Week #2 ... in the CCM

March 5, 2015 (Letter #2)

It is amazing how much faster the second week is compared to the first! The first was pretty rough.. You just get hit with orientation, after orientation, and meeting, after meeting.. But once you actually get into the missionary schedule, it is so much better!

First off, I have to say that my district is pretty awesome. We are district 13C, and their are nine of us. Six elders: Elder Dansie and Elder Jenks, Elder Hazelgren and Elder Ferguson, Elder Grasinger and myself. And the trio of hermanas are Hermana Jacobsen, Hermana Higuera, and Hermana Weaver.

We will spend the day as most missionaries do. Wake up (6:30), study time, breakfast, classtime, lunch, more classtime, more study time, dinner, and nighty night time by 22:30. It wasn't that hard getting back into a "school" type setting. My teachers are all pretty awesome. In the morning, we have Hermanos Sato and Carmona. Hermano Carmona is a really good teacher and likes to make personal learning sessions with us all, and Hermano Sato likes to make sure that we all have fun too! You know how people spin basketballs on their fingers? Well Hermano Sato can definitely do that.. Plus books, notepads, Preach My Gospel, even an iPad! It is so cool! Then in the afternoon, we have Hermana Montoya and Hermano Gomez (who was actually our "first investigator"). Hermana Montoya is the kinda teacher who teaches with games, which my companion and I really enjoy. Hermano Gomez is what I call the "cozy drill sergeant" you could play around with him a lot, but when it is time to learn, you better do what he says! My favorite thing about all the hermano teachers is that they will always go around and give us (the elders) some massages. Poor poor hermanas that they don't get to experience such joy.. 

This week started off bittersweet. A district in our zone, 13B, had to leave at 2 in the morning. They gave us a very warm welcome, and we got close to them very quickly. They were off to a variety of places in Mexico. Juaréz, Tuxala, and a couple others. It kinda freaked us out that we were already going to be the "leading district" of our zone, only two weeks in! But we're doing fine. The new district is great and we really enjoy playing volleyball together. And why the week started off "bittersweet" was because we really missed 13B, but my companion and I taught our best lesson yet.

We have two "investigators" right now, Adán and Laura (which look strikingly similar to Hermano Sato and Hermana Montoya!). Our first lesson with Adán was fantastic. I felt that I did such a great job of talking to him without much help from what I wrote down to say, and the fact that I understood most of what he said! His family: wife and two kids, are already active in the church, so we knew it wouldn't be a hard lesson. Basically the first meeting with him was getting to know him and sharing a quick message of how the Gospel blesses families. So we asked him if he'd pray with his family, read the scriptures with his family, and to be baptized. And he said "yes" to all three! 

Now I know that this was a simple role play, but I know that I felt the Spirit in that meeting. When my companion and I left the room at the end, we just hugged because we knew we did an awesome job! It was so weird, I wanted to cry, it was so good! That is the feeling here at the CCM. The Spirit is just so powerful here. Not to mention, plenty of happiness and good times.

Thank you all for your love and support. I surely needed it that first week, now I'm here working to make you all proud.

Love you all!

 battle scar from sand volleyball 

(that's also sand on his upper lip, not a mustache!)

 ...a fellow Landon

 Mucho Missionaries

 (I'm not sure WHAT this photo is actually of)

Out and about in Mexico City

...and here are my steps for the week:

February 26 - 10294

February 27 - 17021

February 28 - 20337

March 1 - 11991

March 2 - 15900

March 3 - 14372

March 4 - 13898

*** Between Brothers ***

Dear Landon, how have you been doing down there in Mexico City? I hope it has been great for you there, because I’ve been alright up here. Also, I forgot to tell you last time I wrote to you, is that I actually took over your Charge, and mom bought herself a Charge HR. And I’ve got to be honest, the Charge is a lot better than the One and the Zip. There has been some stuff happening to Oreo right now, like he has been scratching the black chair in the computer room, but other then that, he hasn’t been doing any other trouble than scratching the chair, and he has been being a great kitty. He has also got a string wrapped around his leg, and the string was in tons of knots, but he is still okay because we cut the string off of his leg. He has also been sleeping in some pretty strange places, such as on the desk, right by the chair, and just sleeping in the hallway. Furthermore, that picture of you in that cabinet with your partner in Mexico, and that really reminded me of one of those Friends episodes when Joey was stuck in the entertainment center and could not get out, and when everything was stolen! So I’m really missing you dearly, and I will hope you will be an awesome missionary while you are in Mexico for these next two years. Love, Cooper 

Dear Landon, are you having a good time in Mexico City? Not to long ago we went out to go get ice cream again with Amare and Aidan but this time Will and Sam joined us. It was a lot of fun because we went to somewhere that has a playground in it. Can you guess what place it was? This week I tried playing some CoD (Call of Duty) all by myself but there was something wrong with the internet. If you know that Cooper has your charge now I took over his one. I’ve been playing this game called Mario Super Sluggers a baseball game and it is really fun. That picture of you reminded me of that episode of Friends where Joey gets stuck in the cabinet. One day before Cooper and I went to school Oreo got his leg tangled in a string, Cooper and I had to cut the string. When Oreo got his leg stuck the string was one of the strings of a mouse so he was running around running into doors trying to get the mouse because it was stuck on his leg. We are playing with some helium and trust me when I talk with helium my voice is REALLY high. Jacob hasn’t been coming over lately he hasn’t came over in the past two weeks! I told my teacher that you went on a mission to Mexico and she told me that I should learn Spanish so I could talk with the girl in my class who moved in from a Spanish country! I said “probably, probably not, most likely not.” We will be writing to you every Sunday. I hope you will be an AWESOME missionary in Puebla. Love, your FAVORITE little brother of all time, Colton 

Dear Landon, so I’ve pretty much figured out how to work the iHome, but weirdly I have always woken up five to 15 minutes before the alarm goes off! The bad thing about that is I don’t know if the alarm will even wake me up. Also I usually wake up in the middle of the night every night, but then I go back to sleep. Yesterday I got the Koala on CrossyRoad, so now I have 72 of 72 characters (not Piggy Bank)! Also, yesterday was the beginning of the tournaments for basketball. My time first we won Jordan by 30, then we played Bingham and beat them by 14! We were the 6th seed and they were the 3rd! That was our second time beating Bingham too! In the district games, West Hills made it to the championship against Oquirrh Hills, and we beat them by 20! I didn’t play because this was the 9th grade team and you have to be a certain age to play in the district games, but the coach wanted me to get one of the t-shirts that we won because I played on the B team in the Thursday night league. So now West Hills has the really big trophy in the main hall by the office. Love, Keaton

Dear Elder Blackham. So, I got UBC tryouts next week, which is one of the best basketball teams our age. My old sophomore coach sent me an email about it and he is one of the coaches so I hope that helps me out. Layton won the 5A championship which was a surprise. Anyways, that’s all that happened with me. I hope you are learning what you need to. Spanish is way hard for me in school so I bet it’s way harder for you. I know you’ll be a good missionary because you were such a good example to us. Good luck this week! Love, Callahan

• Dear Cooper, Mexico City has been pretty awesome and crazy at the same time. Today, we actually left the CCM to go to the immigration center for our visas. Anyway, it was nuts! The way people drive here is crazy! But downtown Mexico City was really cool. There were a bunch of statues and monuments (you will see some pictures). Haha little Oreo.. I miss snuggling with him. Haha I know what you mean! When I got in there, they actually tried to trap me in! Not very nice.. But still funny. Make good use of the Charge and take care of Oreo! Love Elder Blackham 
• Dear Colton: Mexico City is awesome! At first in the morning, it was pretty sketchy because people do these really loud fireworks. And they do them ALL THE TIME. Like I was in my bed at 5 o´clock this morning and then.. BANG! Ugh.. but you get use to it. I am going to guess.. McDonald´s? That's the only place I can think of that has ice cream and a play ground.. Wait, Artic Circle! That's my guess! Hmm.. bummer about CoD. But don't you just want to play with bots? Haha here's a little bit of Spanish for you. 

Colton no quiere aprender hablar en Español. 

Translation, "Colton does not want to learn to speak Spanish." Hahaha 

Keep doing well in school, and be sure to listen to Mommy! 

Love Elder Blackham 

• Dear Keaton, I knew you could figure it out. Gosh.. That is ridiculous that you got all those characters! How long did that take? Dang! Awesome job! I'm happy for you and your team, sounds like a pretty nice victory! Haha keep up the good work! You're an awesome basketball player! Love Elder Blackham 
• Dear Callahan, haha well that does not surprise me one bit! Back into basketball already! By the way, did you know someone by the last name Huber? I believe he was a senior when you were a freshman. He said that he helped coach the younger Copper Hills teams and recognized "Blackham" when we met. He played for Copper Hills. He´s ridiculously tall. He blocked my companion like five times... Today! Haha he's really good player, and a really good guy. Do well in basketball, as well as school. Love Elder Blackham