3/4/14
This week has been so much better than last week. The first days went by so slow and this whole week has gone by pretty fast. I think I'm learning a lot. I hope I am lol. Every afternoon we teach our fake investigators and that is such good practice for spanish and for teaching investigators. We finished teaching our last investigator Ana and then she became our teacher during the afternoons. But then we got two new investigators and she is one of them again. It's harder to take her seriously. And in class I asked her if we ever get to practice with hostile investigators and if the fake investigators will ever be rude or hostile toward us and she said yes. I'm kind of excited for that. It sounds fun. Only because I know its not a real investigator and it will be good practice for the field. So I should probably tell you all what I do everyday at the CCM (MTC in spanish) besides just talk with investigators. Every day we have two three hour blocks of learning from a teacher. We get taught how to teach and what to teach them and also how to speak spanish of course. During those times is when we teach our investigators too. Other than that we just have personal study, language study, and companion study. All day. We also have an hour of Technology Assisted Language Learning. Im really excited to get into the field. I love studying the scriptures and its good for me to practice spanish, but sitting in the same room and studying all day starts to drive you crazy. So this Sunday I had another spiritual experience. Well, I have spiritual experiences literally every day but this is another kid of big one. We have fast and testimony meeting during sacrament and it was the weirdest fast sunday I have ever had. First of all, it was in another language so I only understood 3/4 of what was being said, but then we could hear music blasting the whole time. All weekend there was something going on and music was playing the whole time. So we are in sacrament bearing out testimonies while listening to dance music. But I have never felt the spirit so strong during a testimony meeting. Everyone's testimony just seemed so sincere and it brought the spirit stronger than the music took it away. I love sundays here. I love having devotionals and at the end of the day we always watch an old church movie that I would probably think is really cheesy if I wasn't in the CCM, but I really like them haha. I get along with my companion really well too. He is really nice, kind of weird sometimes but really nice. He kind of has a girlfriend waiting for him too so its nice that we can talk to each other about that all the time and not just annoy each other. I hope all of you are doing good. Have a good week!
Love,
Elder Dessauer
3/11/14
This week went by so fast. Its crazy to think that I am already half way done with CCM. I start my 4th week tomorrow. This week was pretty good too. We started something called TRC. I forgot what it stands for but we go and teach actual people. Not just the people that work here and act like investigators. The first day we were scheduled to teach one investigator, one less active member and one member. Me and my companion were so nervous but the first two didn't show up and I was kind of disappointed. I wanted that real experience. But I thought it still was a kind of real experience because that is going to happen in the field, some people will say they want to hear our message and then they won't be there or answer the door. But then yesterday we did it again and we taught another investigator that has accepted baptism and we taught the less active member. It was really cool. We could feel the spirit really strong during both visits. So I set a goal for myself for the next year about. I finished the BoM last week and I set a goal to read all the scriptures and the BoM three times within the next year. I will read the BoM, then D&C, then the BoM again, then the New Testament, then the BoM again, and then the Old Testament. Im really excited. I have never read any other books completely other than the BoM. On my second or third time through the BoM I will probably try and do it all in spanish too. And at the rate that I am reading my scriptures every day, I should be able to do all that in a little less than a year. So the CCM really reminds me of BYU. Everyone is mormon and all the buildings are blue and white and have prophets names on them. I thought that was kind of funny haha. It also kind of reminds me of the Hunger Games. Every day we hear these loud explosions that sound like canons. It sounds like the Hunger Games arena is just over the mountains. But I asked my teacher and he said its some celebration that Catholics do or something. I'll talk to you all in another week! I love and miss you all!
Love,
Elder Dessauer
3/18/14
These weeks go by so fast. I like it but at the same time it is kind of scary. I only have two more weeks to learn spanish. I feel like my spanish is pretty good but I dont know if I am ready to talk to real people speaking super fast. But I also know that the Lord is helping me learn spanish. In high school I had such a hard time learning certain concepts like ser vs estar and por vs para (which ´to be´ and which ´for´to use) but I understand them pretty well. And we only spent a day on each. I can also tell when he helps me when I am in a lesson and I am speaking and a word will just come to me that I have never used before but I know what it means. I also have to listen to some devotionals in spanish too. On Tuesday nights we have speakers from Mexico and so they will speak spanish. I am getting better at understanding spanish, even when they are talking fast. I still have no idea what they say, but I am able to pick out most of the words. But if I miss one or two in a sentence it can completely throw me off. I try and just pay attention to how I feel in those devotionals. And I am starting to think and pray in spanish on accident sometimes too. For example in my personal prayers I will start out by addressing Heavenly Father in spanish and then I realize I can say it in English. I feel like that is a good sign haha. Im getting used to the CCM too. Every night there is only about enough hot water for 2 or 3 showers so when theres 20 guys living in the same house, I have to have cold showers a lot. But that doesn't bother me so much anymore. And I'm also kind of getting used to the smell of sewer and pollution that is very strong every morning. I am not getting used to waking up at 6:30 though. I miss sleeping in lol. So I have some kind of big news this week too. This past Sunday me and my companion got called as the Zone Leaders. We dont really have too many responsiblities because it is just in the CCM but I still think its kind of cool. We just have more meetings and conduct priesthood meeting and give a spiritual thought to each disctrict every morning. And this Sunday I had to talk in Sacrament. Every week we have to prepare talks and then at the beginning of the meeting they announce who is speaking. But I had a feeling I was going to have to talk this week. I think it might have been the Holy Ghost letting me know so I can make my talk better. Our assigned topic was the restoration and it had to be in all spanish. I had a really cool experience with one my investigators too. It was our first time meeting with him and the spirit was very strong and we got him to cry. His story was that his wife died two months ago so we explained the plan of happiness to him and told him how he could be with her again and even though its not real me and my companion showed real love for him so I think the spirit was stronger because of that. And also this week we saw two fires. We saw one of the mountain with the B on it and we all started freaking out and we thought it was kind of big deal. Then a worker rode by on his bike and we told him and just just said that it happens all the time. It was kind of anticlimactic. And I don't feel so bad about the fire because it happens all the time and it wasn't near any houses or anything so no one would have got hurt. Oh and today we got to go to the visitor center of the Mexico temple. It was pretty good, I wish we got to go inside though. It was still fun to get out of the CCM walls and see the city and see the temple. I love and miss you all!
Elder Dessauer
3/25/14
I can't believe that this time next week I will be in Nicaragua. I got my flight itinerary today and my flight leaves at 5:20 in the morning. I am not looking forward to that. But I am looking forward to going out into the field. I am going to miss the CCM and my companion and my district and I could probably stay another month to ready myself for spanish more, but I am excited to start doing the Lords work. And I feel like my spanish is getting better every week. Our teachers do these practice discussions with us and they always do it in spanish and this week when they did it I understood the entire thing just about. It felt pretty nice to know that not only is my speaking getting better, but my listening is too. And my listening to the spirit is getting better too. We were teaching our hardest investigator the other day and we had a pretty cool experience. We were teaching her the doctrine of Christ and Elder Backus was talking about repentance and I felt that we should just start talking about the Holy Ghost instead. So I was going to wait for Elder Backus to be done and then switch to the Holy Ghost. But he isn't as good at spanish as me so it takes him a little longer to get his point across. So he started to take a while talking about repentance and I really wanted to switch to the Holy Ghost. I was almost about to interrupt him when he switched to the Holy Ghost too. And when he stopped it perfectly led into what I wanted to say and we were able to get her to commit to baptism. Afterwards we always talk about how our visits with investigators go and we both said that we felt impressed to talk about the spirit right then.
So for our Sunday devotional this week we listened to an old talk from Elder Holland. It was awesome. It was my favorite talk so far. He talked with so much power and the spirit was very strong. My favorite part though was at the end. He was talking right after three of the new buildings at the Provo MTC were completed so he dedicated those buildings and that was the coolest prayer I have ever heard. The spirit was so strong the entire time. It was really cool when he blessed the buildings to be safe and keep the missionaries safe from any kind of harm from intruders. He blessed that angels would guard the doors and the windows. It was incredible. But the worst part was that right after that, the power shut off. The video just stopped and because it was so close to the end we didn't get to finish it. I was pretty upset. We have power outages all the time here and there had to be one during the coolest part of the video. But I am still greatful for the opportunity to hear him give most of that prayer.
We also practiced talking to contacts which is when you just meet someone on the street and talk to them for like 3 minutes. I really liked it. My contact that I was teaching was one of the teachers here and he said I did great. In those three minutes I bore my testimony, taught a principle of the gospel, and asked him if I could come again to teach him more about the gospel, all with suprisingly good spanish for me. I miss you and love you all. Thanks for all of your support and love!
Love,
Elder Dessauer
3/31/14
I can not believe that I leave tomorrow for Nicaragua. Today I went and got my boarding pass and everything. I still have to pack everything though. Im not exactly looking forward to that haha. I will take a lot of pictures! Sorry that I haven't been sending pictures recently. Not too many exciting things happen here and I forget my camera a lot when I come to email. But next week I will defiantly have some cool pictures to send home.
So I had a really cool last Sunday. It was fast and testimony meeting and my whole district was able to bear their testimonies in Spanish. And the testimony that I bore was probably the strongest one I ever have born for me. I have never cried or got choked up or anything when I have born my testimony but this Sunday when I was saying how my testimony of prayer has become so much stronger in the CCM I almost started to cry. It was so wierd. The spirit just hit me so strong. I loved it though. Sundays have definitely been my favorite days here. And also this Sunday we had a crazy storm. It was hot and sunny for the first part of the day but right after our first devotional it was pouring really bad. And we needed to go back to our class room but right when me and my companion started walking to our class it started hailing. It was really fun actaully. We got completely soaked just walking from our auditorium to our classroom. And then right when we got to our class the rain stopped of course. But it was still fun. I need to get used to that for Nicaragua anyway.
That's all I have time for today, but I'll have a lot to talk about next week! I love and miss you all!
Love,
Elder Dessauer
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