How are all of you!!? I hope things are going amazing back at home. So I have some good news, but I'm gonna need your help with a drumroll...... I'M TRANSFERRING TO A LATINO DISTRICT!!!!! AHHH I'm so excited haha. It's technically not official until tomorrow because the supervisor still needs some responses from some people but he's pretty sure I'll be transferring! Which means either Monday or Tuesday I'll have a new companion, district, house, and experience at the CCM!
The process of changing districts has been quite the ride. I had to talk to so many people (most of which didn´t follow through with what they said they were going to do), and I had to take another grammar assessment with 50 questions, and I had to spend a full day with Latinos! The day that I spent with the Latinos was on July 4th! Haha it was weird to not be with any other gringos throughout the day. But holy moly that was my favorite 4th of july ever!! The district was so receptive and welcoming, and I felt the spirit so strong. My companions for the day were Elder Fernandez and Elder Chavez. I got to know Elder Fernandez really well because we spent more time together during gym time and stuff. He is from Bolivia, his dad went to Harvard to study engineering and learn English, and he reminded of the Bolivian version of Hunter Chiniquy from his looks haha. And get this, he was the Student Body President of his high school in Bolivia!! Haha we just clicked so fast, and had some really good conversations! I got pretty creative at times with how to communicate with him because he barely new any english haha. We had a lot of really cool experiences throughout the day. Our lesson with their fake investigator went really well. We also had two lessons where volunteers come from Mexico City to be given a lesson. Our two lessons were with members, and they both had some really serious family problems that they were going through. It was such an amazing experience to hear their testimonies, along with my companions' testimonies in spanish. I could feel the spirit so strong as we tried to help them with what they were going through. It gave me a cool little glimpse of the mission field and I just got so excited! Some other key parts of that day were how all of the Elders called one of the Elders "celoso" all day because he was jealous that Elder Fernandez and Chavez got the American companion and not him haha. Pretty early on in the day, my companions found out I was zone leader and found out some of the things I did before I came on the mission and then they started calling me "jefe" which means boss hahahaha. The entire district starting saluting me and calling me their "jefe" all day and it was just so funny haha. Towards the end of the day. We were all talking to each other and Pres Bennett passed by us and asked the Latino elders "Do you know who Elder Millard is?" and some of them said I was their jefe haha but then President Bennett said "he is Superman" and he went on about some things that I've done haha. But then the rest of the day I was called a mixture of jefe and Superman haha. One of my favorite parts of the day though was at the end, one of the Latino Elders asked me about my favorite musical artists at home and then he told me some of the rappers and stuff he knew and then we low key just started jamming out to "humble" and post malone and "wiz khalifa" and all the classics hahahaha. It was so funny to hear him go from knowing zero english, to jamming out to these rap songs word for word in his classic Mexican accent hahaha. It was so hard to say goodbye to them at the end of the day, but I see them all the time and It's so fun to be so close to them. Let's just say im stoked to be in a Latin district permanently. The teachers from that district gave me really good comments, and that's what gave me the opportunity to switch districts, along with the score I got on the assessment. I'll miss my district but I know this is going to be the best thing for my growth.
I'm getting to know so many people, and it's starting to feel more and more like high school haha because I see so many familiar faces every day! The spanish is getting better and better, our afternoon teacher Hermana Meza said this the other day: "If any of you ever need help with your spanish, don't hesitate to look through your books, ask me or any other teachers, or ask Elder Millard" hahahaha. I don't know if she knows but I'm not gonna help anyone unless I start getting paid like she does... hahaha jk. Another cool experience from this week was that I got to conduct and prepare the sacrament meeting for the employees in the cafeteria! It was nice and short and sweet but so cool.
I swear I hear about 25 explosions every day. I have no idea what they are but I had assumed they were related to the world cup until my fake investigator Alejandro informed me in a lesson that Mexico had lost and the explosions kept on going haha. I also hear music from outside the CCM walls all the time, one time the song was happy by pharrell williams and I just about wanted to throw up haha. I thought I would never hear that song again haha. Also every night at 10:45 I hear this loud automated voice go throughout the city outside the CCM walls and my goal is to try and understand what it says haha.
A couple more things about fourth of july: Every single American missionary was wearing all the red white and blue that they had and it was just so awesome haha. The cafeteria did a BBQ for us and it was sooooo good. I didn't really have any time to think about home but you can bet that at some moments I thought about One Republic performing at stadium of fire and I might have gotten just a little bit salty haha. There have been so many times where I've wanted to burst into song with my fav music from back home. It doesn't help that one of my last memories from home was blasting the song "mine" with shawn. hahah good times. For reals though I haven't had any problems thus far with homesickness. I legit have had no time to worry about any of that. Just the spanish and the gospel. And it's awesome.
I love this place so much, and things are going so good. My companion is a good worker despite the terrible cough he's had since he's got here. Literally the entire CCM knows him and the coughing missionary haha and it has been kind of distracting during lessons and stuff but he is finally starting to get better after our several visits to the infermeria haha.
Tuesday night I had the amazing opportunity to play piano again for the devotional! This time there were a lot more missionaries haha. I played prelude, opening and closing hymns, postlude, and the choir number! I was given the music to "Battle Hymn of the Republic" on friday to practice for the choir number. It was a little difficult but I learned it and it was so fun to play. The performance was so powerful on tuesday, and I will also remember looking up while playing, and seeing hundreds of missionaries singing as an army and feeling the spirit so strong. I'm so grateful I was able to play a part in that amazing experience.
Today a lot of us got to go to downtown Mexico City to get our visa extended. HOLY CRAP that city is so incredible. So many amazing statues and buildings! I definitely need to go back to visit after the mish. I was so intrigued by the traffic though. In some roundabouts there were four cars facing eachother like two inches away from each other, there was no direction and it was just a mess, especially in a bus. But I guess they just always find a way to figure it out haha. I'm glad we have lanes in the US haha.
I want to testify of the truthfulness of this gospel. I have been enlightened again and again by the holy spirit and the book of mormon. We are so blessed to have such revelation and inspiration in our lives. I challenge you all to dig a little deeper into the scriptures because they really are life-changing. I love you all so much, and I pray for you all every day! Hasta la proxima semana!
Elder Millard
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