CCM #4

haha ya sorry for all the emails. I think tony got me ´too´good of a camera! The pictures are so high def that the email doesn’t know how to deal with it! jaja(as the latinos say)

TREVs a beast!!! Way to be on all the high honors! He’s going to be awesome in japan:) but ya...get on those applications!  I’m definitely going to miss a home grown garden.

Oh, so i forgot to tell you that i barely missed elder bednar!! he was at the ccm literally 2 days before i got there and shook everyones hands!

I love the way the latinos translate some stuff into spanish. On our schedule it says, ´red the book of mormon´ for read. The other day one of our teachers was trying to explain a word and said you know, ´teeth sticks´ we later found out he meant tooth picks haha.

So you know the thing that craig used to do with his hand when he was excited? like the snappy clap thing? Its only with one finger here--your pointer finger hitting your middle finger and thumb. trev can do it i think, but anyways all of the latinos can do it and do it when somethings awesome like encouragement kind of. I’ve finally gotten a sound out of it, but I’ll be pro when i get home.

haha so i think I’ve figured out why people get so close to their districts in the mtc and why they have so much fun all the time. Its cuz we´re all soooo dead tired so it starts to get to the point where EVERYTHING is hilarious! And how the smallest things are SUPER entertaining. Like if i saw some of the things that gave me enjoyment now i would probably be ashamed. haha. Like there’s this huge house on the side of the hill next to the ccm and we can see it over our wall. Anyways the other night the alarm was going off on it, and literally we all stood outside and watched it for like 10 minutes. It was exciting. The other day one of the elders discovered something super exciting, spinning around for 30 seconds and then putting your feet together. You fall flat. Hilarious. We learned a little foot clappy thing. one of the sisters stole my toothbrush while i was in the restroom and put in on the window sill ledge and sat there cutely smiling while slowly pushing it off making the emporers new grove noise saying, uh huh?´kinda. I though it was the most hilarious thing. I died. Same girl pulled me around in the hallway on our comforter. McDonalds has never tasted better in my entire life! I think it’s my new fav restaurant and i didn’t like it before the mish. The few of us that are staying in peru on our mishes had to go and get our peruvian licenses today and so we got it. Best hamburger and fries of my life. The sprite tasted kinda diff though.

ya, so while were waiting for forever at the license place today. I saw this man with a daughter that was crying. I went over and went over and tried to give her a pamphlet to look at the pictures but she didn’t want it so i pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and she stopped crying and started drawing, I started talking to the guy and he spoke english!!! The tender mercies of the Lord. Not only that but he was from..get this.. INDIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I said one of my hindi phrases to him that i learned from my tapes!!!! He totally understood me and could understand my accent!!! wuzzup!!!!! He was in peru for work, we were just talking about life it was great. His daughter ended up crying again and I made one of those cootie catchers and she loved it! She giggled so much and took it. He asked me if i had a facebook or email address and i gave it to him and took down his info for the missionaries to come! It was great!! 

While we were waiting there were people just sitting all around me. I luckily had brought like ten pamphlets about the plan of salvation etc and handed them out to the people around me that looked bored saying, ´quiere leer?´ they all took them and some of them looked really grateful and said thank you. There was this boy that was in high school that looked like he had a rough life and i handed him one and he kinda started reading it, then i went and sat by him and asked him about soccer and messi in my broken spanish. We talked about usa and what i liked about it. He asked about the church and it was super cool cuz i told him that we are Gods children and he could be like God one day. It was super cool cuz we went back to talking about other stuff(he was definitely very patient with my spanish) and were just like chill friends. I realized that that’s how the gospel needs to be taught, not as like someone trying to force their beliefs on someone else, but as friends sharing and really caring about others and helping them to find more and become more for themselves. (I’m not going to lie, there was a lot of times i would just nod and laugh if it looked like he was saying something funny..most the time i could barely understand him..it worked though i think! lool)

We went prosylyting on saturday. It was a really awesome experience. I felt like a real missionary. And kind of lame cuz i really don’t know the language. With God it doesn’t matter though cuz the spirit has its own language and i definitely felt it a lot. The cool thing about the ccm is that the spirit is everywhere. it’s so real.

One thing i learned this week from Elder Holland is that whatever you want your investigators to do you need to do first yourself. Like if you want your investigators to pray harder and repent more or dig deeper into the scriptures then you need to do it yourself! You are Gods investigator. He wants you to come closer to him. I’m working on making my prayers more meaningful and digging deeper into the scriptures and i challenge yall to do the same! i love you all soo soo much!!!!!!!! Good luck on graduation coming up t-rev!!!!!!!

te amo mucho!

herm black.

ps, i think im heading out on the tuesday around june 4th. 2 more weeks!!!!!! :O