Week 1

Hola family and friends!

Wow this week has been extremely long and extremely great!  I feel like I have been here for over a month but it´s only been nine days haha.  The MTC here is called the CCM.  I´m not quite sure what it stands for I don´t really remember hahaha but it's not a very big building.  There are 75 missionaries total and they are all going to either Colombia, Ecuador, or Venezuela.  The food here isn´t as bad as I thought it would be!  I´m not a very picky eater but I enjoy the food!  The first 2 to 3 days here felt like weeks but now as the time goes on days are going by quick!

In front of Bogota Temple

Elder Marsh with CCM companions

Elder Marsh, 8th from the right, back row

On our way to CCM from airport

My companions name is Elder Kendall.  He is from Stansbury, Utah and he is a pretty cool guy!  We get along really well and we are coming from the same place so we have a lot to talk about.

Elder Kendall and Elder Marsh at the Temple grounds

I love the Latinos here!!!!  They are probably the nicest people I have ever met and they make me laugh even though I can barely understand them hahaha. They all talk sooooooo fast!!!!   I say "que?" like every five seconds and tell them to slow down because they talk too fast.  All of their words blend into one and I just stare at them and they know that I don't understand haha.  But they help me out with my Spanish so much and they are all so willing to teach me all that they can.  My Spanish isn't the best but it's getting better kind of!

I think it was on Monday or Tuesday, I asked one of the Latinos if they wanted to trade ties and the next thing you know there are 10 Latinos yelling and asking to trade ties haha.  I made sure to put all my not so good ties in one spot so that I didn't have to trade my good ones.  I know that sounds selfish but I had some ties I was not willing to trade!! hahaha

Gym is probably the fastest time of the day along with sleeping.  It seems like I blink my eyes and gym is over or I have to wake up. haha  The CCM really isn't as bad as everyone says it is.  I just feel like time slowed down as soon as I got here.

We finally got to leave the CCM this morning when we went to the temple.  It was such a good experience being in a different place.  But another cool thing was, we had someone of the Seventy in our session at the temple!  I didn't even know it until I got on the bus when someone told me.  His name is Elder Robbins I think.  The temple is about 20 minutes away from the CCM so we got to see the city and everything.  Let me just say, I have never seen anything more chaotic in my life!!  There are so many cars all over the place and they don't care about anything!  They never stop at stop signs and they do everything illegal that you can do haha.  But there are so many people that ride motorcycles, there is graffiti all over the place, in places I don't even know how they could get to but they are very artistic hahaha.  It was crazy just to see how different the world is outside the bubble Utah is.

Anyways I am doing great!  I already can't wait to get out in the field.  If you ever have a bad day just remember it takes a bad day to know a good one!  I know that when you are having a trial, it is so you can grow to become better than you were.  That's what is so great about this gospel, we have the opportunity to get better spiritually and as a person every day. 

I love and miss you all!  Have a good Week.

 -Elder Marsh 

*CCM stands for Centro de Capacitación Misional (Missionary Training Center or MTC)