Week 2

Alright so its only been four days but Ill put some details about the ccm in this email. It is surrounded by gates and there is a security guard in a booth all the time watching the different cameras around the building. But thats not bad compared to some houses that have fences twice as high with barbed wire at the top. They must not like guests or something. The food here is pretty good. Its never great but its always edible except for the soup that tastes like grass I hate that stuff. But I always eat all of my food 1 to practice and develop a taste for colombian food and 2 to get swoll. The first few days I had a super hard time eating everything because I was stuffed but now I have no problem so hopefully I get bigger than Devin so I can beat him in wrestling. Today all of the native spanish speakers left so its just me and Elder Jorgensen, Preslar, and Alvarez from Brazil. And Hermana Capito but shes a girl. At first I had a hard time having a companion but now its really good. Its like being a sidekick. But seriously me and Elder Jorgenson are good friends now and we make a pretty good team even though he speaks and understands little spanish. In our last investigator lesson we had to teach a returned missionary who hadnt been to church in over a year and started drinking and smoking. But suprisingly it went well even though it was a super hard situation and Elder Jorgensen did really well. Tonight we get three more north american elders one of which I think I know (Stephen Tenney) and then a bunch of latinos tomorrow. Well have close to 60 missionaries for the next two weeks while last time we had 36. Ive started to really lilke being here now. I feel the spirit so strongly and Ive learned so much about the gospel. Sometimes its hard and it can be boring in class but I try to remind myself that I have to prepare for the people of colombia and Im not here for myself. I guess Im less selfish now. Okay Im going to spend two minutes to try and find out how to use commas hold on...woohoo I did it!''''''''' These keyboards are super freaky. Alright so an update on my language skills. I can understand pretty well if the person is talking slowly and I can say a decent amount of things but speaking is wayyyyy harder than comprehending. A lot of the time I just guess with the conjugations and hope for the best haha. My only problem the last few days is that I've gotten bored. Classes on grammer and computer programs to practice concepts aren't as fun as you would think. Gym is super fun because we play volleyball but I have to figure out how to make the time go faster in classes. Especially when we are learning something easy which has been pretty much every lesson so far. I know I should feel blessed that I already know the concepts we are doing but I'm still hoping we move on to more difficult things soon so I can understand when my investigators are talking to me. All is good in the CCM. Four more weeks and I'm out in the field! (That's really exciting and scary).

Love,

Elder Downing

Derek and his companion Elder Jorgensen

renovations at the CCM