9/22/17 Earthquakes and Blessings

Well friends and fam,

This weeks definitely has had its ups and downs. butttttt, the downs have been the days I've learned the most about this gospel, our savior, and myself. so lets get ittttttt.

IT was so sick to hear from the fam and friends on pday!!! my  pdays consist of basketball, laundry, volleyball and emailing!! Last pday I beat a 6 foot 10 Argentine in a dunk contest hahahaha. Everyone is so friendly here!! most of my friends are latinos and they're some of the most humble people I know!!!!

Mexico independence day. We had to stay inside as much as we can because apparently, the latinos think it's a good idea to fire endless rounds of bullets into the air. I spent my morning being doctor phil and helping solve issues in a companionship. its kinda hard to solve problems when ones super stubborn and one is having serious anxiety. butttttt eventually after a couple of long talks, the elder decided to cancel his flight and stick it out!!! that made me so happy! as a district leader, I genuinely have grown to love each and every one of the people in my district and it really hurts me to see people hurting soI'vee been trying my best to help all that i can. We also got 2 new investigators! fernanda and christina! fernanda lives w her boyfriend so you already know that chastity talks goin downnnnnn.

Our first lesson with fernanda was amazing! we taught the restoration and i was able to not use any notes or books! the spirit was so strong and i have no idea how i was able to teach the whole restoration in a language that ive been learning for a little over 2 and a half weeks. buttttt she was having a little trouble grasping the thought of a prophet butttttt after reading a couple scriptures in the bible she was able to connect and is doing well! now on to the chastity lesson with her smh.

Today was probably one of the most amazing days at the CCM. Well, the day didnt start the best (it was raining so hard and it was so windy the rain was falling sideways) but it eneded amazing. As i was sitting in class, an elder who has been having some troubles asked if i would be able to meet with him as soon as possible. We left the class and we sat down in an empty classroom. As soon as we sat down the elder bursted into tears and told me how much he wants to go home and how much he hates it here in the ccm and that he was in need of help. We talked for about 45 minutes and at the end he asked if there was anything he could do for me, and i looked at him and said well no, but is there anything i can do for you. and he asked for a blessing. i was a little caught off guard but i accepted and gave him a blessing. I cant even begin to emphasize how inportant it is to be ready and worthy as priesthood holders. a few hours later we were back in class studying and i had a strong prompting to turn around. when i did i saw the elder, sitting alone crying and looking through a packet about what to do when you want to go home, and steps to overcome his issue. Instantly a scripture popped into my head. i had no idea what scripture it was, but i flipped open to it. it was Alma capitulo 31 versiculo 31 it says, o lord, my heart is exceedingly sorrowful. wilt thou comfort my soul in christ. o lord, wilt thou grant unto me that i may have strength that i may suffer with patience these afflictions which shall come upon me. i wrote my testimony on a small 3x5 notecard and gave it to him. he wrapped his arms around me and thanked me and told me that was exactly what he needed to hear. this was probably my best day so far.

monday we met with the new investigador christina, shes catholic, and is interested in the church. we talked for a solid 30 minutes about the apostasy then i shared the first vision from memory. that was probably the most scary and coolest experiences. she was babtized ;) into the catholic church and she wasnt super happy when i told her that her baptism wasnt by an authorized priesthood holder. oh well. sorry all of my email are the same but everyday we have the same routine. the only crazy thing that happened today was there was a huge spider lingering above the top bunk between the gaps in the cinder block right above my head. yeah the past couple nights i've felt like spiders have been all over me but it's whatever. im thinking its a good time to get use to it.

every tuesday we have a district fast and it wrecks me. instead of going to lunch elder christensen and i decided to go take nap. about 15 minutes into the nap the bunkbed started shaking violently. i thought christensen was having a seizure so i look underneath me and he was fine. then i looked to the table where everything was falling off the table. and THEN i heard the sirens. we ran outside and it was surreal. the fences were moving like in waves and she lightpoles looked a little like noodles. a 7.1 earthquake hit south mexico city so by the time it got to us it was around a 5.3. it was an insane experience. after getting a little shaken up we taugth the law of chastity to fernanda. she speaks so fast. i accidentally called her a sinner so thats how that lesson went lol. she said am i a sinner? and i thought she said is that a sin? so yeah my spanish confidence went wayy down after that.

wednesday as soon as the alarm went off elder christensen asked for a blessing. he was up all night and looked like death (in the nicest way). i threw on my clothes and gave him a blessing. about an hour later he threw up everywhere and felt fine after. so this week i gave a blessing to help someone throw up... nice.TAFT CAME TODAY!!! because of the earthquake his flight rerouted to cali for the night so he came wednesday instead of tuesday!! its so nice to have seth and him here its a party. today was just an average day.

thursday. nothin says goodmorning in mexico like mexicans chasing stray dogs on fourwheelers in the CCM hahaha. Today as christensen and I left the casa i felt like i left something in the casa. after going through the mental checklist it wasnt me that forgot something it was christensen hahah. he forgot his nametag. After he got his name tag the feeling went away and a scripture in D&C popped into my head. If ye are not one, ye are not mine. this may sound dumb but it really testified to me hahaha. GOOD NEWS fernanda finally agreed to keeping the law of chastity so its about dang time. i had to kindly tell her that either her husband needs to put a ring on it or she needs to skrt on outta his casa. so all is well with the investigators!!

i just wanna close with a quick thought from the tuesday devotional.

sister cook said we should be the happiest people because we have the truth!! and thats so true! many people ask why are mormons so happy and ive found its the truth, book of mormon, and the restored gospel that bring me the most happiness! i sometimes we learn more from the white parts of the Book of Mormon that the black parts.because the spirit is the teacher. m almost halfway through my mtc experience and ive loved every second of it. I honestly couldnt thing of a better place to be. i love you all! have a good week!

elder broadhead

Week #1 The CCM

Thursday, Sept 14,2017

Aye friends and fam!!! 
This week has been soooo amazing. the CCM really is paradise I love it so much here. I have so much to talk about so get ready for a madddd thick email.

Day 1- shout out to Darla and Paul and Mckay for being at the airport. it was a little sad leaving them but as soon as i walked out the doors to get onto the plane i was filled with the spirit and I couldn't imagine anything better to do with my life. I flew out next to  Elder Steward and Blake Woodwards dad so it was nice to have a couple of familiar faces. In SLC we met up with all the missionaries and i saw Kai (elder rockhill there) and we flew out to Mexico City together. My first missionary moment happened on the plane ride. I found my seat and i sat down next to this straight mexican gangsters. Tear tattoos and all. if i could compare him to someone he would be the mexican 21 savage. ANYWAY he asked if all the people on suits were some american sports team, i told him no, we were headed to mexico to learn spanish and teach people about Christ. I asked him if he believed in God and he turned to me and said no, so I told him that God is our loving heavenly father and before i could finish my sentence he put his sunglasses on and said "nap time". awesomeeeeeeeeee. needless to say, i think he was fake sleeping so he wouldn't have to talk to me hahahaha. once we got to Mexico city I realized how thankful i was to not have to drive on my mission. mexican drivers here have no fear at all. absolutely nuts. once at the CCM i met up with my companion ELDER CHRISTENSEN!!! he's so awesome. he reminds me exactly of Elder Bleak so we get along SOOO well. he's from SLC and went to East high and such a good guy. We watched the MTC devotional that was in Provo and we were so dead. We passed out on our bunk beds as soon as we got to our casa.

Day 2- everything we did was in spanish so my mind just was blown the whole time. literally didn't hear a single english word from our teachers that whole day so my head hurt the wholeee time.  I see Elder Dotson everyday so its good to see some STG boys. we had an earthquake this day but our branch president, Melchizedek, informed us that it was just a little drill. well the ground rumbled a little bit so it most likely wasn't a drill. After the "drill" we met with our branch leaders personally and i was called to be the district leader!!!! i already was struggling with the language, but i know that as i fulfill and magnify my calling that the lord will provide a way for me to learn spanish faster. and thats exactly whats happened throughout week 1

Day 3- Today was amazing!!!! we went to our very first language class then we were informed that we were going to be able to teach a lesson to a new investigator, Ramona. when the time rolled around to teach ramona elder Christensen and i felt pretty ready to teach ramona. boy were we wrong. he opened to juan 1:5 instead of santiago 1:5 ahahhaa. ( john 1:5 instead of James 1:5)  so there  was a little awkward silence. however, somehow on day 3, i bore my testimony of jose smith in spanish. words started to fill my mouth as i bore my testimony of Joseph Smith and the restoration. i honestly have no idea how i pulled that off, but perfect obedience brings miracles. Ramona agreed to meet with us again so that was an amazing experience. 

Day4- ANOTHER EARTHQUAKE SMH. so around midnight the ground decided to turn into the ocean and everything was pretty wavy. it was so weird. Even though the earthquake was pretty south of mexico city it was still pretty wavy here. so we got to shoot a quick email home that we were safe and all was well. It was our first gym day and it was so fun. the latinos looove tall white people so they always challenge me to play basketball. the court is terrible to i put them on skates and its so fun. I  love the latino elders. they're honestly my best friends i sit by them at breakfast, lunch, and dinner and they've helped me with the language so much. that night we taught romana again and it was amazing. Elder Christensen and i are the dynamic duo of teaching. its so amazing. we learned to teach by the spirit and thats been so amazing. we teach people, not lessons so we kind of had a general idea and winged the lesson and it was such an amazing lesson. it was on heavenly father and prayer. after the lesson, she agreed to meet with us again!!!

Day 5- yeah so after day four we just do the same routine so sorry if my emails get significantly shorter. nothing much happened day 4 other than i won the CCM dunk contest thingy so know I'm known as the elder who can jump out of the gym. literally, i will be walking in the cafeteria and elders will stop and ask me where im playing college basketball hahahah. it's so easy to make friends here. everyone is so kind and happy. the only funny thing that happened on day four is we were describing ourselves in language class and I said I was a pathetic child of God and our latino teacher (hermana gonzalez) looked me in the eye and said yo se que which means I know that hahahaha. 

SUNDAYYYY- sunday was sick. even though every day feels like Sunday. I was so busy all day with district and branch meetings I had no time to think about home. I passed the sacrament and that was a neat experience. of course, everything was in spanish so it was a little hard to pay attention and be focused the whole time. nothing much happened Sunday either (sorry for the dry email every day in the CCM is repetitive). during one of our classes, one of the teachers spoke exactly like Gru so it was sooo hard to pay attention the whole time bc me and Elder Christensen were dyinggggg.

9/11-  i was soo tired. i just felt super lethargic and out of it so today was pretty slow. we went to all of our classes and stuff so it was a pretty long day. sooo ill just share some of the things I learned today.

1) latinos  love jello. they literally eat it by the whole plate.

2) the latinos call me captain america because apparently, they think i look like him???? its probably because I'm like 3 feet taller than all of them. they also challenge me to arm wrestle and i represented the USA and beat like 6 latinos in a row. USA-6 MEX- 0. now ive earned the name capt american bc of my "muscles" ahhaha i have handshakes with each of them and they always touch my arms hahaha its gonna suck when they leave the CCM.

Today i was able to give my first blessing to an hermana in my district. shes  this super sweet and kind sister from Florida and her family was in the hurricane so she didn't know if they were gonna be okay. she was super stressed and cried all day so she came to me and asked for a blessing. I said yes and i gave her a blessing in the classroom. before i gave her a blessing I prayed that i may give have the spirit and say the words that i would need to say to give her comfort. i won't go into detail with the blessing but as soon as i began the blessing words filled my mouth and i cant even remember a lot about what i said. Us missionaries are truly the Lord's mouth pieces when we submit ourselves 100% to him and act as he would want us to act.

another day- today i fasted for 24 hours. it was such a long day. my head throbbed, i woke up sick, and i just felt like complete garbage. Honestly, i felt like i was incapable of fasting. when i was about to give up and break my fast i thought about Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. suffering and taking upon ALL of the sins and pain of the whole entire world. that simple thought pushed me through the whole day. that night we taught ramona, we taught her about the word of wisdom and when she asked why drinking coffee and tea was bad i immediately answered her question in PERFECT spanish (conjugations and all). I had 2 amazing experiences in two days. I absolutely love it here.

YUHHH- so yesterday literally flewwww by. the day started off with pancakes in the comidor so you already know its gonna be a good day. we did the routine so i won't bore you guys with all that stuff. SOOO we were teaching ramona about the priesthood and she asked "where do you get the priesthood?" without hesitation, i whipped out my priesthood chart thingy that tracks where i got it and literally in perfect spanish i explained how i got it. Elder christensen looked at me in amazement and gave me knuckles during the middle of the lesson. the spirit was soooo stronggggg.  it was amazing

i loveee every moment here so I'll just end my email with a couple of my thoughts

Im sooo thankful to be a missionary it honestly brings so much joy, but it also is pretty frustrating too. God chose US to follow him & bring others with US.Missionary work definitely isn't easy because salvation isn't cheap. Sometimes when I ask why is this so hard i think about Jesus Christ. I'm sure he asked that question too when he was mocked, beaten, shunned, spit upon, when he atoned for our sins, and when he had nails driven through his palms. But i know we're not alone and the Lord watches over us when we experience some of those things, THEN we will stand side by side with the greatest missionary there ever was. Jesus Christ.

I love you all and hope you guys are doing well. 

with love, 

Elder Broadhead.