Semana 5, McAllen...Here I Come!

¡Hola Todos!

How is everyone doing?
This week has been so great for me (except for the very beginning which I will talk about below)..
Things are going very well, I´m finally gaining confidence in my Spanish and the last two practice lessons with Elder Stone and I have gone really really well. The spirit was way strong in both of them so I hope I can carry that into McAllen. I am sooo glad to be moving on though. Eleven hours everyday of the same thing in a little white classroom drives me crazy. I have learned to appreciate it though, finally.
I can´t believe that the next email I send out will be from Texas!

So crazy story of the week, for some reason I got a weird migraine where my left eye got way blurry and I got a massive headache. So I asked if I could go get some ibuprofen to stop the pain and my teacher said that was fine. Then, I totally had a run in with what I call "El Pajaro de Satanás" or the bird of satan, haha. These birds are seriously the most ugly, most scary sounding bird I have ever seen and anyways Elder Stone and I were about to make it back into our casa to grab the ibuprofen when out of nowhere we hear this banshee cry from this bird it lands right above me and while I am mid-stride it poops on me and it got on everything! it went from my head, to my shirt and badge, down on to my pants, and finally resting on to my shoe. Then with a cry of triumph, the bird flies off. After promptly freaking out for a bit, I vowed to kill that bird (hasn´t happened yet, but i´m still on the hunt haha). So we run inside while Elder Stone is laughing his head off the whole time (great companion right? haha, just kidding) and I go to throw all my clothes into a washing machine and into the shower. I asked Elder Stone to give me a hand and wash them and the poop wasn't coming out of my white shirt. So he grabbed some bleach. Unfortunately, the bleach must not have gotten washed down the sink well enough before he got to washing my slacks and it splashed on it and ruined it with bleach spots :( I wasn´t mad though because he was just trying to help. I am now down a pair so I will need one shipped to me or need some cash for a new pair in McAllen. I lived to fight another day but seriously nothing was going right for me that day, haha.
   So the next day Elder Stone was flipping a peso that he really likes and it gets caught on a ledge. So being a good companion I offer to boost him so he can grab it. The first attempt at jumping up he knees me hard in the jaw and I bite down hard. After laughing for a while we gave it another attempt and we got it and all is well. Until that is, when I look in the mirror later that night. The impact from the knee ended up chipping one of my front teeth a little so i´ll need to get that fixed when I get back.
  Now after hearing all this you are probably thinking that I am angry at my companion now, haha, No I totally love this guy, both were accidents and we still get along great. I just need to keep bleach away from him and wear a mouth guard ;)  We have been getting good at teaching with each other in the practice progressing investigator studies and I really hope we are companions again sometime in McAllen.
I am so excited for conference! We get to watch all the sessions here so that will be so cool!

 I´ll tell y´all how Texas is next email! I am so stoked!

As always, thanks for all the love and support you have shown me everyone!

Stay classy,

-Elder Sheehy

District picture after our final sacrament meeting with President DeHoyo (he's an amazing piano player)

Hermano Ortiz. He is so funny, and an awesome teacher,

Our cool CCM tshirts

The outside world. I so want to come back after my mission to explore the city.

It will be weird not to see the B on the hill anymore after this week.

I love the palms here.

This one was sent to me (Stacie) from a senior sister missionary with a sweet note talking about seeing "two handsome, enthusiastic Elders doing their service for the week with cheerful attitudes."

I definitely got a kick out of that one! :)

Semana 4

¡Hola familia!

This past week dragged and went super fast at the same time. Super strange, but that´s how it went. Again, sorry for the short letter but every day is the same. It drives me crazy, but I know it will bless and benefit me a ton out in the field.

So this week we had a district leave our zone to go out into the field :( . Elder Stone and I had gotten to be really good friends with the Elders of that district so it was a bitter sweet moment to see them go. Especially Elder Chia (the one from McAllen who always had us laughing at meals and volleyball) and Elder Johnson ( Very funny and the nicest, most humble person I have met out here). They are going on to do amazing things because they are spiritual giants.

So Sunday night we weren´t able to get any sleep because the city of Mexico was having a giant fiesta concert right outside the CCM. Plus Elder Stone and I are like ninety percent sure that we heard an m16 fire off (Sounded like .223 going off in rapid succession so it fit the description). You stay classy Mexico City haha.

One thing that we have been having fun with is what is called "spooning". Don´t worry it´s not what you think,

hahaha. It´s when you take spoons from the cafeteria and sneak them into people´s bags or most commonly into their belt loops without them noticing. It started out small and now it´s like a war going on and you have to constantly watch your back so you don´t get spooned. Elder Johnson who just left was notoriously good at it and got me numerous times. So I came up with a plan before him leaving to sneak in a ton of spoons into his checked bag with a bunch of messages written on them (some funny, some with words of encouragement). We totally pulled it off and got access to his bag without him finding out. His companion said he opened it to redistribute some weight and luckily he didn´t notice any of them. So he won´t be finding them until he opens up his bag in Washington. It was perfect haha. So I can´t wait until I get a funny email from him after he opens up that bag.

Hope everyone is doing well! Love you all so much and I cant believe that after next week i´ll be heading to Texas!

Stay classy y'all,

-Elder Sheehy

(Click on the photos to enlarge)

Our Abbey Road 

Entrance to the MTC

City Streets on our bus ride. This city goes forever.

They are super Catholic here. There are shrines to Virgin Mary along the roads all over like this one. 

One of the few temples with a unique Angel Moroni.

The Christus in the visitor center

Our District

Elder Stone and I (He's too tall. I look like a monkey hanging on him, haha)

Semana 3

 Well happy St. Patrick´s Day Everyone!!! I totally miss having the delicious dinner we would have every year. Thankfully though, they had some way delicious verde-guac salsa today at lunch that kind of eased the pain.
  Unfortunately I don't have too much to talk about. Every day is pretty much ground hog day around here. I haven´t really felt like I've gotten much better with Spanish and it´s been tough, so I keep hoping that gift of tongues will kick in here soon haha. But it's whatever. The time here overall has been going fairly quick though and I can´t believe that i'm entering week 4 here. Today we got to go to the temple which was way cool, unfortunately we couldn't get to close to it as it is undergoing major renovations, but seeing the outside was still really cool. I love how unique it is. I also got a way sweet satchel bag from the store there. I had the opportunity this last week to give a Hermana in my district a blessing as she was really sick. It was probably the most spiritual blessing I've ever been a part of and I can tell she is going to be an amazing missionary based on the messages the spirit guided me to give. It´s really what I needed as I was having a bad day. The holy ghost has been helping me so much though to get through this. Elder Stone and I are still getting along great and having him as a companion throughout this has been a huge blessing.
  Thanks everyone who has written me so far. I really love hearing how everyone is doing. It´s too bad I couldn't respond to Wes before he left, (his great friend who enlisted in the Army on Mar. 16) but please let the Brown´s know how much I appreciated his email and that he´s in my thoughts and prayers. I have no reason to worry about him though as I know he is going to do great.

Until next time,
Stay classy y'all
-Elder Sheehy

(click on the pictures to enlarge)

District selfie

Our Zone

So, there are dogs on roofs everywhere around here. this one is behind our casa 

There was a massive rain/hail storm one night during a devotional, and this is what we found in front of our casa. The water looked extra cool because it was filled with the purple blossoms from the trees. 

Weird tube things outside the grounds. Some sort of sculpture?

On our way to the temple. Elder Stone didn't cooperate.

Mexico City Temple

Semana dos de el CCM

¡Hola Y'all! 

Thank you so much everyone who sent me emails! Sorry I don´t have time to respond to everyone, I really wish that I could! Love you all so much and appreciate all the support.

Well not too much to talk about this week as it was just about the same. My district is still awesome and we get along really well. Spanish has been difficult, but I think i'm very slowly improving. Me and Elder Stone have gotten to know the Elder from McAllen better (Elder Chia) He is way cool and has a way funny sense of humor. He also happens to be a competitive eater and I saw him down an MTC burger in 40 seconds. So that was my inspirational moment of the week haha just kidding. He and the rest of his district are in our zone and they are also really awesome guys. Always making us laugh at meal time. Going to miss them as they are leaving next week :( Not sure if it´s true but some people have been saying that no more new missionaries are coming here for a month so the numbers are going to be dwindling down a lot from now on, so that´s kind of lame. 

This past Sunday I had to share my talk in Spanish in sacrament and of course it happened to be the week the president of the whole MTC (President Tenorio) decides to attend our zone sacrement and he is going to speak right after me. So I was way nervous but it went really well and President Tenorio is awesome. I´ll have to share some of the funny stories he shared with us and some way cool stories he has about converting people sometime. I love most of the leadership here and president Rubalclava is my favorite. He says the funniest things and is way laid back.

Funny story of the week, so me and Elder Stone were teaching our "investigator" (he is now our teacher in the afternoons) about the ten commandments and we got to the commandment about not taking the lord's name in vain and instead of saying "vano" or vain in spanish, Elder Stone says "baño". So he pretty much told him not to take the lord´s name into the bathroom. I was dying and it was painful because I was trying so hard to supress my laughter to maintain the spirit in the lesson. Definitely the highlight of the week.

So whenever we have free time, my district loves to play foosball and it gets way intense. We are always laughing so hard and getting way into it. I also love playing soccer out in this asphalt court that they have outside of the gym.

Also, Montezuma´s revenge is totally real, haha. Me and poor Elder Stone have been having to get through that the last week. We could have probably avoided it, but the salsa is too good here. Also as one of Elder Stone´s buddies said in an email to him, if you don´t have the runs at the MTC, you´re doing it wrong,

hahaha. So hopefully we can get through that.

Hope everything is going well for y'all back at home. You guys are always in my thoughts and prayers! Remember that there is more to life than being really really excruciatingly good looking.

Stay Classy,

-Elder Sheehy

Me and the boys

Me and Elder Stone are as buff as the statue guy on a building outside the MTC

Another view of the grounds with the cafeteria in the background

 

Our Casa

Hermana Clark and Rice keeping it real in the classroom

Me and Elder Stone trying to be God and Adam in the Cistene Chapel painting touching fingers over the McAllen mission

Foosball sess with the gang

Hola Familia!!!! (pt.1)

Well it´s my first pday out and things have been pretty good. The spirit is so strong here like all the time. The food is not too bad (authentic Mexican food is delicious, but when they try to make american food most of the time it is not very good). I wish they would make Mexican food more often but i guess they figure most of the gringo white kids here wouldn't like that very much haha. Anyways, the grounds here are beautiful. Reminds me a lot of Hawaii, but a bit drier. Mexico City is way different than I was expecting. The buildings don't usually go above three stories and they are as packed together as possible. The city is crazy with constant dogs barking and horns honking and fireworks (though i´m 100% positive i heard "fireworks" that shoot off certain projectiles more than once in the distance haha). The bus ride here to the MTC was crazy. Like the driving here makes Utah´s look tame. People just go flying in front of you and honk all the time. I´m sure there are so many people side swiped every day. I love the culture here though. The building are way cool. though they are very plain, poor looking cement structures, they paint them in all kinds of bright colors so it looks way cool. There is also some way talented street graffiti paintings down the way we went to get here. My companion is way cool. His name is Elder Stone and he is from Spanish Fork Utah and he will be going to the McAllen mission as well. Plus he´s a ginger so bonus points haha. But he is way funny and we get along great. The other guys in my house are Elder Phister from Wyoming and Elder Watts from Ogden. They are awesome guys too. I´m way thankful I have great guys to be around here or else the days would be soooo long. Elder Phister is going to Houston, Texas and Elder Watts will be in Des Moines, Iowa. So of course i've already given him the lowdown on Iowa and told him dad could feed him if he´s starving haha. The sisters (Hermanas) in our district are super cool too and a few of them will be joining Elder Watts in Des Moines. Me and Elder Stone met a guy from McAllen and it was super interesting. First off he's Asian so I didn't expect that and he didn't learn any Spanish growing up there where he says its like 99% Mexican there haha. The only advice he gave us is we will get fat because people love to feed you there and its like the most dangerous place to live in the U.S. like five years running. So thanks, I guess??? Haha. Well, love you guys and hope you are having a good time in Hawaii. I would love to have some pictures sent to me ;). Spanish is really tough and the gospel words are like completely learning it over again because I never learned any of them. Me and elder Stone have taught an "investigator" (totally a member but its good practice) a few times now and they have gone hilariously bad the first couple of times because we don´t know how to respond to his questions at all or didn't understand him). I´m happy to be here but i´m so excited to actually go to Texas. Oh P.S! Michael Packham my old roommate from Utah State is here and he is serving in the Mexico City west mission so he will be leaving and moving down road a ways in a couple of weeks. It was really weird to see him here. Anyways, love you guys and stay classy :)
 -Elder Sheehy

(click on the pictures to enlarge)

These are the lord's chips

                                                                                        I'm doing laundry! :)

A view of the city from the MTC, the B on the hill is for the name of the president the school used to be called before it became the MTC, I cant remember what it is.

Center courtyard between the classrooms

One of the cool green parrots that are around the grounds.

Me and Elder Stone on Pday