brained. and dad i would right more in spanish but im so tight on time its faster if its in english. im gonna try and send some pictures really quick.

to all of my friends who wrote i will try and write back next week cause i wont be trying to explain as much next week so hopefully i will have more time but seriously thank you so much for writing.

cheer loud for the utes for me tonight!!

courtney thank you so so much for the little gifts you gave me before i left, i love those little watermelon mint things..they keep me awake in class. and the picture from really means a lot to me.

mom and dad i am so grateful for you. i thought about you a lot today at the temple (which was so beautiful by the way and it was all in spanish obviously)

I love you all and thank you for your prayers!!! this gospel is true and i really am so grateful to be serving as missionary for the church.

cant wait to hear from you next week!

con amor,

hermana groneman