Gunshots, Spiders and Fireworks!

Hola Familia!!!

I am feeling the pressure of the ticking clock in the corner of my screen so please ignore the many mistakes this letter will include. Im trying to type fast....

WELCOME HOME JACOB!!! We were practicing talking about our family in class yesterday so I kept telling people "My brother gets home today". When they realized what this meant I received lots of sympathy. One girl even started crying for me. That was a shock...someone is always crying here haha

I forgot to mention last week how grateful I was for all the letters I had to read on the plane!! Thank you to everyone who wrote one! It definietly made that first flight easier.

Well the CCM is a wonderful´place! I absolutely LOVE it! Let me try and describe for you...

The 90 acre lot is surrounded completely by a 20 foot high thick cement wall with barbed wire on the top. I feel pretty safe here. Everything is also under video surveilliance. We lay in bed and here gunshots going off ALL night..sometimes we think we here cannons too and wonder if we are under attack or something haha At first the gunshots scared me but I dont even notice them now. They are also obsessed with fireworks here in Mexico city so you can see and hear fireworks going off all day and night. Its an endless party. The weather is beautiful and perfect!! Inside or out it is just beautiful. This whole campus is just gorgeous! We have casas we live in. They are mini houses with five bedrooms (4 girls in each), five bathrooms, a kitchen that holds our purified water and a huge family room with like 6 couches. Its pretty nice. Sadly we are never around  to enjoy our cute little casa (which happens to be bright pink on the outside...they are all differernt colors). We are surrounded by mountains here .Mountains covered in bright houses. It is so pretty. I thought Mexico was dry, flat and ugy...but it is quite the oposite. We walk outside to all our classes and get to enjoy the wonderful sun and sometimes very polluted air.

The first morning here I realized they do not have a such thing as hot...or even lukewarm water. My showers feel like they are straight from the artic. I didnt know water could even get that cold! Needless to say all of our showers and very fast! Im just proud of myself for showering at all! The water is gross here. I have to brush my teeth with it and it just tastes rotton. Luckily we alwasy have purified water to drink! There are these beautiful green birds here...maybe Emily can figure out what they are called. There are also these big blue circles in the middle of the street which we are supposed to run to druing an eathquake. Apparently they have earthquakes here all the time. We study in them...for extra safety..ya know? :)

They are pretty strict about our safety though. We have to be indoors before dark and lock everything up. Now that I have seen Mexico City a bit more I understand why.

I must have just come on a bad night because the food is AMAZING!!!!! Like best food I have ever tasted!! I eat so much---way too much. I will be resewing some of my skirts before I leave here I think. We alwasy have these amazing rice and beans and these heavenly soft corn tortillas. I didnt think I would ever call corn tortiallas heavenly but these are!! We have lots of good meat too. Sunday night I got something I thought was steak and ate it. It was really good so I asked the cook exactly what is was...it was cow tongue. Eww. I felt sick after not becuase it was gross but beacuse I actually LIKED it!! They have amazing breads here...well more like donuts. Buckets and buckets of donuts filled with chocolate, creme, and whatever else. So many different kinds and I try to try them all...its a recipie for diaster. OH! Also I have not seen a single vegetable here. Lots of fruit  but NO veggies. Oh well....for now I will just eat my burritos and donuts and be happy. They really love pineapple.- but not plain. Its always in a meat, beans, rice, sauce and with cayenne pepper on it. Its a strange obsession. So Do not worry. I am eating very well.

From the moment we landed here I have pretty much only seen and heard spanish. English is forbidden. At first I thought it was cruel to not even let us understand orientation or anything...but I am starting to see that 6 weeks is short...so immersion is best. Everyone speaks spanish and very few speak english. Its pointless to try and ask a question to a teavher or worker in english-.they wont understand you. Half the time time I have NO idea what is going on. Its really a sink or swim scenerio. One elder in my district is a short little guy from idaho. He is terrible at spanish. Even yesterday he could hardly say "hola". He would get up and try to talk and just start crying...he was so frusterated. I would be too! It broke my heart to watch him struggle so much with this. Learning the language is everything here....pretty much the sole focus. Anyways, he got a blessing last night from the other elders...adn this mornnign he taught a whole lesson in perfect spanish! It was a miracle...and no small one. We all cried.

Latinos have a really hard time saying my name "Hermana Orchard" They have to ask me for the last part like three times and then say "es muy dificil". Its just Orchard! I dont think its that hard! I guess I am just doomed with no one ever being able to pronounce my name...either of them! haha

We arent allowed to listen to music here so I have been having some major withdrawls. I never realized how much I NEED music. It got to the point I was almost in tears over it. I wanted to hear something! Even just a chord on the piano. So I made my district but adorable little spanish hymnbooks and we walk and sing. Its lovely. I also lay in bed and sing with another sister in my room until we fall asleep- Im sure eveyone else hates it but they havent said anything yet- hahaha

Okay...so my district is the best! Like seriously...they are all amazing!! We have 8 elders and 4 hermanas. The elders are hilarious. I adore all of them. We all have SO much fun together!! Anyone who thinks missions arent fun....well..they ARE!! Kips son is in my district and you can tell Kip that he is doing great. His companion is so awesome and he is learning spanish faster than all of us! Elder Kreling is a great missionary. His facebook page is very misleading. haha

BUT REALLY!! My district is...ahhh I just love them all SO MUCH!! One night we were having a district meeting and our teacher said "look around the room---this is your family now". And I thought...thats right!! This IS my family now! We spend all day together studying, laughing, crying. I am blessed with such great elders. Some one the other districts do not have it as good.

One cute story...before a lesson with one of our fake investigators (we all wait together outside the room while others are teaching) I turned and looked at the two elders who were about to go teach and they were in front of the door praying! It was the sweetest thing!! It is so amazing to see how much we all change after only a WEEK!

We always say that the elders help us have fun and we help them be serious and get to work. And thast how it is. Sometimes I forget I am with 18 and 19 year old boys and then one of them makes this comment

"if a zombie invasion came we would be totally prepared"...I wont go into details of his elaborate plan but it included surrounding the temple and blessing the zombies to cure them.

We have no supervison or really oprganization here. The CCM es loco! Its a figure it out for yourself type place.  We had like three different orientations scheduled of which NO ONE came to conduct or teach. Somehow we are still learning...I guesss we are old enough to govern ourselves although sometimes with these elders---I wonder. haha

My companion is Hermana Page. She looks like a barbie. Then there are two other hermanas we share a room with and are pretty much always with. Hermana Williams reminds me of Elizabeth Billings so obviously I ADORE her! Hermana Turner is so fun and amazing and I just love her!! Hermana Turner is a wonderful singer and will sing me to sleep when there are cochroaches crawling over my bed (always...so gross!) The CCM also gives us some pesos to spend each week. We just buy tons of chocolate and eat it all at night .Its great..

So it IS true!! They do make you teach a lesson in spanish the first day here! Its crazy! My companion doesnt speak any spnaish at all so the first 4 lessons have been up to me. I prepare the best I can but teaching a lesson in a langueage I dont know is HARD! Having a companion is hard too. It is so much fun though! After my firsst lesson I thoought "Im glad I enjoyed that so much because thats my life for the next 18 months" haha. Somehow in lessons I am able to understand everything out investigator says and somehow teach a lesson to him. The moment I leave the room those spanish abiliteis are gone! Thats the beauty of the spirit! Teaching would be impossible without it! The gift of tongues is REAL!! I cannot believe how much I have learned in the last 7 days. It is astoudning. It would take me mpnths and months to learn this much in any other place.

I think the thing I leanred the most this week is how important love is. Love can move the earth and change everything. Love brings the spirit faster than anything else and love is so needed in life and especially on a mission! God loves all his children so so much! And when we love those we teach...they can feel Gods love for them through US! And that is pretty awesome. So our real prpose as missionaries I think is to just love others.

I really love teaching though! It is so wonderful and fun! And I have realized why I am speaking spanish. Because teachign in an unknown languauge forces to be concise and simple. I cant embellish everything and get all deep´like I like to do. I have to be simple. And that is a skill I need to work on and one I am being forced to work on now.

Mexico City and pretty much everything here is dirty. But the temple is clean and I am so greateful for that! The Temple is wonderful! We went this morning after a bumpy hour drive. I wish I could explain more about the city but I am running out of time and you are probably running out of patience over the length of this!

So pretty much...I love it here. I love the food and my district. I love teaching and my teacher. I love these colorful mountains and spanish hymns. I love spanish and studying it ALL DAY LONG! I love how exhausted I am all day and how much stretching is happening to my brain these days. But most of all...I LOVE being a missionary!!

I will hopefully figure out how to send picutues next week.

I would say I miss you guys but I really dont yet...give me a couple weeks ;)

Love, Hermana Orchard (or as they all call me- snow white...because I am "always humming and laughing"..but how can you not when this world is so beautiful and this work so great?¡)