Chandler's Mission

Hello everyone!  It's been a great week! We've been learning a lot and practicing our Spanish day in and out. My district has recently implemented punishments for speaking English excessively and it's been awesome. My dear companion has had to do a lot of push ups because of 1. How often he accidentally speaks English and 2. His impeccable integrity. My arms are fairly sore, but I've been working hard to only speak Spanish and it's been great. Last week we got a little surprise from our afternoon teacher. He said our district has been given special permission to leave the CCM grounds and do some real-life contacting on the sidewalks that run by the temple grounds. It was awesome! We've gone out twice now and we're not sure how many more times we'll get to do it again before we leave, but we're so grateful for the opportunity to get some early practice in! The first time we went out, Elder Kirkby and I greeted a couple guys walking down t...

Hey everyone!! This week marks the halfway point of my time in the CCM!! The days are long but the weeks are short. It feels like yesterday we were unpacking all of our bags, but  tomorrow  we get a fresh batch of greenies in our lovely little community. It's weird because the CCM is pretty empty. Half of the missionaries here left early this morning to go out to their respective fields and we get a ton of new guys  tomorrow  but today the whole building is like a ghost town. It was also kinda sad to say goodbye to all the Latinos that were only here for 3 weeks, because we got to be good friends with some of them. I taught a lot of them a few of my favorite phrases (that they probably think are common phrases in the US) so several of them bid me farewell with a 'sicky sicky gnar gnar.' Good times. Today has been an awesome day. We woke up early to go do another session at the Guatemala City Temple, which is always a cool experience. Then afterwards we ...

Things are a lot easier in week 2 of the CCM de Guatemala. Unfortunately, we're not allowed to send pictures from this MTC because either the computers can't handle it or the servers aren't strong enough, but either way if someone would please contact the Mission Office or Church Headquarters on our behalf, it would be much appreciated. Last Wednesday was the 4th of July and I was PUMPED. All the North American elders sang the national anthem right after we woke up, I wore an awesome NY tie and my knee-high american flag socks and kept a mini american flag in my pocket all day. The MTC Pres loved the outfit. Days are mostly meaningless here, as Saturdays are just regular days and Sundays are only different because we have Sacrament meeting. But my district is awesome and we've been having a lot of fun together so it's gr8. Tuesday  was a freaking party.  Monday  night, we were told that a few elders needed to go into the city to the Migration office to d...

Hello everyone!! I've just finished my first week here at the CCM de Guatemala! Its been a lot of fun but also a lot of work and stress. After flying all night to get here, we were put straight to work with checking in, verifying immunizations, unpacking, and then we had an hour to nap before our first classes started. It was crazy and everyone was exhausted but whatever, we have time to sleep when we go home  in two years . The MTC here is really small (just over 100 missionaries total) and we are the biggest group of missionaries ever to enter the MTC at once. My district (The 'intermediate' district) is the smallest here though, just 10 of us who have taken Spanish classes but aren't quite fluent, especially in Gospel vocabulary. Our second day (Thursday) we went to the Guatemala temple and it is so pretty! It provided a much-needed familiar and spiritual experience and really put a lot of the elders here at ease, especially because we did everything in Eng...

Chandler will be serving a 2 year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  This blog has been set up by his mom.  While serving his mission Chandler will write home every week.  This is a place for me to put his letters so friends and family can read them and see pictures of his adventure. He is currently in the Guatemala Missionary Training Center (MTC) for 6 weeks and then will leave for his service in Honduras. As always our prayers are with Elder Jensen as he serves the people of Comayaguela, Honduras for the next 2 years. Let the adventure begin!!