April 1st, 2015 -- Week 2 at the CCM (This is almost a week late due to Mom's busy schedule!)

CCM sign as you first come in

This week hasn´t been so crazy since I´ve gotten pretty used to the schedule and campus. Wake up, get ready, breakfast, class, lunch, personal study, gym, dinner, class, bed, repeat. The only thing that seems like it´s changing is the lessons and my Spanish, even the food is similar. I usually get some kind of meat or enchilada (yes they serve those for breakfast oddly enough too) cover it with rice, beans and salsa and get two cups of fizzy orange drink. On the topic of my Spanish, it´s coming along well. I might even be able to translate most this email. My conversations with the nativos here have been increasingly diverse, my teacher and I talked about how missionaries were different than full time missionaries for about ten minutes, all in Spanish! To reward me, he let me know who won the Barcelona v Real Madrid game (go Barca!). I love speaking Spanish when it´s more laid back like that and they are nice enough to teach me as we go along. My lessons are struggling along too. One of the things that is hard for me is to both plan well and apply the lesson to the person we are teaching. It´s easier to go in and just have a topic so that I can listen to what they are saying and be more flexible that way, but we can teach more with a plan. I´ve done both a couple of times a least, but have gotten mixed feedback from my maestros (teachers or masters). One said that my companion and I needed to change the way we go into lessons by planning better and the other said just yesterday that we needed to teach the person. Somehow, we´ll find a middle ground. Before the feedback yesterday, we taught a practice investigator who was our teacher (which makes it a little less real to me but I still take it just as seriously). She had problems with her eyes and we went in to teach her about trials and the atonement. By the end she was almost crying, which made it even more odd that she later told us to teach more personally. She is actually playing her sister who is currently inactive and said she does so in hopes that she will receive revelation to bring her back. That just made it 100% real again and I couldn´t stop thinking about how to change for the rest of the day. She also gave us 3 Nephi 17:21 to read (challenge given). So that´s really all from this week, I just keep getting more and more excited for Monterrey! I only have a week and a half left here! Very excited to leave for Monterrey and learn more there. My companion is great, I have sufficient for my needs and then some.

I´m soooo excited for general conference this weekend! Not so much because we have an easier schedule and don´t have to prepare talks, but mostly because I´m excited to hear the talks and take really good notes, I feel like there is so much more I can get out of it now. Can´t wait to hear all of your favorites!

Thanks for reading, love you all!

-Elder Allgaier

Elder Allgaier in front of the "B" (a reminder of the CCM's history as the Benemerito de las Americas school)...
NOT for bienvenidos, bautismo or baño like he thought. : )

Another shot of the "B" from the CCM

My companion and me at volleyball

the keyboards here at the mtc, notice the ñ and the pinky keys. tough transition, also no @ sign