Elder Justyn Pollock

Dear Friends, It is my last week in the CCM (Missionary Training Center)! Sorry I haven't written emails for everybody every week! We didn't get a whole lot of time to email. I get extra time this week though. My mission started out with a very long flight to New York and then to Colombia; over 5000 miles total. I didn't meet up with any missionaries on the way. When I found the MTC drivers at the airport I was cautious to make sure they were really from the MTC and not a Colombian gang haha. They didn't speak much English at all so that took a little bit. I was worried that barely anybody at the MTC was going to speak English, but to my relief I found when I arrived that all my roomates were North Americans. My first week was spent mostly on learning Spanish and teaching fake investigators. I thought my spanish was pretty good, but almost 2 weeks now with a latino companion (you get a latino companion at the end of your MTC stay), I realized I've got awhile to go before I can understand full speed spanish. The teachers spoke slow for us when we were an all North American District. I am doing well with the language though. I've been studying hard. My 3rd day here the MTC cooks brought out granadillas (or maracullas depending on what country you're in I guess). We call them brain fruit. You just have too look them up to understand why. They are delicious. The food here is pretty good really. It's usually rice, soup, meat, potatoes, and fruit/vegetable, or some combination of that. I'm not too picky and I usually love it. There is a street merchant on a bike that comes around here multiple times day yelling "MASAMORAAAA!" Masamora is some kind of corn soup. We thought it was hilarious in our north american district because he's just on a bicycle with a big thing of soup on the back. We want to try some. We have fun showing American culture here sometimes. It was pretty hilarious telling the "why did the chicken cross the road?" joke. They didn't think it was funny (because it's not, really). They thought the chicken died. Pretty hilarious to us. We also taught some "American" culture. As in not really American. For example we had hard boiled eggs one day, and all the North Americans cracked them on their heads to convince them that's how we do it in America. We get to go to the Temple every week. The traffic here is insane! And the city is HUGE! I've heard between 12 and 15 million. Someone said there are more people in the city than are in the state of Utah. There are seriously multiple people selling merchandise and candy in the middle of the road to people stuck in traffic. We also get to do service every week which I enjoy. Usually cleaning up the streets, the CCM, etc. We have physical activity in the morning 6 days a week. We usually play basketball, run, play ping pong, volleyball, etc. As for the classroom we study preach my gospel alot. We do alot of practice missionary discussions as well. Our day is from 6:30 to 10:30, with most of that spent doing some kind of study or class. This next week I go to Ecuador for my mission! I can't wait to get there! I know the Gospel is true. I know the savior loves us. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I love this gospel. Elder Pollock