Week Four

Hola familia!

Oh boy, what a week! Usually here, when I get to this point in PDay, I feel like I don't have a single thing to say! But this time... this time is different, so prepare yourself! ;)

So last week I told about how I had that musical number coming up, and I was kinda scared. It got worse the closer I got, because mis maestros simply would not let me practice! "If it's not on the schedule, then it's not happening," they told me! And so I had to shave time off my meals to go to the only building in this place, with any pianos, and basically had a couple minutes to play through the music once. Basically, Sunday night came, and it was my turn to go and do my thing, I was relying on 25 minutes of practice and the Spirit... I was scared. I was praying. A lot. But then I got up there, and I began playing, and I just lost my self in the song, but more importantly, the spirit of the song! If You Could Hie to Kolob is easily my favorite. And as I was playing, I just let all of my stress and worry just flow out of me, and focused solely on how I was feeling while playing. It was amazing! By the time I finished, I realized that it was the best I have ever played that piece! I didn't make any mistakes, but actually played it super well! My prayers were definitely answered! That is probably the time, out of all 5 (4) weeks that I've been here, that I have felt the spirit most! I definitely will not forget it. 

So there I am in my room later that night, basically just lounging in pure relief that I was done with that whole thing, when an Hermana walks in with some sheet music in her hand, and I just think to myself..."Uh oh...." Sure enough, she heads straight to me and begins to tell me that she loved the song, and she actually brought her violin with her, and wanted to do a duet with me of that same song, the Marshall McDonald version of Kolob! Of course I couldn't say no, there was no reason to, and everyone was right there staring me in the face. So I said yes, and she gives me the accompaniment version to the song. It was so different! There were no similarities in the right hand, and the left vaguely compared to my version! I started to freak out. Again. And so we audition two days later, and again I couldn't practice at all, so my audition also just so happened to be my first time running through it at all. So after we finish, the lady in charge, Hermana Eves, looks at me and asks if I believe I can be ready to play it by that night! And so I'm sitting there like "No way!!!", but oh lucky me, I had the girl there to answer for me! She says of course we can! So there I was, this basically brand new song in my hand, with a performance of sorts that night in front of several hundred kids my age and an area seventy......... I was stressed. Luckily though, I convinced my teachers to let me practice, and I got a bit more in. That night when we played it wasn't too bad. It wasn't like Sunday, though, and I felt really bad for the girl who asked me to play. She really wanted it to be perfect and I just couldn't. But oh well, people still say it sounded really good.

I don't really remember anything that happened on Monday or Wednesday, but I definitely remember Thursday, and will always remember it! Thanksgiving was fantastic! So it started off as any other normal day here, with morning classes and whatnot, until 10:30. We then went to a devotional that was broadcasted live from the Provo MTC. Niel L. Anderson spoke to us and talked about Thanksgiving and everything, and it was a super good talk! (He also sufficiently rubbed it in that he would be playing and watching football while we were not...). But after that we had a few more  classes and then lunch. Lunch was AMAZING!!! Imagine eating stuff that never tastes better than mediocre while simultaniously destroying your entire digestive tract, and going straight from that to an authentic, well made, all-American, delicious turkey Thanksgiving meal!!! I think I started to cry, to be perfectly honest! They even had root beer!!!! It tasted like Shasta brand, but it was root beer!!! There was Turkey (actually really well cooked, and obviously not sitting in the bottom of a deep freeze for a couple years (I'm looking at you mom), they had mashed potatoes (more like liquified, but still tasted good), they had corn on the cob (delicious), rolls (kinda weird, but i'll explain later), and actually ice cream and apple pie!!!! Like, what?!?! I was so happy! The rolls, though, were super strange. Somehow, they were able to inject butter into the rolls. Like, there weren't any holes where the butter could've gotten in. And it was not spread out, either. There was just a random massive chunk of straight butter just chilling in the middle of the roll. So we ate with caution, but once you found it and took it out, the rolls were perfect. 

Thanksgiving feast: Before

Thanksgiving feast: After

So after the awesome lunch we were lucky enough to have gym time right then! The night before, we grabbed a roll of toilet paper, and bought some clear tape and wrapped it all up. We drew some laces on it and BOOM, football! We had our official turkey bowl (Or toilet bowl, depending on how you wanted to look at it) during gym time that day! It was so fun! One of my roomies is actually a really good QB and was looking at Division 1 schools before coming here, and so he could place it real well, and it was just super fun! After a while, some guys came out who had an actual football, and so we joined with them! It's actually a rule though not to play football, I guess, and so some guy came and took it away... but we just whipped out our toilet paper and kept going! (Yo sé, es pecado, pero... no nos importa!) (I know it's a sin...but we do not care!) The rest of the day we just retained that aura of just being happy, and it was great! Thanksgiving was awesome! At the end of the night, though, my district decided to do something special. We invited the rest of our zone, and everyone else in the building there with us, to come into our room and have a "potluck feast". Everyone brought food, be it from the tienda (store), or from packages we received from home. It was a legit feast of just crap food. This time I'm sure I cried. Hahaha but we started off with a prayer (of course. We're not pecadores (sinners)) and with a "celebratory pop-off". Some kid got martinelli's from a package (take note, mom! ;)) and shook one up and popped off the lid! Haha it really looked like champagne! He stuck it in his mouth, chugged the bottle, and we began to dig in!!! It was the perfect way to end the day! We also had a devotional of sorts, and I took your advice, mom! I told everyone what we did at home every night before family prayer, and we went around and all said one thing we're grateful for! We did kind of have to do it quickly though, and say a one word answer, because there were at least 60 to 70 of us, but it was definitely awesome!

The potluck feast

Distrito 12-C

But that's been my week, basically. It was a great week! Definitely better than last week. I was so glad to read your email mom! And all your letters! Yes, I did get them! The letters which you sent a while ago finally got to me! But this was after they went first to another district... some kids in district 15 came up to me and told asked me if my family found a turkey at the bottom of their freezer, and so I was like, what the crap, how do you know that? Apparently, once they saw "Elder Schmid" at the top of the letter, they decided to read the letter out loud because I guess you guys are funny writers! They were laughing pretty hard! But I eventually got all the letters and packages! It made Thanksgiving that much better! I think one of the problems was the mail lady took a day off. And so everything was super backed up and she had to catch up. But she did. :) Thanksgiving sounds like it went well up there in AZ! I'm sad I couldn't be there, but I'd probably be kicked out of my room and bed anyways because of Caelan and Lydia, so oh well! 

Todos les amo!!! 

Elder Schmid

(Next week, Elder Schmid's p-day is on Wednesday, November 30, if you would like to get an email to him)

These are my roomies.  On the bed is Elder Hickson and Elder Call is on the chair

Drew this when I was bored :)

This is what my desk pretty much looks like every day.
It's what my life has been for the past four weeks.

Week Three

Hola familia!

So, same old life here in the CCM. Same schedule, same teachers, same classes, same food, same everything! I'm always happy to read your emails from home! Seriously, Fridays have become almost like little Christmas's out here! I love them! Especially here in Spiritual Prison. It's so nice to have a break from the constant schoolwork of being a new missionary.

Anyways, nothing too new happening here, except for one big thing. So I was playing piano one day, because we miraculously had 5 minutes of free time, and I was playing the Marshall McDonald arrangement of If You Could Hie to Kolob. After I finished playing, I guess my district really liked it, because they told me to go audition, because every devotional that we have there's a musical number done right before it begins. So my district wanted me to try out to see if I would be able to do that, and they chose me to play! So, this Sunday, I'll be playing the piano in front of the entire CCM before the Sunday night devotional! It's kinda scary, though, because I really don't have much time to practice, only about 15 minutes a day, and so I'm kinda freaking out... but we'll see how it goes! I'm also very excited!

This is what the inside of the Thomas S. Monson building looks like.  It's actually a pretty cool building, and there's a bunch of rooms where we have sacrament meetings and such. Every room has a piano, and sometimes you walk in and somebody is playing away, and you can't tell where it's coming from. I love the flags, too!

 Other than this, CCM life is actually kinda dragging me down... I mean, I love the spirit of the place, but I've hit a major wall. My mind has left this place, and is already in the mission field! I am so dang bored here now! I can barely get through class every day, because it is literally just the same thing every day other than the language, which they don't actually teach very much! Like, we don't learn Spanish here. We learn the gospel, in Spanish. It actually kinda sucks. And don't get me wrong, I love the gospel! But we're "learning" things that I've literally known about pretty much my entire life! So, I don't know, I love this place, but I'd much rather be out in the field right now.

This is the room I'm in. Every day. For 15 hours.

Yeah, I've been a little cold here, but today wasn't so bad. It's kind of off and on with the weather here, I really have no idea what the next day is gonna be like. It could be overcast and rainy, or it could be sunny. I just don't know. But you say I should be fine because I have my coat? Do you mean the coat that you had me take out of my luggage because it made it over 50 lbs and was thus too heavy? (side not from mother:  I did not ever tell him to take his coat out. I purchased the coat, and would have never told him to leave it. I am very upset that I am just finding out that he left it here   :( ) Because if so... I don't have it. I don't have any coat with me here. But that's ok, just a few more weeks of possible cold weather!

You've also told me, and others as well, that you sent me some letters and/or packages, buuuutttt.... I haven't gotten anything. I just barely checked not 10 minutes ago. Mi compañero got a letter, though, making me the only one in my district who has not gotten a thing in the mail. Which is kinda depressing. But oh well. Maybe it's being sent to the wrong place? Elder Schmid, in district 12-C? I don't know. I'll ask about it. 

So this PDay was just a relaxing day. All the missionaries who are staying in Mexico for their missions had to go out and do some sort of immigration thing out on the town, but seeing as how I'm headed for Chile, I just got to stay and do whatever! It was fantastic! So no, I don't get to go to the temple every week. In fact, I won't go again while I'm here, which means I probably won't go again through the entirety of my mission, seeing as how there isn't one in Antofagasta. But that's ok. 

You don't believe I have a clean room?! Oh thou of little faith?! Wherefore dost thou doubt?! I don't have one now, but you wait, I'll send a couple pictures of my room and the other rooms and then you can see! But the cleanliest isn't the biggee, it's the fact that my room smells the best! I can't even walk into the other rooms hahaha!

But anyways, that's how things are here! It's monotonous, but such is the life of the new missionary, I guess haha! I love you all! 

Su misionero en la Ciudad de México

Elder Schmid

The candy here is very different, but is still alright. This stuff is like a singsong almost, but it has marshmallow in the middle instead of cream.  And there's like a cookie sort of stuff in it. I really like the choco retas, which are like mint M&M's, but smaller

Websites to send letters or packages to Elder Schmid at the CCM

There are some websites you can use to send me packages and letters! Everyone else in my district keeps getting all sorts of stuff and it's making me depressed :). 

missionarypackagemx.com or missionarypresent.com 

You don't have to send me a package, but a letter from some people would be nice! :) Love you all! 

Week Two

Hola familia!

Life is good! Life at the CCM is pretty much the same old! Nothing changes in day to day life pretty much, so anything really crazy or fun that goes on, we have to make up and do ourselves. But it's still great! I love it here! It's such a pretty place, and everyone is so awesome, and there's so much open space for gym time and what not! Gym time is probably my favorite time, not gonna lie haha! There's so much to do! They have a massive indoor basketball court, half of it is a basketball court and the other half has a volleyball net! Surprisingly, usually everyone is over at the volleyball half! Everyone plays volleyball here! I must say, I've gotten pretty dang good at serving! ;) But also inside are a ton of foosball tables and a couple ping pong tables. But that's just the inside. Outside, there's a ton more, because we are on a crazy 90 acre lot. So, there are three other basketball courts scattered around the campus, there are a few soccer fields, there's an outdoor concrete volleyball court, and another outdoor beach sand court! There's a baseball field, there's a full track for running, it's insane. My district either usually plays volleyball, or ultimate frisbee, which is super fun. 

I was not prepared for this weather. We only planned for weather in Chile, and didn't bother checking for weather here... which was a mistake on my part. It was super nice at first! But then it started to rain more and more, and now the clouds aren't going away. It's freezing, it's wet, and I don't even have a sweater.  My bag wasn't waterproofed because my mission is the driest place on earth, but Mexico City is definitely not! But that's ok, I can tough my way through it. I just wish I knew what it would be like here. 

So you're wondering how CCM life works. Lemme tell ya. It's boot camp. Day one, you get a packet with all the materials you need, and then a bag with all the books you'll need (It's a lotta books). In the packet, along with your white bible, room key, missionary agenda, and badges, you get a packet of papers that is your life for the next six weeks. It has a schedule on it, on which each and every day of your weeks here has been meticulously planned and mapped out. There is legit NO free-time other than on P-Day. You get three meal breaks, but I got unlucky, and my zone goes last to eat, and so we only get 25 minutes tops before the workers kick us out. The food is... interesting. Let's just say my bowels went for a roller coaster ride. And that's the most censored way I can say that. Other than the meals, though, you are in class. All day. Every day. Classes for language, for book of Mormon, for Preach my Gospel, for everything! You have one little classroom that you are in all day, and two teachers: one for mornings and one for afternoons. It gets pretty boring, not gonna lie. But then you really feel the spirit, and you find interesting ways to pass time and have fun with your district. Basically, this place is like high school, except for instead of 7 hour days, it's 15 hour days. Waking up gets hard, but once you're up and moving, you get into a rhythm and basically sleep walk. 

I spend most of my time here with my district. We have class together and it's just our district in the class. However, we get bored. So we often go to other districts classrooms and mingle.  So we do know, on a very small basis, everyone in our zone. During gym time too we see other people and get to meet people from other zones. It's actually very fun! That's another reason it's my favorite time of the day: because I get to see my friends that I don't see at all the rest of the day! Other than these times though, and during meals, we only ever see our own district. 

Elder LeFoll in the classroom under a desk in the back, it's so tiring!

I went to the temple today! I finally got to escape the prison walls that surround us! It was fantastic! The traffic was even crazier than before, if that were even possible! But the temple itself was so amazing! I love the looks of it, because it has this whole Aztec sort of theme going on inside and out, so it looks similar to ancient Aztec pyramids or something! Inside was super interesting, because we did everything like normal but in Spanish. It was super fun! Even the workers! They were the normal old people, but Mexican! It was awesome! There's also a little store off to the side of the temple with a lot of cool things, and I got myself an Aztec/Mayan Calendar looking sort of thing! It looks dope. And I can hang it up. Which is also dope. Speaking of dope, I heard it's legal in Cali now? Well, sucks for them, I guess... 

Elder Seui and I in front of the temple

I'm a photographer!

My district at the visitors center.

 Anyways, you told me to clean my room and whatnot? I actually have the cleanest room out of my entire house! We always have our beds made, the floor is swept, all of our crap is away in the closets and whatnot! You'd be proud! And, our room smells the best! I go into the other rooms and can't stay because it smells too bad, but my room always smells good! Haha we're a very clean room!

I get a haircut today, but I am a little nervous because the people don't do it the way we are use to.  Elder Seui had to take his sewing scissors to his hair after his haircut to try to get it more to what he is used to.

Yeah, I heard that Trump is now the new President! Hahaha that's funny, and I was sure too that Hillary would win. That's really sad though how it's made people riot. I hate hearing that, and that's one of the worst parts of this whole election. They hated each other, and they made the country hate each other. It's super sad. But hopefully that will clear up after a bit. I wonder what he's gonna do with the country... I'm very interested to see the state of things when I return. 

I'm glad to hear the Grandma and Aunt Tammy are doing great! Two scary things that ended well! That's very funny to hear how Dad switched to an iPhone and now has technical difficulties! I bet Mom's feeling the power now, huh? ;) But thanks for the email, I loved all the stuff you put in! Bronson makes me laugh even from hundreds of miles away! I love you guys! Me encantan todos ustedes! Yo no puedo esperar para viernes cada semana! La iglesia es verdadero, y yo soy agradecido por este evangelio y por la oportunidad para estár un misionero para la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimas Días!

Te amo!

Elder Schmid

Right in front of recepcion is this random statue of just a big head.  I pass it every day, and I love it!  I need to name it...

First Week MTC Life

Dear Mom,

Did you not get my email? I sent one the very first day I got here saying I was alright and that Fridays will be my P Day. I explained also that I had to skip the first week's P Day, and I have no idea why. I'm sorry if you didn't get it, but I checked and I sent it to the right email! 

Mexico is fantastic! The CCM is such a beautiful place! I love it! I honestly have no idea where to start because I have ten days to write about! So, from the beginning... getting here was a big culture shock! The airport was really bustling, and EVERYOne spoke Spanish! All the airport officials were asking me stuff and I just smiled! Listen to this though, my first Spanish conversation: I was walking through the airport with all of the other missionaries on my flight, and an airport attendant walks up to me and asks, "Hola, comó está?" And my mind must have been either too worked, or not worked enough, because I smiled right back and said, "Sí, gracias!" I was feeling so proud of myself and didn't realize my mistake until five minutes later while in line... oh well, off to a good start, I guess! After we all went through customs, a person from the CCM was waiting for us, and had us all group together to leave. There were 7 of us all together on the flight. We were supposed to wait for the other missionaries on the other flights so we could all come together on the bus, but I guess the man decided that that would take too long, so he called us a van. So we all piled in to this tiny van, with a driver who spoke NO english, and went into traffic. Mexcian.traffic.is.insane!!! At any given point on the drive to the CCM, I could reach out and touch another car through my window with ease! Even when we were going 50 miles an hour! Everyone cuts in and out, and they don't stop! If someone starts going in front of you, you stop, because they won't. And then there's people selling their stuff in the middle of the street! Cars are zooming by going crazy fast, and they're just chill, yelling about their mangos. The entire drive, our driver was talking to us in rapid-fire spanish! We literally told him that we could not understand him to well, but he kept going! Luckily, we gave the only Hermana on our flight the front seat, and he focused on her while we could ignore him hahaha!

One of the very first questions they asked me when I got here was if I knew how to play piano, so I told them yes. Apparently... nobody else who came that day could! Or wanted to.... so now I'm the pianist for everything with all the newbies from the day I got here, which is a hefty amount, accounting for all the plane trips and everyone! 

The CCM itself is pretty cool! IT's so big! 90 acres! It is basically a night and day difference. When I got inside, it looked so different from the rest of the city. It's so well kept here, all the grass is alive and neatly trimmed, it's so clean, and everything! There's a massive wall around the entire compound made of thick concrete and brick. Like, several feet thick. And it's topped by barbed wire. It's pretty intense! My companion and I joke about us being in "spiritual prison". The first day was basically just getting all of our stuff, and unpacking. We had a devotional at 7... it was in Spanish. And I met my companion! Elder Seui Fola. He's Samoan! He's so cool! I'll send a picture later today of him and I. I can't send any pictures now because I can only take picutres on P Day, and our day just started. But he's so chill, and funny! I'm glad i got paired with someone who likes to laugh! 

Classes are... intense. Like you've heard before, they start right off with full spanish. Full immersion, I guess. I at least knew a little bit of the vocabulary, so I SOMETIMES had a VAGUE idea of what my teacher was saying. I didn't realize how completely they want to immerse you, though, because we had to teach a full lesson to an investigator the next day! In español! What?! We basically scripted the whole thing and read what we had written! It's a good thing it was just a play investigator, or else we'd have had our first failed discussion! It was fun, though. We have a lot of different classes. One on language, one on book of mormon, one on everything! Every day is just straight class! We leave our casa at around 7;00. and don´t go back until 9:30! That's so crazy! it definitely got some getting used to! But I did, and it's super fun now! I also have an awesome district, so that makes it easier. Sunday was super cool! It was basically a break from all the studying and all the work, and a time to just relax and listen to the meetings. I loved it! With all the devotionals and all the classes, I'm learning a ton! Mi español es mucho mucho mejor que antes! I'm learning to love it, and the challenge of understanding it! I love talking to the native latinos! They're so awesome! I can start off a conversation with them, and they just start going off on anything! I basically never have any idea what they're saying, but they don't seem to care, and I laugh when they laugh, so it's good.

November 1st and 2nd was El Dia de los Muertos! And let's just say, the Mexicans know how to fiesta! All.Night.Long... their music was blasting from dusk till dawn! They were going at it hard! There were also a bunch of houses that were lit up with colored strobe lights and everything! Another thing, here in Mexico city, mis maestros like to joke around that every day is a fiesta! Everyday, all day, at regular intervals, fireworks go off! Not the big ones from shows, but small ones that I might light off with my friends illegally. All we hear is what sounds like a gunshot basically every five minutes! But during El Día de los Muertos, it got especially crazy! All day, and all night they were going! It was so fun!

The food here is alright. It's funny, my first legit meal in Mexico was just straight pizza. A big slice of pepporoni pizza! It made me laugh, I don't know. But the food in the CCM is not really authentic Mexican food, I guess. It's good, but I have had all of these things, but in a better form! Even their horchata! It comes nowhere near the stuff that Hermano Perez makes! But it's ok, I guess, cuz I'm not cooking for myself. So I love it. They do actually have better drinks, however. All of their soda is SOOOOOO good! And there's this yogurt stuff that's like a mix between yogurt and milk, and we drink it, and it's straight divine. I live off of it here.

I can really feel the spirit so strong in this place. It's truly amazing! In every class, and every devotional, and every testimony meeting, I can feel the spirit presiding here with us! It is just all over the place here! I've never really felt that before, and I'm really enjoying it! While here, I've had the most spiritual experiences of my life! The testimony meetings with my district are particularly amazing. There were many tears shed, let's just say that! Mi compañero has a very strong testimony! Every time he talks, I get excited because he makes me feel the spirit really strong! I love it! I love how close I can be with Christ here! Even reading the Book of Mormon is better! I've read so much, and learned so much! I love it, because I've learned how to receive answers to my prayers by reading the Book of Mormon, and that has been the biggest blessing while being here, and there are many blessings. I wish I could bring all my family and friends here to feel what I'm feeling, but oh well. I just pray that I'll be able to share this spirit with those I teach!

But  anyways, what's going on over there?! How was Halloween? What was everyone dressed up as? How are you all getting along without me? Hopefully you get this email...

Te amo, 

Elder Schmid

A 10 peso coin that I thought looked super cool

My District
From left to right:  Elder LeFoll, Elder Scoresby, Elder Hirschi, Elder Butcher, Elder Huxforg, Elder Humphrey, Hermana Peterson, Hermana Ramsey, ME, Elder Henry, Elder Seui, Elder Horrocks

A view of the street that I walk down every day going to and from class.  Love the trees growing over the street.

Me and mi campanero, Elder Seui