Thursday, July 26, 2012

July 17th 2012

     This week was a little more difficult than the first. The first week i was so ready and excited and then going through each day and studying for 10-15 hours a day is so draining. i have never slept so good in my life. i am loving it so much though and each day gets a little easier as we are learning new ways to go about studying and all the other stuff that we do like teaching two investigators!! yes we got another investigator. we first had luis. he is slowly progressing i feel like. my companion is so shy that i feel like i am talking the entire forty minutes that we are teaching when we go in and meet with him. the guy that plays luis is now one of our instructers. he is so awesome he reminds me so much of d fresh!! he makes class and study flow so much better. 
     then our other investigator is played by our first instructer sister arroyo. she is this outgoing kinda crazy little peruvian girl that talks so fast! then when she goes and plays maria, the new investigator she plays this extremely shy and giggly girl. it is so weird and i know that i have to take it seriously so that i can learn from it. but i got back to the room after teaching her and she walked in and was sister arroyo again and going a mile a minute and i just laughed and said, "you look just like maria but your the complete opposite of her." it is so much fun though being able to go through this experience. 
     the tuesday devotional this past week was very good and was taught by brother steuer from the quorum of the seventy. he talked a lot about teaching with scripture and it was kinda boring but it was good! i only dozed like eight times. then our sunday devotional was by jenny oaks baker. yes jenny oaks baker that is a grammy nominated violinist for her disney soundtrack, and the daughter of Elder Dallin H Oaks. she would share an experience and then she would play a beautiful song for us. i think when i get home me and jack will invest in a violin. she then had all of her four children come up and each play their instrument to i am a child of god. it was the cutest thing ever. she had three girls that were amazing and her little boy played the guitar and halfway through he started picking his nose right when the camera was on him. the devotionals are set up just like the general conference so its a pretty cool feeling to be right there and see that. its amazing when every one in the room starts singing and i feel like i am in the mormon tabernacel choir.
      i feel like i had a star studded week because on saturday we had a substitute teacher by the name of sister Eyring. her grandpa is famous for something but i cant remember know that i think of it. she was so humble and sweet it was a very cool experience. she walked in and my district was amazed. everyone just kept bugging her about her granpa. i asked her what christmas and thanksgiving was like and she said, just like yours. i said ok but i didnt believe it, she was totally lying. she seemed to get irritated after about thirty minutes of those kind of questions. which i dont get!
      i am so thankful for the experiences that i am having by being here in the mtc. it is truly a blessing hopefully not only for me. i am thankful for all of the letters and packages which i have recieved from kort. me and my roommates loved the doughnuts and dr pepper. i am still working on the cheeze-itz. please send around this email and every one feel free to write me on dearelder.com with your adress so i can write back. i have only thirty minutes to email a week so all other messages will be handwritten from me. if you write me on dearelder.com the mtc prints it out that day and they give it to me and then i can write you back the same day. there is nothing better than getting letters from home from all the people that love me, which is like five people right now, ;) jk i know that you all love me and pray for me and i can feel it. i love you all so very much and miss you with each passing day. i look forward to going out in the feild and sharing this profound message of happiness.
> WWWWWHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'M A MISSIONARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>  
> love,
> Elder Cortland L Watson


July 13, 2012- First Letter Home

Where am I going...

Veracruz, Mexico Temple

     

The MTC is wonderful. The first day of our adventure here was quite eventful. I had to go through all kinds of lines and places in order to get my tags, my white handbook, all of the textbook and spanish books that i will be using throughout my stay. That day we had a new missionary orientation which was very nice and needed to ease my nerves a little bit. Then we went right to class and studied for three hours, had dinner (the food here is really good), then had three more hours of study. We then met with our Branch President whose name is President Bradley. he is fluent in five languages so it was really intimidating lol. 
      My companions name for these nine weeks of the MTC is Elder Robertson. He is a little different than i am but we seem to be good at getting along, studying and teaching our investigator. Yes. We are already teaching investigators. IN SPANISH!!!! I am able to have basic level communication with our investigator and get accross our points but my companion is so knowledgeable in the gospel but gets really nervous when we are teaching. I guess that is something that will come with time for all of us. Our second day of our stay our teacher said that we were teaching our investigator that night! It was a surprise and everybody was extremely scared. One elder was so scared that he literally pooped his pants!!! lol He shared that with us today because eh said he was now comfortable dnough with everybody. Yes i do miss everybody and i am so greatful for the care and concern of every body. If anybody would like to right me have them email me on http://DEARELDER.COM. I dont know how it works but the MTC gets the email, prints it, then brings it to me. TELL THEM TO INCLUDE THEIR ADDRESS SO I CAN HAND WRITE THEM BACK!!!! 
      I only get to email family and once a week so i will be only writing hand written letters to everybody during the week. I was sitting at dinner one day and somebody hit my shoulder and i looked and beheld a large man in stature standing before me. His name was Elder Riffenburg!!! It was awesome to see him! he says that he is fluent and just loved everything about his stay. I ran into him a few times after that and gave him some goodbye hugs last night as he went into the field this morning. He is going to do an amazing jod! Sunday was the most amazing thing i have felt in my life. The spirit was so strong in all of my meetings that i cried in every  single one, and there was five. It was an amazing experience and one that was greatfully welcomed. The executive director of the MTC gave the devotional and i got a seat right in the middle of the floor seats and it felt as if he was speaking directly to me. It was the most spiritual thing i have ever felt in my life. Yo se que La Iglesia De JesuCristo De Los Santos De Los Ultimos Dias es verdadera. Yo se que JesuCristo es el salvador del mundo y es el hijo de Dios. Yo se que fui llamaba de Dios a sirvir en Veracruz Mexico. Love all of you and i miss you dearly.
Love,
Elder Watson
Veracruz Cousins