week 2 Gone and almost forgotten. Oops.

It feels so good to be forgotten about. Especially on p-day. Good to feel the love. P day is wednesday here ma. I'll be on later dont worry, I'm only crying a little bit. Love you

Your unloved son

Elder Galbreath

(oops bad Mom.  I made up for it and wrote.  He did get it)

Hello back home! So this week was way faster than last week. After pday everything zooms by. But run down on this week.

Thursday was lots of studying. Ok so everyday is a ton of studying. Both about the gospel and the language. Friday and saturday are the same way so skipping over those. Sunday was great. We have new zone leaders Elder Call and Elder Zavoral. Every week but this week we get a new district and say goodbye to an old one. This new groups DL is from North bend. New District is heading to provo. He was talking to Zavoral and told him he was from Washington so Zavoral was like hey Elder Galbreath is from WA. So I found out he was from North Bend and I just looked at him and said Oh so your a coasty. I thought it was funny, he thought it was funny. No one else did. Its a Washington thing I guess. I end up saying its a washington thing alot now that I think about it. Utahns are just weird people. Anywho, sundays topic was the Holy Ghost. Some really good talks. I have found that if I focus on what they are saying I can understand them but I cant just vacantly listen. I didnt have to speak this week but its coming soon I just know it. Devotional sunday night was by Elder Bednar. An old talk he gave to mission presidents about becoming Preach my gospel missonaries. I dont have my notebook so I cant tell you everything about it but it was way good. About how to be more effective and use preach my gospel. Every devotional has mentioned how we should use the members as tools for teaching so I feel like that is going to super important in Chile. I love when our district gets together and has testimony type meeting. The spirit is so strong. Love it. So Monday was more studying and we got a new investigator. Not teaching Eduardo now he is our night teacher. His real name is Hermano Sanchez. Super cool dude really funny, learning alot from him. New investigator is Hermana Bernal but all our investigators starting out are teachers acting as actual investigators. So new  investigator is Mayra, taught our first lesson to her. We really didnt use notes that was good. Its cool my comp is super good at conversational spanish (and all spanish in general) but i can do doctrinal stuff so we make a good team. Then tuesday was more studying no teaching but had a devotional by a member of the first quorum of the seventy. Im not gunna try and spell his last name but he is from paraguay. Super good talk. A couple of points I really liked was 1: so he has a super thick accent and has good english but is very obviously a spanish speaker. So he said "Lose you life in your mission and it will be OK" I really liked it because despite everything half the time I feel like I am only serving a mission because I know it is going to help me, not because I can help others. And while it will help me I need to focus on helping other people. 2: Another thing he said was from I think Mosiah but I dont remember. But the scripture goes something like this "and I will send forth angels declaring my word" I thought this was awesome because I am out here doing an angelic work. Me, a simple kid from Washington, whose biggest achievement in school was graduating and being the outstanding student in ag, am doing a work that was done by angels. Amazing. And 3: He had a quote from Pres. Monson that said we have the PLEASURE of spreading the gospel. This hit me hard. So far its been work. Hard work. And its going to be hard work for a long time. But it is still a pleasure to be out here doing what has to be done. Super awesome. It rains like every night down here it is crazy. I love my rain coat it is so nice. You shake it and the outside is dry again. Very nice. 

Wow writing these are hard. Ummmm story time!

So my comp introduced this game to my district that he wishes he hadnt called what are the odds. Basically someone says what are the odds you do this...then they say something stupid like dont talk for a day, or go fake a seizure in the other room (both actually happened). Then the person who is dared to do it says the odds are 1 in any number they want. Then they count down from 3 and if you both say the same number ( it has to be within the 1 in whatever number range) you have to do it. There are a bunch of rules to it but thats the basic overview. So Elder Boyer is kind of our big football player mentality guy so he ends up doing a lot of stuff because Elder Hatch is crazy good at picking what number you are thinking of. So far he has gone an entire day without talking,  bought Hatch basketball shorts, alot of other stuff and my favorite belly slide through this huge puddle in the grass. It was awesome. 

So my comp was talking to me the other day and he is on the top bunk and is leaning over talking to me on the bottom. When all of a sudden he is like Elder I'm falling. I thought he was joking so I kind of put up a hand to push him back and I realize he is actually falling. At which point he falls out of his bed crashes into our desks and pushes them to the other side of the room. He starts laying there and saying how he pulled a muscle and me being the experienced mature person I am start laughing my head off laying on my bed. Honestly I laughed for like 5 minutes, I couldnt breathe my face was red it was great. Then the idiot does it again that night and falls off again! Honestly funniest thing that happened all week. Im such a good person. 

Next story, One day in class we are role playing an investigator meeting and Elder Boyer (I swear he gets picked on for everything, he is the total class clown) is being Mayra. So Elder Stevenson says ¡Mayra es muy gordo! (Mayra is very fat) and our district starts laughing and Hermana Bernal is usually a slightly more serious person starts saying no elder stevenson no! We all thought she was gunna tell him to be nice but instead she says ¡Mayra es muy gordA! You might not think its funny but it was hilarious. The a makes it feminine. Its not funny in english. Maybe senora leavitt will get it. 

I really suck at writing emails im sorry. But thats basically my week. 

1 Devotionals are in english, there arent that many natives here at the CCM

2 the plate on the upper left is salsa. Salsa is so good here it is the only thing keeping me going. And the bread. The bread here is so good when it is fresh and soft. 

Thanks for everything you do tracking my bags. No word yet but yeah here is hoping. Do everything we can and God will make up the rest.

 

Bueno Suerte at Dave, tell jay to put you and kimmy in a stand. Youll be fine. Love you tons.

Elder Galbreath the 6th

Made it to Mexico even though his bags didn't

Reroute was through Dallas to Mexico. No luggage yet. The Mtc is working on it still. But part of me feels like the bag is in a ditch in mexico with the valuables gone. Ill get you the stuff next week. My instructors are all mexicans, living in Mexico.  So got here at like midnight the guy shows me my casa, and I hurry and get in bed so I dont wake everyone up. In my casa I'm room 1 with my companion and another companionship, Stevenson and Watkins. Langeveld is ripped out of his mind he is the world record holder for dead lift, and mostly just crazy in the gym. He is from Ogden Utah. Stevenson is super chill just kinda does his thing and is really good at spanish. He is from Ogden and was friends with Langeveld before the mission. Watkins is well. You can't describe him but he is awesome.

So at the aiport my first flight was delayed because a chair was broken so we couldnt take off. We get to Phoenix and I missed my connection to Mexico so they reroute me through Dallas, then to Mexico. Dallas flight was delayed half an hour, then I got to Dallas and my Mexico flight was delayed. Wade through customs, find out they lost one of my bags. super awesome. Then we try and get out of the airport and the guy who picked me up didnt have pesos so they wouldnt let us out. He argued with the guard for like half an hour so he let them use his card. People are insane drivers down here, I was scared coming down. Like imagine your mom times like 10. Yeah that bad. Thursday was meeting after meeting trying to figure stuff out welcoming us, and in the 5 minute breaks we get me and my companion would run around the ccm to get my stuff that everyone else got on wednesday. I was the 2nd to last one to arrive. Then we had interviews with the branch presidencies to kind of get to know us. My president is presidente Gill. He is also the head doctor at the ccm so he had to leave halfway through because of an emergency. But after interviews they asked me to be the district leader. So I am the district 9d district leader. There are 10 elders and 2 hermanas in my district. Its pretty exciting but keeps me busy doing stuff.

 So on Friday I got the mail key because one of the jobs of the district leader is to get the mail. Get the mail, go back to my casa to change into my gym clothes and my closet key wont work. So langeveld tries getting it to work and it breaks in the lock. Turns out if you try and unlock your closet with your mail key it doesnt work. Just a heads up. So got that fixed. Then that night we taught our first investigator. Yeah 2nd day of spanish we taught already. We did horrid but I was so relieved I came out laughing and was giddy all day. Langeveld was so mad though it drove him into a fury of studying. But our language has definitely improved since and after teaching 2 more lessons we can understand most of what he says and can communicate okish. not great, but ok. Spanish is so hard I wish I had paid more attention in spanish class. Wouldn't have helped probably but I would feel better. Saturday we had more classes on top of more classes. In between classes they give us study time. See a pattern emerging? So every night I am spiritually and mentally exhausted. Bedtime is my favorite time. Sunday is crazy! I start off with a district leaders meeting with presidente Gill and the other District leaders, then go to priesthood meeting, then district meeting, then sacrament. Leadership meeting is cool, the other district leaders are super nice and fun. Everyone is kinda helping out. We basically just report how our district is doing. Priesthood is the branch gets together and has a lesson, this week was about covenants and trying to memorize the sacrament prayers in spanish. Whenever I say memorize just assume it is in spanish. District meeting is like sunday school but its just my district and I lead it. So everyone taught a part of the lesson. Worked well. Sacrament is the crazy part. So they tell us what the topic of the talks are the week before and everyone writes a 5 minute talk in spanish. Then at sacrament they tell us who is speaking. Nerve racking. Sacrament is all in spanish though. Then we have a devotional, this week was a video of Elder Hollands devotional at the provo Mtc. It was amazing about feeding the lords sheep and how you never stop being a missionary even after you are released. Spirit was so strong during it. Then we have more studying time then we watched a video. Then we went back to our district classroom and had a discussion about it. I had the idea to have everyone share why they chose to serve a mission and I'm glad I did. The spirit was almost overpowering as we did. Feel much closer to my district now. Quick facts about my district. I am the only one never to have lived in Utah, and one of three who isn't from Utah. One is from Las Vegas, the others father is a marine intelligence officer so she has lived everywhere. Ok so Monday flew by all I remember is we had class, class, study time, class then taught our investigator. Pretty standard. Tuesday was the same thing. Today is p-day and we went to the Mexico City visitors center this morning. It was really cool, very mexico pyramid type look.















Mexico City is so busy and cluttered, then you have the temple just all pristine even though they are working on it. Super awesome. I got 2 ties at the tienda there. I am the only one who didn't bring really nice ties so I started getting some.  So yesterday we were playing volleyball and on both teams were some crazy good kids. A guy on my team was junior olympics, one was a varsity player, some went to college on both sides. Really good players. But a guy who was on the other team tried spiking it on me and I jumped up and blocked him so hard it was awesome. Also hurt my hands but mostly awesome. Then we had service hour and we hauled water jugs around the campus. rode in the back of the truck and jumped out and ran them inside. Felt so good to do actual work. Here it's lots of mental work but no physical work. I miss that. I was hauling water jugs back and forth and I think I made some guys mad in my district but I just miss working.

Mail here is super slow but feel free to send some! I am so glad I am here at the CCM the spirit is so strong its amazing. Everyday I wake up I am so glad to be a missionary. The language is hard but I am getting it slowly. My prayers are in spanish mostly, and I can do a basic testimony in spanish. Reading spanish is easy, dont know why I ever thought otherwise. when I am writing I have to focus on some words to keep them in english. If spanish is in here well, lociento.  Love you guys so much, but I am glad to be here. Nowhere else would feel right.

I have given 2 oil blessing so far this week, and consecrated my own bottle. I never would have thought I would be doing that. The spirit is so strong when i was doing that. One of the blessing I was sealing and giving the blessing and I felt so powerful but not in a strong sense it was amazing. I dont feel like I gave a great blessing but she is better now! I just love the priesthood and the blessings it brings so much.
Love,

Elder Galbreath the 6th