Dang what a week!

So we got into Queretaro last week and met our mission President and his wife this week and they're super cool! Then we got our area and companions. I'm in the Hidalgo area with elder Tovar!

He has been out for 18 months and he's super cool!

He doesn't speak English so I get to practice my Spanish a ton.

Every day has been great this week. So every morning is pretty much the same. We get up and exercise for 30 minutes and then shower and get ready. Then we have an hour of personal study, an hour of comp study, then an hour of language study, and then we hit the streets for the rest of the day. We walk a ton! We walk a good 8-10 miles every day and only take the bus if we go to church or the far side of our area. And even then we usually walk back from there. A lot of the people here are really poor and I've  never realized how blessed we are in the states with everything we have. But they're really humble and are pretty open to our message. This first week I've already been able to give away about 10 Libros de Mormon! Everyone has been super nice and the members feed us everyday. There's only been one drunk guy who's been somewhat aggressive. He yelled at me and elder Tovar day 1 and loves to get close and poke us in the chest. We just laugh and walk away. Lol.

So today we went to Costco to get groceries and it was so weird. It totally felt like home there and it was messing with my mind. It felt like we were back in the states for a little bit. It didn't help either that in the parking lot there was a white couple from Glendale and they had an AZ license plate. Totally thought I was home for a good 2 seconds. 

Thanks everyone for the prayers. I´ll try to send more next week but this week we had a ton of extra stuff to do for our first P-day. I love you all!

-Elder Fillmore

"E" Has Left the MTC (CCM)

 This morning we left the CCM and drove on a bus to the airport. Then we got off and got onto another bus (the nicest bus I´ve been on) and made our way to Querétaro. The bus was way comfy and it was nice to get some sleep because we had to get up at 3:45. We got to Qerétaro around 10 and were picked up by President Williamson and his wife and the AP´s. They´re all super great. Then we drove to the mission president´s house and holy dang it is in a super nice part of town. Doesn´t even look like Mexico but rather California esque. We had lunch with them and got to hang out and meet them and take pictures. Sister Williamson is apparently related to Rays in Mesa. Then we drove to the offices and found out our area and companions. Me and elder Carr are serving here in Querétaro with the AP´s. My companion is Elder Tovar. He´s from Mexico and has been out for 20 months and Elder Carr is serving with Elder Burbidge from Utah. We´ll all be in a hiouse here in the city and I´m so stoked!!! Mom you´ll be glad to hear this is the cleanest city in Mexico and one of the safest. I can not wait to actually start helping the people and I´ll get to start tonight. We have our first appointment tonight!!! I can´t wait!! I love you guys so much and I´ll send a lot more next week and lots of pictures. This week is just mainly to say we´re here safe and sound. Feel free to send this out to anyone! I love you guys so much!<3

-Elder Fillmore

Final Week in the CCM!!!

This will be my last email coming from the CCM! Next time you hear from me I will be in Queretaro! It´s been a great 6 weeks here and I have learned so much but I am so excited to get out of here and actually help people! 

Nothing really happened this week since Friday but I´ll try to give a good recap.

Saturday we had a service project and we cleaned the gymnasium because there is supposed to be a big celebration kind of thing in there so we had to clean everything and now no one is allowed to go in and play basketball. That is suppose to take place tomorrow I think so hopefully that will be pretty cool. Except that night there is allegedly going to be fireworks all night long so I´m not too stoked for that because we probably won´t get any sleep.

Sunday was great. One of the districts in our zone sang in church and it was amazing. They sang "Gethsemane" I think is was it was and it was super good. We have to sing this week on Sunday so we have to practice this week. Then that night we got to listen to M. Russel Ballard for our evening devotional and it was great. He talked about remembering who we are representing and how we should act and it was a real gut check for a lot of people and I think since then people have been nicer and more Christ-like. Then we took pictures with district 13 C because they were leaving the next day. Those guys were great and I´m going to miss them but I know they´ll do great.

Monday was pretty uneventful, mostly just the same old classes and nothing exciting happened.

Yesterday was pretty good. for our gym time we played some soccer and it was pretty fun. I was playing really well until Elder Bettilyon kicked and missed and nailed me in the shin. It hurt but i tried to walk it off. Then like 3 minutes later Elder Seaman did the same thing! I could barely walk for the next 10 minutes and I just stood in goal because walking hurt too much. Super fun though despite getting shin blasted twice. Then that night we got to listen to another apostle! Quinton L. Cook spoke last night and it was awesome! He talked about loving the people and if we do we will have so much more success and we´ll enjoy it so much more. 

Overall it was a great week. I´m excited to be leaving soon though and actually start serving in the field. We should get our travel plans today so I´m so stoked for that. Thank you everyone for your prayers! I´ll talk to you all next week... from Queretaro! 

Zone Pic

part of the squad from back home

People in AZ stay on the lookout for my boy Elder Folkman

serving in the Tempe mission! Super great guy.

1 Down. 23 to Go.

Hola everybody!!! So my first month is done and it has been awesome. In these past four weeks I have learned so much. I´ve learned more spanish here than I did while taking it for two years in high school. I´m learning so much more about the Gospel here too and it´s just incredible how much information we´re learning and how much our testimonies are strengthening!

This week was great. Fast sunday was awesome here and we got to watch a lot of cool videos and here some great talks. And on Tuesday, we got to listen to Elder D. Todd Christofferson! It was so cool to listen to him and his wife speak. Next week we get to listen to another apostle and I can´t wait for that.

So there is 20 people in our house. I´m pretty sure 15 of them are Latinos and it´s awesome! We have so much fun talking and hanging out with them and it´s also great practice for our Spanish. They are super funny and one night, one of them was showing us all his card tricks and stuff and then another one brought out a beats pill and starting playing MOTAB and it was a huge dance party. Then one of the songs ended and Eminem came on and all the Latinos starting getting hype. The guys in my room were all kind of confused at first, especially when Eminem dropped a F bomb. We had to explain to them that we shouldn't be listening to that but it was kind of funny because when he said it they were all smiling from the music because they didn't understand English. 

My district is kind of the best at everything. We keep getting challenged to play people in sports because we talk smack. This week we played a ton of ultimate Frisbee and kickball. No contest. We slaughter everyone and it´s so much fun. The only time we lose anything is when the Latinos play us in soccer, LOL.

Overall it was a great week. Thank you everyone for the prayers, they´re really helping. I love everyone and miss you all!

 

Week 4

I can´t believe I´ve already been gone for almost a month! It feels like just last week I was home hanging out with everyone. At this rate two years will fly by so I definitely need to enjoy it.

Life is still great here in the CCM. The food is starting to get old but for the most part everything else is still great. The nights are great here, the constant sounds of barking dogs and honking horns and the occasional gunshot really just put me right to sleep.

The classes are great here and i feel my Español is really improving. I can understand a lot when people talk to  me, i just have a hard time formulating my own sentences. I´m definitely getting better though.

So this week was interesting. On Monday, Elder Harmon and I had to go to immigration because I lost my FMM form at the airport on day one. I had to go fill out a ton of papers and I was asked a ton of questions. The whole time we were there almost everything was in Spansih so that was great practice. While we were waiting to go inside we witnessed someone get pulled over and arrested. Some guy and stolen a car and the cops got him and found a bunch of cell phones in the car too (probably also stolen) so that was fun. Then today we had to go back, this time with a bunch of people to get fingerprinted to get residency here. I wasn't allowed to though because of the FMM form thing. Now I have to go back next week. Alone. And miss out on another P day. Not too stoked about that but whatever. As we say in our district, "I´m over it".

I miss everyone and Thank you everyone for the prayers! Hopefully next week I´ll have some more fun stories. Until next time,

-Elder Fillmore