Elder Justyn Pollock

3/20/13 ¡hola! I'm going to write to the whole family right now because we only have limited time to write and I have alot to tell! I already read your emails. I'll email individually if I have time. The CCM is awesome! My spanish is going great! Sorry if I freaked you out with the story about when I arrived, and that I couldn't write on Monday! Apparently Wednesday is our PDay. When I arrived after being freaked out on Tuesday Night at the airport they took me to a room of all Americans and I was like "PHEW!" haha. The CCM president is a really nice guy. I have been really surprised just at how necessary it is to be able to speak spanish. I thought that alot of people would speak English, but it's really just us gringos (we all use that name haha), the president and his wife. We talk to the latinos often in Spanish to practice and to meet them. I love speaking to them because they are way funny and super nice. They're really patient with our mediocre spanish and speak slow so that we can understand them better. The food here is great! It's not just rice and beans. It's just rice. Haha not really, but really they serve rice with like every meal but breakfast. The rice tastes awesome though'. I don't know how they do it. My favorite meal has probably been chicken. They use chicken alot. Lots of chicken soup, grilled chicken, etc. We have also had carne asada and LOTS of bread. They have some type of bread with every meal too. The Ice cream here is delicious. We had it once so far. It was like a popsicle and I think it was condensed milk flavor, which sounds gross, but is delicious. They give us Dulce de Leche (i think it's called that) with every breakfast. It's like a hot chocolate kind of drink and it's way good. They have plenty of fruit here too. They serve fried plantains sometimes. They have green mandarin oranges. The most interesting food I've had so far is the granadilla. You HAVE to find a picture of the inside of that fruit. It's so weird. It tastes like jello. To eat it you basically suck it out of the fruit. It's delicious though. Probably my favorite fruit of all now. Our district is pretty funny when it comes to interacting with the latinos. One thing we like to do is try to tell American jokes in Spanish. They've never heard "why did the chicken cross the road?" They were so confused when we said that joke. At the end of it they asked "did the chicken... die?" (because it crossed the road) Also, we sometimes do weird stuff to make them think that's what we do in America. Like when we had hard boiled eggs for breakfast: One guy cracked his egg on the side of his head and said "Se hace en America!" (that's what we do in America) So now whenever we have hard boiled eggs we'll do that. Also, some guys drank carbonated water from the soda machine when it wasn't working and convinced them it was an American thing. I'm not going to be looking forward to having to keep up that facade myself haha. As for what we do here, we do aloooot of studying. We get up at 6:30, exercise, eat breakfast, and go to class at 9:00. Then we eat lunch at 12:00, and then have personal study from 1:00 to 5:00. Then, we basically just study from 6:00 to 9:00. I work really hard and I know that's why I'm learning the language fast. This isn't going to be worth my time if I don't work as hard as I can. At this point, I can, and have, listened to an entire devotional and understand 90% of it or more if they don't speak to fast. I'm running out of time. I love you all so much! Sorry I can't answer your individual emails! I might be able to better after the MTC. Can you please get me Mark, daniel, and Kyle's mission addresses, and maybe send their parents mine? I don't know if you can but if you can try thanks! Love you all! Miss you alot! You're in my prayers! Love, Elder Pollock