Week 1!

Happy New Year!

There are cannons that go off here all the time. They are supposedly fireworks but we never see them. New Years night was crazy!! We could hardly sleep it was so loud.

My district is amazing!! There are 9 of us and 5 of us are going to LA. Our co-district leaders are Elder M. and Elder S.-he is hilarious!!! Then we have some really fun elders in my zone. I am in a tripanionship. My companions are Hermana C. from Carnation, Washington and Hermana L. from Utah. They are the only ones in the CCM (MTC in Spanish)  going to Independence, Missouri. They are very different but we are having a good time. Except day 3. Hermana C. cried all day and we were all really frustrated with each other. But we are all good now.

So our third day here the entire other district in our zone left so we are the only ones left in our zone. Some new missionaries got here yesterday but so far none of them are in our zone.

On our third day we had to teach our new investigator. She is 29, divorced, works at a factory making wet suits, and her sister is on a mission, and all of her family are members. We taught her about the atonement and the spirit was so strong. I just started bearing my testimony and words were just coming out of my mouth so fast and I wasn't even thinking about it. It was so awesome and she started crying. All four of us were crying. Then yesterday we taught her again about Joseph Smith and baptism and she accepted the offer to be baptized. I struggled a little more in that lesson because I was trying to answer her questions about the priesthood but I couldn't really convey what i wanted to say because I didn't know the words in Spanish and she speaks no English. It is really awesome to teach her, She is so sweet and I already love her so much.

We get to play beach volleyball everyday and its super fun. There is an elder here from Ririe. I recognized him the first day and I knew he was a wrestler but we cant figure out where we have met before so we just have this unspoken connection that we cant figure out. He is short and tiny but super funny. He reminds me of the Satyers in Chronciles of Narnia. There is also an elder here and he laughs just like Jacob Meiers. Its kinda creepy how similar it is but it makes me feel at home. So much has happened here already and there isn't enough time to talk about everything.

The food here is pretty good. They have a menu at the door but it doesn't help much. A lot of it looks pretty weird but it tastes good. And the tortillas here are the best! They also have cereal and nutella available for breakfast and lunch. But a quick story....Edgar told me the best fruit is in Mexico so one day at lunch I decided to try some new fruit. The one I had tasted like honeydew and was ok. The other one I got was like a sunset orange color. I brought it up to my mouth and it smelt kinda weird but I took a bite anyways. WORST IDEA EVER!!!!! IT TASTED LIKE VOMIT. Like I had just thrown up. It was absolutely disgusting!! I found out the next day it is Papaya. Yep never again!!

Today we got to go to the temple. It was so big and beautiful. There are escalators that take you up and down floors. Everything was plated in gold and the chandelier in the Celestial room had 13 layers and each layer looked like a 8 pointed star. It was so pretty and there were so many angles and stuff it was really cool. The only weird thing was that you stayed in the same room the whole time.

The bus ride to the temple was crazy!! Grandma was right about the traffic here. You just go. We almost killed a couple motorcyclists. the town is so colorful and lively and there are street vendors everywhere. It was awesome. They are shutting down the temple this Saturday for a year and a half so we just made it. But we get to go back to the visitors center in 2 weeks.

Well I'm almost out of time but things are going great here and the weather is nice. We got sunburns yesterday.

Love you
Hermana Montgomery