Lo Que Pasa Es Esto (Semana 9)

¿Que Tal mis amigos? How are things going?
Well everything is going pretty padre here in Monterrey. Ok so I found my new favorite thing to say. Padre or Que Padre. It means like cool or that's dope. Which is pretty funny cause it means dad but I guess it really is true because my dad is really really cool!!
This week absolutely flew by. It started with our entrevistas on Tuesday. So every cambio we meet with the mission president to talk about how we are doing and all that jazz. ...about our health and our Spanish for the Americans. Let me tell you it was pretty awesome. Before we started I was talking to other missionaries which I absolutely love doing.  I was talking to Elder McBride who is actually about to finish his mission which is pretty awesome to receive some advice from a vet. He is hilarious and told me to just have fun with the language and it will come with hard work and patience. Oh and also a cool thing was that Presidente says that I have really good spanish for only being here 3 weeks and that my pronunciation was really good! So that was a plus!!
After the entrevistas we went and visited mi papa y mama of the mission. La familia de Roman . They are so so awesome and love the missionaries. We had dinner with them and Elder Cable y Elder De la Cruz and talked about our families and I helped little Romanita con su Ingles which was so awesome!! They are such great people!!

familia de Roman

So being here in Mexico is such a humbling experience, I have a couple of stories that I would like to share real quick. The first is about a few of the elderly Hermanas in out area. They don't have much, but they love to serve and love to love. Especially the missionaries. They love to talk with us and give us what little they can to show their love. They are so so kind here and I hope that I can be full of charity like them one day.
Another story is about the familia Moya and their humility. They are 8 people all living in one apartment. Hermano Moya works from 6 in the morning to about 8 or 9 at night just to support the family. And they are some of the greatest people I have ever met. His spirit is so sweet and he is so kind but because of work he is unable to attend church on Sundays. When we visited them this week he told us that he really really wanted to go back to church but he couldn't with his work schedule. Before we left he offered a prayer and asked Heavenly Father for a way to be able to attend this week. A few days passed and when we were at church greeting people on Sunday he walked in!! He could only stay for 30 mins but said that his work let him take a quick break which they never do and he was able to come!! Such an amazing example to me and taught me that the Lord is always with us and will help us in what we need.
On Sunday we had stake conference with Elder Muñoz of the Seventy.  He gave such an amazing talk and I was able to understand the whole thing!!! He talked about the pure love of Christ and that we need to show love in all that we do, especially to our family and friends. He asked two profound questions we could all think about.
How do you know you love someone?How are you showing your love?
We all can work on showing love and kindness and I hope that I can work on that and grow mucho in this aspect in the next couple of years.

Well I love and miss all of you!!!
Elder McClellan

Awesome view of my street

Pan dulce and Arroz con leche - Muy, Muy Ricas

We got a bunch of cake this week for some reason

I made some bomb tortillas

Attempting a selfie with the camera

silly pics with la familia Roman

Feliz Como Una Lombriz (semana 8)

(feliz como una lombriz is just a saying here that means happy like a worm)
It's been such a fast and busy week I don`t know where to start.Well, after I finished writing last week we went right back to work!  One of our investigators called us drunk and told us we couldn`t go to his house that day so that was such a bummer. Instead, we went over to meet with a contact named Joanna. We talked a lot about faith and Jesucristo in our lives. I bore my testimony and then invited her to be baptized and she said yes!! She said that she had been waiting and she would really like to be baptized. So on Tuesday we had a Junto de Districto where we started our intercambios (it's where we switch companions for 24 hours).  I went with Elder Fonseca for the day. He is a pretty funny cool dude who has 16 months in the mission. We rode bikes and let me tell you, it was not that fun. Their area is in the hilly part next to the mountain which was absolutely terrible to ride in. It was a pretty great day all in all. Taught a couple lessons, ate some spaghetti tacos and by the end of the day I had a bit of a headache so I did as the smart Cameron Koutney taught me and had a Coca-Cola. Mexican Coke I might add, my first soda in a year and a half and it was good!
So the kids around here all stare at me which is really weird and funny. One kid even ran up to me and asked if I was from Los Estados and when I said yeah he was like "woah...que padre" (which means that's cool).  Also, later that same day I had a really cool experience. This older man came up to us and said that he needed help and asked us to say a prayer for him. He said he didn't need anything else, only a prayer from "people of Jesus". That is  so awesome to think about. I am a representative of Jesucristo. People have asked us quite a number of times who we are and what we do which is really cool to explain why we are here which is to invite others to Christ.  So on Jueves I ate the best thing ever. Its called a Compenchana. It's basically a huge flour tortilla with a little cheese and a bunch of Carne asada y the red meat  from the Tacos al  Pastor. It was amazing. It was also from a street vendor which we really shouldn't do but it was so amazing. Another amazing thing from Jueves is that I invited Rocio to be baptized and she said Yes!!  Her date is in Nov and she is really really ready to be baptized.
So Viernes we had more intercambios. This time with Elder Cable. It was really weird because it was a gringo con a gringo. All we did was ride around to a few references they had and set up lesson appointments with them. We also taught an awesome lesson in the chapel with one of their investigators which was really awesome. After a pretty great day we got home and Elder Cable was hungry so he ordered some Compenchanas at 10 o'clock at night. Fun times. Speaking of food on Sabado we had comida at an Hermanans house and she made like 40 tacos for us, and we had to eat all. I was so full after those 20 tacos but they were really good. Then later that night we visited the house of Laura. She is  less active and really really nice. She loves the missionaries. So we got to her house at 8:45 to invite her to church and she just starts making a full meal for us so we had 10 more tacos. We ate so many tacos that day.... good thing  we walk like 10 miles a day.
So this week was a pretty good week with spanish too. Every time I speak they listen really carefully and are really engaged because its a guero speaking spanish. There has also been four families here that say I speak pretty good Spanish, especially for only having 2 weeks here. One even said I had better Spanish than a missionary that had a year and a half hahah.
Well my thought from the week comes from the Bible again. It's such a great scripture and brings much comfort. Shauna shared it with me a few weeks ago too. It's Isaìs 41:10 "No temas, porque yo estoy contigo; no desmayes, porque yo soy tu Dios que te fortalezco; siempre te ayudaré; siempre te sustentaré con la diestra de mi justicia" The Lord will always be by our side when we ask Him for Help. It`s such a great blessing and comforting to know especially here in Mexico.
Love and Miss Y'all
elder mcclellan

Elder Diaz and yo eating compenchanas

The view outside my front door

My "new" bike

The beautiful mountain here covered by the clouds

Compenchana - seriously so good

Throwback to the CCM
Me, Abrams, Ena, and Aiken were part of the cereal eating comp at the CCM.  Ena won with 15 bowls.  I had 12.

mi casa

Semana Uno in Monterrey

¿Que Paso?Hola everyone!!! 

Well I made it to Monterrey!!  And it has been one crazy week!! Well we arrived to our area (Andalucia) and WOW I am in Mexico!  Its really weird to think about. So yeah its kinda crazy.We got to our casa and it was a mess so we had to clean for a bit then went straight to work. My compañero is Elder Diaz. He is from Mexico City and speaks some English which is pretty nice. Spanish is pretty rough. I'm able  to understand about 70% of whats being said but I can hardly say a thing. Ok so back to mi comp. He is also a new District Leader which means he is in charge of about 8 other missionaries which is a new thing for him. He is also training me, an americano that doesn't speak spanish lol. So yeah thats pretty difficult. There's only one other american in our district named Elder Cable.When we first got here we didn't have our Area book because one of the past missionaries lost it so we didn't have any idea who was in our area or where to go since we didn't even have a map hahah. So we just went around blind trying to find our way around. We met a few ward members and helped some people out a bit. We also helped someone set up there tienda that's in front of their casa. Which is really weird here, on every street there are little stores in their houses. Like right now I'm above someones house in a Cyber emailing. The food here is pretty good though. Well, I mean I have been here for 7 days and have had American-ish food here everyday. Like Pollo Loco, Little Caesars and Carls Jr. But the days were we eat regular food is really good. So here in Mexico we have one meal a day called comida around 3:00 pm.  The hermanas in the Church bring us food half the time and the food they bring is really good. Ok so this week we were able to teach four investigators Jesus, Jorge, Grace, y Rocio. Jesus is pretty interesting kid who plays football americano which is pretty rare down here so its pretty cool to bond with him. The others are all pretty nice but it can be pretty hard to understand them jajaja. With time hopefully I can learn and be able to communicate better. I love the scripture in Filipenses 4:13 "Todo lo puedo en Cristo que me fortalece". I know that with the Lord's help I can accomplish the things He shall have me do!!Funny story about that scripture though. When we were at a members house for comida Elder Diaz said "Mi compañero va a compartir un mensaje con ustedes" (I was gonna have to share a message). Well I don't know that much Spanish so I just said the first scripture that I could remember en Espñol and after I explained it a bit in broken Spanish I ended by just saying "Es verdad. That was a very awkward experience lol.

Love and miss all y'all so much!! 

con amor

elder mcclellan

Last pics from the CCM.  Best Casa Ever!  CASA 27.  

 → Elder Richmond. What a dude. He'll kill it.

←Dano and I are about to chill at BYU and in Hawaii together post mission.

Me and my new companion Elder Diaz

Me chillin' en mi casa

First Day in Monterrey

President and Sister Maucotel with Elder McClellan

New Arrivals in the Monterrey Mexico East Mission

Final Semana en el CCM

True Blue Sock Tie Squad

¡HOLA! ¿Cómo están? How's everyone doing?? I'm doing pretty swell aquí en el CCM!! Its my last week here so I'm pretty excited and un poco nervous!! I leave for Monterrey on Monday at a very very very early time...2:30am to be exact. It's gonna be quite the experience and I can't wait!!
Well this past week was pretty awesome! So lets see what all happened. Well I got to see Elder Castillo which is awesome to have a familiar face to see. We also got to watch General Conference on Sábado y Domingo which was such an amazing experience. I loved it so much and I invite all of y'all to go listen to some of the talks!! ( https://www.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng ) I loved that there was so much talk on service and charity. I love to think that the needs of others are more important than mine and that I should try to help others as often as I can.
This week was also pretty sad. On Domingo I had to say goodbye to my latino amigos. They all left monday and it was pretty sad saying bye. The hardest was Elder Parra (from Bolivia). He's the dude that I connected with a lot even though he speaks no English. He helped me to roll my R's (oh yeah btw i rolled my R´s for the first time in my life this week) and I helped him with some English frases.
Well thats all for this week

love and miss all of y'all
elder mcclellan

        

                                              Elder Castillo with Elder McClellan                                                            

Elder Parra y Elder McClellan

Elders Schenck, McClellan and Martinez