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