A message from some people from home!

Brother and Sister Steele,

We're also in the Oregon City stake and are serving at the CCM in Mexico City. Sister Steele is awesome! Her Spanish is impressive as is her lovely voice.  Best of all she is positive and radiates the joy of the gospel.  We'll try to send another photo.
Love, Elder y Hermana Gill

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This made me (mom) very happy!! :)

4º Semana: CCM de México

We escaped the CCM…

...and went to the temple!!

A sweet picture I took of the temple It’s closed for a year and a half though so we couldn’t go inside. But the Visitors’ Center was the most legit thing ever. It was so cool. And the Mexico City temple was so beautiful from the outside so it’s all fine.

I LOVE MY DISTRICT SO MUCH

The other picture is my wonderful district. I love all of them so much.  I get to be with these incredible people almost every waking hour of the day so its a dang good thing I like them!

The next picture is of my zone, one district left yesterday, so we will get a new one tomorrow and then next week another will leave and then the week after that WE LEAVE! WOO! Anyway it was so great to get out of the CCM today.

My zone!!!!!!

I got some really cool scripture cases. I also met an Elder who is serving in Mexico City South and he is from Honduras. He was so little!!! He was so excited that I am going to his home.  He was like "AHH YOU COULD SERVE IN MY WARD!!" but in Spanish of course. It was cute. Also fun fact, Blockbuster is here in Mexico and apparently business is boomin. On the way home from the temple, we stopped the bus to buy bananas.  Like 8 bananas for 10 pesos. DIEZ PESOS!!! They were so GOOD. best bananas ever.  People are selling stuff in the streets all over the place.

My new scripture cases I got at a little store called Zarahemla by the temple, hahahahahah LOVE IT

Something that was very humbling was seeing a woman sweeping the streets with a broom made of sticks.

I forgot to tell you last week that I gave a talk in sacrament meeting.  I got complimented a lot on my Spanish.  It was on the Atonement, all in Espanol!! sorry, the keyboard wont let me do special characters in gmail so I cant spell that right.  I also forgot to tell you all that a few weeks ago I told a Latino elder that I was going to Honduras and literally he laughed and said "oh really?!?!" but he didn’t speak enough english to let me know why haha. We actually became friends a little bit, he went to his mission somewhere else in Mexico yesterday.  I LOVE LATINOS

So there’s explosions that go off all the time (yeah we hear a few gunshots too), and every time we hear one we pretend its the cannon from the Hunger Games and we say "oh, another missionary sent home..." it’s pretty funny.

So the other day "Come Thou Fount" was stuck in my head and I was singing it in the hall of our classroom building.  Later when we were walking home for the night I was still singing it when we met up with two of our hermana friends (Hermana Terranova and Hermana Richins) and they were like WHAT, THAT WAS YOU?? and called to their Elders to tell them I was the one they heard.  I guess one of the elders left his classroom to search for me when he heard me singing.  So now I sing for their district every time I go in to say hi to my friends because all the Elders yell at me until I sing that Hobbit song for them. lol.

Speaking of singing, I taught some of the elders in my district last night how to sing Come Thou Fount. It was really fun. We were singing for like an hour. And then I found out Elder Turnbull can sing really well but he’s never sung before.  So he taught me the song Savior, Redeemer of My Soul and we sang that for awhile too.  After long days sometimes the Elders make me sing for them.  Its really funny but you know I enjoy it, lol.

OH BEFORE I FORGET apparently someone jumped the fence into the CCM two nights ago hahahahahahahaha. idk how thats possible. Or why someone would want to break IN here.

Tonight I have a solo for all the MTC. Literally! My zone and another zone are singing Joseph Smith’s First Prayer, and Hermana Jewell (the choir director) knows I sing so she is having me sing the 4th verse by myself until the chorus and then after the chorus I end the song by repeating the last line I think a capella.  Anyway that’s tonight! Pray that I won’t yell too loudly in volleyball this afternoon, haha.

Little bit about daily life: I study, eat, have class, teach a fake investigator, eat, study, teach a fake investigator, have class, eat, go learn Spanish on the computer, study, plan, go home and write in my journal, sleep. With lots of prayers like in between all of those. We pray a lot. Tuesdays we have devotionals in the evening; Sundays we go to church and a couple devotionals by important people here and we also watch a church movie every Sunday night, and after the movie there is a slideshow with the pictures of the districts that are leaving and everyone sings "God Be With You Til We Meet Again" SO HEART WRENCHING. I’m gonna bawl when I leave.

Well I gotta go. HASTA MARTES

con amor, hermana steele

     

classroom selfies                                                                                                   me and E. Brinkerhoff, lol

Andnnndnndnd THIS CITY IS HUGE

More pictures:

On the bus to Mexico City Temple

Mom put this in the blog, it’s so interesting. The pole you see? Mexico City is sinking.  That is how much the city has sunk in 31 years. The top of that pole used to be at ground level. The city is sinking around it. The temple is fine because the foundation is supported all the way to bedrock.

Elder Brinkerhoff and Elder Flores are like some of my greatest friends here.

My Sister Trainer Leaders who left yesterday, both going to Oklahoma for their missions.

Me and my cute friend Hermana Mikael Thatcher from Utah and our zone leader Elder Ririe (who left today) photobombing us baha

3º Semana: CCM de México

I drew a picture of our district jajajaja (it is Elder Flores´s birthday today and I put it in his card so I thought I would take a picture to preserve it heh heh)

This is  Hermana Cole and I with this weird statue head thing here

Me before our weekly volleyball game

I went on a killing spree...

...killing mosquitoes in our house

For 3 nights, my roommates and I were devoured. I have no idea how many bites I have but its a lot. The mosquitoes would fly by our ears and Sunday night I was up most of the night trying to hide from them. So when I got home yesterday I went crazy and killed them dead. And we slept so good last night.

I hate mosquitoes.

I’m itchy.

Okay that made it sound like there were a swarm in our room.  

There were really only two.  

But it was awful anyways.

Hermana Steel and I

There is another Sister Steel (no e at the end) here at the CCM! She is awesome! We like to talk about how awesome our last name is. Its pretty great. We took a picture this morning.

Oh, right, the housing thing. We got into a tiny room in that little casa.  Our shower and sink were broken so we had to get them fixed so we didn’t have a shower for 2 days (don’t worry we used some friends’ showers). It was also really dirty in there so we had to clean.  But I like our tiny room because were all so close anyway.

Last Wednesday (every Wednesday we have a service project, basically some chores haha) we folded a bunch of sheets.  I folded fitted sheets almost the whole time with the other Hermanas in my zone (the Elders folded the easy stuff jaja).  It was funny because the little Hispanic man who was the supervisor told me (in Spanish of course so it took awhile for me to get what he was saying) that I was really talented at folding the sheets haha "¡¡muy rapido rapido!!" he said.  It was really silly.  Also they had Disney songs blasting in Spanish the whole time so that was super fun to sing along to.

My district tells me I sing like Sleeping Beauty and Anastasia.

Elder Brinkerhoff one morning last week walked into the classroom and pointed at me and sang real loudly "SINCE YOU BEEN GOOONE" so I pointed back and replied with "I CAN BREATHE FOR THE FIRST TIME!" and now we do that all the time to each other.

Just a fun one...yep

I go play foosball after dinner with Elder Backus and sometimes Hermana Cole and Elder Dessauer and Elder Flores play too.  It’s so intense and fun.  We play with 3 balls to keep it interesting. The other day a worker dude came out and asked if everything was okay. hahahahahahaha I was so excited that I won that I accidentally on purpose high fived the wall really hard.  I think the guy was scared.

Yesterday we got to teach an inactive member of our church (Samantha, 17) and a young man who was just baptized Sunday (Diego, 18).  It was so hard to understand what they were saying.  But I really felt the spirit there.  They, and another girl who I didn’t teach, were taught by 3 sets of missionaries from our district.  They said that all three of them now want to serve missions.  BOOM. MISSIONARY WORK. It was so awesome.  I loved talking so Sam and Diego.  Their hearts are so special.  

Heavenly Father is constantly blessing me with patience.  Okay so I want everyone to read this talk if they have time.  https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/ces-devotionals/2013/01/i-will-give-myself-to-him?lang=eng

Now I actually haven’t read it since I saw it in November.  All I remember is that it was amazing.  I was thinking about it today and I don’t remember anything the guy said, but I remember that it was a very special devotional to me and I am going to read it again after I send this email.  I hope someone will benefit from it.

Mom said to write more about my daily life but I don’t have time so see you next week!

Notes from mom in blue… She did answer some of my questions.  Reluctantly, of course!

Who is the MTC president? mtc pres is Presidente Pratt

Is there a choir? yes choir and im auditioning for it on friday.

Do you get to go to the Mexico City Temple? yes temple in our 5th week but it is closed for 18 MONTHS (wat) so we cant go in. but we are going to the visitors center.

Me and my first two letters at the MTC! One from mom and one from Chase

KEEP ME UPDATED ON YOUR LIVES PLEASE! Have a good week!

Love always,

Hermana Steele

1º Semana: CCM de México

miércoles, 19 de febrero/ Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Okay the keyboard is kinda weird.  My flights went well! I didn’t sleep well and I can’t figure out the apostrophe thing.  There was an Elder on the flight from Portland to Phoenix and then we met up with 8 other missionaries in Phoenix.  Mexico City is amazing.  Well really really polluted but flying in here was INCREDIBLE.  I can’t believe how big this city is.  All the buildings are so colorful and stuff. Crap I just realized I don’t have my camera cords.  I actually don’t know where they are because I never use them and I always just stick my memory card in the computer. So this is a problem. oops. Anyway I’m here and the other missionaries are fun and my companion’s name is Sister Jill Cole although I have no idea where she is and I haven’t met her yet.  This keyboard feels small. Okay what they don’t tell you about being a missionary is that it feels the same as being a regular person except you can’t do certain things. My Pday is on Tuesday. Bye!
 

*************************

martes, 25 de febrero/ Tuesday, February 25

Hola!!!! Well I’m sure you want to know how daily life is here. Well, the weather is perfect and the Mexican food is great. I love it. Some sisters don’t, but I DOOOO. Yum, yum, yum. Lunch is my favorite meal because traditionally in Mexico it is the biggest meal. It’s so good. Always. Oh I tried a guava fruit the other day. It had lots of tiny seeds; not as good as the juice. BUT ALL THE FRUIT IS SO MUCH BETTER HERE. Seriously idk what it is but it is all perfect and so much sweeter. The apples, cantelope, honeydew, watermelon, raspberries, strawberries, you name it it tastes better in Mexico. But I guess no one cares about that huh, jajajaja (the Spanish way of saying haha is jaja, and it is my favorite thing in the world right now)

Here's my awkward selfie

A picture with my companion (orange shirt) and two of the Hermanas we live with

*************************

This is going to be one scattered letter so "lo siento" in advance!

Mi distrito/MY DISTRICT

My district has 10 missionaries, 2 hermanas and 8 elderes, which is really weird I’ve heard, because all the other districts have 4 or 6 hermanas. But i enjoy it. My companion’s name is Hermana Jill Cole from Saint George, Utah.  She is really nice and works hard. Her Spanish has been improving, especially her pronunciation as I’ve been helping her with it. MOM THANKS FOR SPEAKING SPANISH BECAUSE MY TEACHER TOLD ME I SOUND LIKE A MEXICAN. IT WAS AWESOME.

Oh, my teacher is so like happy and adorable. His name is Hermano Vargas and he is 22 from Mexico City. It was funny, the first couple days he told us he could only speak Spanish, and so class was really hard, and then we saw one of his teacher friends and asked him if Hermano Vargas spoke English and he’s like, "oh yeah, way better then me!!”  so that was a surprise, haha, and so now we tease him and he speaks a little more English to us, but not a lot. So class is still hard. We keep getting confused on the assignments were supposed to do in our books.  Yesterday  our  entire district did the wrong one so we had to do the right one really fast. Learning Spanish is coming along.

Okay, right, about my district. My companera, Hermana Cole, is going to Nicaragua Managua North Mission, same as 4 Elders in my district (Elders Wood and Gustin, Elders Dessaur and Bakus) and 3 Elders are going to El Salvador (Elders Flores y Brinkerhoff, y Elder Okasaki) and one Elder, Elder Turnbull, was put in our district last minute because his comp didn’t show up and his mission is back in the states in Georgia, jaja. He sounds like Elder Vanpelt from the ‘Best Two Years’ movie, no joke.  

So, I  had lost my voice the first few days I was here, but when I got it back, I started singing all the time like I always do, and now the Elders sometimes make me sing songs for them or make me sing during study time. Haha they say I have the voice of an angel. Yay! None of them can sing as far as I  can tell, jaja. They are all great, as is Hermana Cole. We have fun. There is one companionship of Elders that talks to much but they’re getting better at it.

HA guess what district I’m in. DISTRICT 12. yep. #hungergames

So our second day here we began teaching an investigator IN SPANISH. IN. SPANISH. SPANISH. NOT ENGLISH. SECOND. DAY. It was stressful but our first two lessons this week went really, really well. Yesterday, not so much, but it was still alright.  I just have this urgency to learn Spanish AHORA nowwwwwww now. We watched a devotional on Sunday about having Christlike attributes and I’m working on that. It also talked about focusing outward and not inward. I realized I was trying to learn Spanish for myself and not to say what God wants me to say to His people in Honduras.  So I changed my focus and it has been better. Except for part of the day yesterday I was really distracted and stuff but by the end of the day I was fine. So many spelling mistakes. Sorry. And sorry I don’t capitalize anything but I’m trying to type fast to say all I wanna say!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please send letters to the mission home in Honduras and not to the Mexico CCM. If you want me to send you my emails directly then email me your address at elizabeth.steele@myldsmail.net.

Mi casa (purple roof woo! all the houses are painted fun colors)

We can only take pictures on P-day and I’m  putting my memory card in Hermana Cole’s camera so I can send you pictures.

Well, we wake up and get ready and we are in our classroom by 7 to study. Then breakfast, then gym, then classes until 12:30 when we eat lunch, then more studying... then dinner, then more studying, and finally planning. thats basically my whole day.  woo

I’m doing great, btw. The weather is so perfect here right now and I can’t believe how big and beautiful this city is. La Ciudad de México. Love it.

Mexico City looking outside the CCM (MTC in Spanish is CCM)

I love my district and my branch and this place. Can’t wait to go to Honduras.

Until next week,

Love,  Hermana Steele