Tuesday, November 25 2014

This week was pretty boring, nothing much happened. I’m finally starting to get a hang of the language; we did this thing called trc which means teaching recent converts and I taught the whole lesson without any notecards at all, I’m not sure about my comp though. Tuesdays are definitely my favorite day here in the MTC, not just because its p day but because for dinner they go to Costco and buy hundreds of pizzas and we get to eat as much Costco pizza as we want! Last week I ate around 8 pieces! We just got back from the Mexico City temple and it was a pretty cool experience. We didn’t get to go into the temple but we got to tour the visitor center and we even had a chance to talk to some non members that were there taking a tour. The bookstore was what everyone was excited for and when we got there everyone was surprised. It’s seriously about the size of my bedroom at home and it was packed with like 40 missionaries. I got some pretty cool scripture covers for my Spanish scriptures and a few ties. Elder Howell got to see his brother yesterday because his brother is in the Mexico City South mission so he got to talk to him yesterday; his brother convinced him to stay and now he feels like he is making the right decision to stay. For the past two weeks my comp and I have been having a foosball tournament with these other two elders who have the same gym time as us and we play 40 minute games of intense foosball haha. We usually win because the other two aren’t really good but sometimes we just really stink haha. That’s basically it. Not a very interesting week for the most part. Love you guys.

Tuesday, November 18 2014

That car ride seems intense! This week went by pretty fast except for Saturday and yesterday. Saturday was horrible, for some reason I just couldn’t remember any Spanish and it made the day just drag on! And yesterday was long because we had a zone wide fast for one of our elders in our zone. My roommate Elder Howell feels like he wants to go home so we all fasted for him yesterday to help him receive an answer and last night he said he wants to go home. But from the looks of it, it looks like it will take like 2 weeks for all the interviews and stuff to get through so maybe he will change his mind by then. If he leaves my companion and I will have to be in a tripanionship with our district leader, so we will have to go to a bunch of meetings and stuff. That sucks Danny is going to the Colombian MTC, that would have been really cool if he would have come to the Mexico City MTC. We have a district leaving the week before he leaves so if he came here he might have even been in my zone! Tomorrow our district is doing this thing called solo español which means that you can only talk in Spanish that whole day. It’s going to be hard but I’m excited to see how much Spanish I actually know and what I’m not using. We have this program called TALL which is supposed to help us with Spanish, but it is all in Spanish so I can’t figure out how to use it. On Sunday we watched a talk by Elder Bednar at an MTC Christmas devotional a few years ago and it was a really nice talk. Then later that night we watched The Mountain of the Lord and it reminded me of that day when we all went down to City Creek and then went and watched it. It was a pretty good movie but it’s pretty hot in the auditorium and everyone is so sleepy so it’s really hard to stay awake. Funny story, on Thursday we were sitting in our room and it was 2 minutes past quiet time, so we were getting ready to say the prayer when Elder Howell was waiting for Elder Brown to get down he was showing us how cats throw up, we were all busting up laughing when the door starts to open slowly. So my companion yells "quick everyone act like your asleep!" so he lays on the floor and starts to snore. And then all of the sudden President Pratt’s head pokes through the door and we all go silent but Elder Conkel who is just laying there "snoring." We were all too scared to say anything so president asks my companion why he is laying on the floor and he was like it is hot so I’m laying on the cool tile. We then explain how we were just about to say the prayer and he asks my comp if that is his praying position and then he leaves. Like three minutes later we hear the house door shut and we all just bust up laughing! Then when we were going to bed I needed to go to the bathroom, but I thought president was just sitting outside the window so I went to go open the window to check and Elder Howell says "go to sleep" like he was president and for the next like five minutes we are in our beds with our faces in our pillows trying to not make a lot of noise but we were laughing so hard! That night was probably the most I’ve ever laughed in forever. For the most part this was a good week though. Love you guys. Talk to you later.

Tuesday, November 11 2014

All is well here at the MTC now - just the first initial shock of actually being here in Mexico was pretty crazy. My companion’s name is Elder Conkel. He’s a nice guy. He comes from Florida. I asked him if he played any sports and he said he played football and soccer. My district is pretty cool. Last night one of my roommates, Elder Howell, and I were talking about making a zipper watch - like it’s a watch that hooks together with a zipper instead of like velcro or a original watch and we had like half the people in my district with us and the other half against us. There are 8 people in my district. 6 elders, and 2 sisters. It’s crazy because I can find a connection with every one of them that makes us closer together. Most of us all know at least one or two of the same people that I was friends with and they come from all across the world. We have an elder who’s name is Courtney Taito and he comes from Samoa, and like half of the Polynesian people I was friends with he is cousins with so we became friends pretty quick. The food here is surprisingly good, ha. Every time we get food no one in my district knows what it is. It’s usually just some red meat or some weird enchilada but it’s been pretty nice so far. I sleep in a house with four bedrooms and each bedroom has 4 elders in it. My roommates are my companion, Elder Howell who is from Arizona and our district leader Elder Brown from Idaho Falls. It’s a pretty disgusting place, the bathroom is always wet and there is a big hole in the wall that you can see into the other side of the bathroom and see the other elders. So far my Spanish is horrible which sucks because the second day we were here we had to teach an investigator the first lesson and he didn’t speak any English so we spent about an hour reading the Preach My Mospel lesson and mispronounced basically every word. But so far I have been liking the MTCV. I just wish I would have brought a lot more ties. There is a huge tie trade that goes on every other night in a different house and there are some elders who have like 90 ties and they show up with a huge rack and people trade them like 3 ties for one of his. Most people go for like far out ties like all floral or a hidden paisley. We are going to the Mexico City temple visitor center next week because the Mexico City temple is being remodeled and I’ve heard they have some really cool ties that are really cheap so I am think I’m going to buy some so I can trade more than the ones I have right now. I haven’t taken many pictures yet because there is really nothing to take pictures of. The drive from the airport to the MTC was crazy. We would get so close to the busses next to us you could smell the people inside it and there were guys on motorcycles just flying by in between like a foot of space! My teacher for our language and Preach My Gospel classes name is Carlos Silva and he is probably the coolest teacher in our zone. He makes us memorize a ton of stuff in Spanish and if we don’t do it by a certain day we have to do like 60 push ups, so I don’t even need my hour of gym time. But I have definitely started to get better at Spanish. Although I can’t speak much of it I can start to understand it. At first I thought they were talking so fast but now that I’m starting to understand it I feel like it’s slowed down a lot. Sunday was a really nice break from the start of the week. But sacrament had to be in all Spanish and each week we have to write like a 5 minute talk in Spanish and you don’t know if you are talking until after the sacrament. But it’s by zone and we have the smallest zone in the MTC, there are only like 20 people so we have gotten to know them pretty well. Two people from my district had to give talks and after that the president said that was the first time he asked a new missionary to talk and that he will do it every time we get someone new in our zone. The trees here are full of parrots and butterflies and it’s fun to throw like a rock into the trees because it looks like the leaves just explode off because the parrots are green and they fly out every which way. If you could look up a zipper watch and see if they already have one tell me so I know not to try and make one. That’s basically all I can remember so I’ll talk to you guys next week. Love you, Collin

Wednesday, November 5 2014

Collin safely arrived at the Mexico City MTC on Wednesday, November 5. Saying goodbye was just as difficult as we expected it to be, but we couldn't be more proud of how Collin handled himself. We love him more than words can say. His flight had a brief layover in Atlanta, Georgia. Uncle Dave, who will be on our hero list forever, left a meeting and ran through the Atlanta airport to meet up with Collin. The pictures and report Dave sent warmed our hearts and helped us through a very difficult day. Thanks Dave! Collin was able to send the following brief email upon his arrival at the MTC: i have arived at the MTC safely, a few hours ago and they are letting us write you for a couple minutes to tell you our shipping address and our P day. P day for me is on tuesdays. i was doing good up until we actually got to the mtc, now its hit me and im super nervous. im just praying that i wont be as homesick as i think i would feel. Your Missionary's mailing addres is: [Elder Horrocks] [16/12/2014] [Branch 14 - District A] Carretera Tenayuca-Chalmita #828 Colonia Zona Escolar, Gustavo A. Madero 07230 Mexico, Distrito Federal Mexico The estimated departure date for your missionary is [16/12/2014]. The use of the above address on all correspondence will greatly faciliate delivery to your missionary at the MTC. Please don't send packages. all is well here i just hope i forget about myself. love you guys.