Hola family!

Hola family!

This will be just a quick little update! I leave at 9:30 PM, and arrive in Chile at 7 AM - so I'll be on a plane all night!!  Crazy, but it'll be fun with the other 29 missionaries that will be on my plane (:

Umm since Thursday, I have grown so much already!!  We have had many testimony meetings, and it's sad to leave this place!  Friday, all day, we had a in-field orientation, which was awesome and so spiritual!  They basically went over all the details on how to find people and how to actually be a missionary!  I cannot believe that I will be out teaching people in Spanish on Tuesday!! Crazy!

Our main teacher: Hermana Baum

Our other teacher: Hermano Miller

Our dorms!

Saturday, we had both of our teachers tell us about their lives, and as a district we got together to teach them as members of the church and what they could focus on. I kinda led both teachings with my ideas. They were both very spiritual and both teachers said that's exactly what they needed to hear! Which was cool because it was my first time, I felt like I was in tuned with the spirit enough to receive revelation on what to do with someone! Awesome experience (:

Today has been such a spiritual day already! I spoke in Church today and the spirit just conveyed the message that everyone needed to hear! I was the last to speak in front of about fifty missionaries, following both the zone leaders, and two district leaders! The Spirit was so strong though as I testified of Jesus Christ being our Savior, our Brother, and our friend! 

I challenge you to read Doctrine and Covenants Section 122! It truly testifies of Christ's feelings towards us!! Read it (:

We had a district testimony meeting today! I testified of how much I have grown here, and how awesome the gospel we have is! It makes me so happy! I want everyone to be a part of it! It's so happy, and exciting being a part of this great and marvelous work!! I love it, and I love being a missionary!

I just got out of a meeting with one of the CCM councilors talking about how we need to pray about specific things! It was great and the spirit was totally there! I'm loving it here, and I'm gonna be really sad to leave tomorrow, but I'm also very excited to go down to Chile, and teach everyone (:(:

Touching the wall!

Sneaking onto a fourwheeler! Mwuahaha!

And spanish Sprite!

I love you all so much! Im not sure when my P-Day is, or when I'll be able to e-mail next,

but it will be soon!

Work hard, pray hard, play hard!

Love,

Elder McGee!

Its so great to hear from all of you!!

It's so great to hear from all of you!!

I loved hopping on the computer and having a message from almost everyone in the family! I feel like I haven't missed a thing now that I know what's all going on!! It's way weird that we have wooden steps in our house now, but it looks good (:

My adventures have encompased quite a bit this week.  First of all, I will for sure be in Chile next week! I'm so excited, and glad to be leaving Mexico City. This place is great, but my heart is in Chile!

I can already tell I'm just going to love all the people down there.

I'm not sure when my flights are or anything, but based on patterns, I should be out of here on Monday! Yo soy muy emocianado!!!! (:

I'm also excited to hear my family's voices.

Another way awesome thing, is that I should be home before the 4th of July in 2015! Which is kinda exciting now, but I'm sure I wont wanna come home at the end.

Today, I went to the Temple for the second time. It's about an hour away, so its kind of cool to drive through the city and check out everything going on! It's one masssive city, with lots and lots of hustle and bustle! It's crazier than New York times ten. It's pretty gross though, lots of trash everywhere, but at the same time, everything is way colorful! I love it (: Random buildings are just bright pink or purple or blue! It's cool looking out onto the city from our dorm room because it's like tons of colors! Anyways, El Templo was beautiful as always! It's way cool because it's just this perfectly white massive building in the midst of a gross, smog infested city!

The Temple ceremony was beautiful, and always enlightens me until the next time I go. For anyone reading this who isn't a member of my church, the Temple is a place where members can enter into a very peaceful, quiet, and reverent building where anything more than a whisper is disruptive. It's amazing the peace and joy that envelops you as soon as you walk in the building.

Furthermore, in the Temple it's kind of like a church meeting, but it is very sacred and another way we can become closer to Christ, and worship him. I know that I feel the Spirit of the Lord stronger there, than any other place. It's amazing. If you have never seen a temple, google the San Diego, California LDS Temple. It's probably my favorite. I have seen pictures of all of them, and been to about fifty of them, I think..

It looks like a fairty tale castle! (: Anyways, the Temple was awesome, and always makes me way happy. I was filled with confidence that I can become the missionary God wants me to be, and to not

worry about learning Spanish!!

As far as Spanish goes, I'm continuing to do better! I could understand a lot of the signs on buildings and the Temple ceremony was much easier to understand than the first week of not knowing a single bit of Spanish!!

The cooks, the security guards, the teachers, and all the workers here are locals. Some teachers are white, but they are trying to get it to be just locals! So if I want something, I have to know how to say it in Spanish!

The hardest thing so far was learning how to use an all Spanish ATM. Next time you hit up the bank, try it in Spanish, and then you will know how scary it is when dealing with money and not knowing what it says!!

This is my thirty-seventh day, and I feel like it's been only a week. Time flies a lot faster when I focus more, and try to really work on Spanish, and how to teach! Whenever I think about home, things get to be a little longer.

I'm gonna miss the CCM, because I have matured so much! I have grown so much it's crazy! One of the first devotionals we had, which I think was Elder Holland, said that missionaries are expected to become

the best teachers in the world, with the most important message anyone has ever had almost over night! Now, I know what that means. Because I feel like I am a pretty good teacher now, and I'm just pumped to get into

the field!! (:

Some funny things that happened this week: We tried that bananas and Sprite trick again! My friend puked everywhereeeee after I punched him in the stomache! His name is Elder Loveridge, he's a crack up! (:

Ummmm, He also like almost broke his ankle this week playing soccer! Soccer has been getting way intense! Everyone plays their frustrations with Spanish out! Also, they were rolling down this huge screen inside the

auditorium and it got caught on the curtains and just ripped the curtains off and kinda broke the screen. It was in front of about 800 missionaries, so everyone was freaking out. (: We have been playing some really fun mind

games in the dorms at night! I can't wait to play them at family dinners with you guys. I wrote them in my journals!

So last Thursday, I finished reading the whole Book of Mormon. I did it in exactly one month! July 16th to August 16th. What a powerful book of ancient prohpets and wars and crazy stories! If you haven't read it -- I highly, highly recommend it! Want to know why? Because it's true! I know for a fact that the Book of Mormon is true! I know the Prophet, Joseph Smith translated it with the power of God.

After I finished reading it, I went into a grove of trees just like Joseph Smith did when he was fourteen years old. I wanted to ask God if the book is really true. We can ask God any question! I know He will answer it! So I knelt down and prayed and started asking about the Book of Mormon. As soon as I asked if it was true, and was really translated by Joseph Smith, I started to see all this white around me. It kinda freaked me out at first. But I kept praying with my eyes shut. I instantly felt the Spirit give me a warm chill throughout every end of my body. I knew that I was receiving an answer through the Holy Ghost confirming that the book is true. The power was amazing as the soft wind blew through my hair! As I opened my eyes, I realized that the bright light I saw was all the lights on the whole campus turning out for night time. A coincidence? I think not. Between the confirmation of the Spirit and the lights turning on as soon as I asked the question, I know with out a doubt that the Book of Mormon is true!

If you don't believe me, read the whole book which is only five-hundred and thirty one pages, and pray for yourself to know of its truth. I can promise you that you will receive an answer. If you don't have a Book of Mormon, contact a member of my family, and they will get you one! Then read it! It's way awesome! It talks about wars, and people having crazy things happen to them. You will see that God has his hand in all of our lives, and reading this book will change the way you live your life! I promise. (:

After I finished the Book of Mormon, I read a book called Our Search for Happiness, also an awesome book all about how we can be happy in our lives!! I reccomend it too. (:

So yeah, I'm still studying all day, and doing service projects, and playing sports sometimes! It's hard work, but I'm already changing so much just by actually doing all the small things like praying, reading the scriptures, serving other people, being happy, and having tons of faith in Jesus Christ, and God that they can do anything for me.

I pray my heart out each night for everyone I know, and for all the people Im going to be teaching.

Everyone needs to hear the message of the Restored Church on Earth today! About how our families can be eternal, Where we come from, where we are going after death, and of all the great fruits on the Gospel on earth today!  I gave up two years of my life because I feel so strongly about all of this. If I can give up everything including making videos, doing the things I love, being with my family, and an awesome girlfriend, then you can at least check out what Mormons are and what we do! (:

I want everyone to know that I love you so so so much, and next time you hear from me, I will be in South America, enjoying the beautiful country of Chile! I'm not sure if I will have as much time to share my stories,

but I hope what I'm doing is benefitting everyone reading this! I hope to express my love torwards you and the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I wear his name on my chest every day. His name is just as big as my name on

my name tag! He loves all of us. And We are God's children. He will always be there for you, all you have to do is express to Him what you need, and what you want, and what you can do for Him!

A funny scipture in Mosiah 18:30... It says the word Mormon 6 times! So... In 18:30, 6 Mormons started the church! Made me laugh a little bit! Check it out!

If you have any questions for me, let me know! I love seeing and hearing what everyones doing! Shoot me an email, or write me a letter! (:

I love all of you so much! I promise if you do the things that I ask, you will see your life change for the better so much!

Until next time, my last report from Mexico City,

Elder McGee (:

Buenos Dias familia y amigos!

¿Que nueva? Tanto nueva cosas aqui en Mexico City CCM!

Yo tengo aprendia tanto Español! Es muy loco! El don del lenguas me ayudar mucho!

Voy a Chile en un semana y cuatro dias! ¡estoy muy emocianado! Te amo todos ustedes mucho! (:

    Guys, I just want you to know Ive learned so much this week! Every week I learn more and more exponentially!! I've got almost all the common verbs memorized, lots of scriptures in Spanish memorized, and now I'm working on the fifty different tenses! Each verb can be conjugated about one-hundred times to different words, and then there are irregular verbs that have no correspondence with the other words. Everyone literally speaks in only Spanish here, you get in trouble if you don't! So I've already been forced into it a lot. Also, playing soccer with all the Mexicans each day really helps and it's awesome because they are all very helpful. (: I know this isn't me learning the language. It's only been a little more than a month, and it would be impossible for any individual to learn this quickly. I give full credit to God, and the blessing I received as a missionary to recieve the Gift of Tongues! If you don't know what that is, it's basically when you submit yourself to prayer on your kness multiple times a day and give time to plead with our Heavenly Father to help us out. 

The spirit is so strong here! It's so cool because everyone prays while sitting on benches, before we eat, and other places! Its common to just pray whenever! I challenge anyone reading this, to spend at least five to ten minutes or maybe more every morning and every night on your knees pleading forgiveness to God, and showing your gratitude towards Him for everything you have! Because everything we have is because of Him, and if you think you did anything in this life by yourself, you are wrong! Now I say that with love, because I love all of you! But it is so important to show our gratitude and have a relationship with God. So please start doing it! you will receive many blessings, and you will see your life change in a matter of days! If you don't believe me, just give it a try! What's stopping you? (:

      Anyways, theres my little rant for the week (: We had the first live MTC devotional this week. It was so cool to be apart of something so miraculous. Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve spoke to us. He was in Provo, and they broadcast the devotional to the other MTC´s around the world, I believe. They said they were broadcasting to another thousand or so missionaries. It was cool because we were like 700 of them! It was also cool because the closing prayer was by a Sister going to the Tulsa, OK Mission which also covers Springfield. (:

Guys, the second coming is nearing. With the missionary numbers being higher than they ever will be, there is a reason we are going to cover the World with the Truth! Things are happening all over the World, and signs are being fulfilled daily!

Anyways, Elder Scott spoke on the importance of prayer. It was amazing, and the Spirit was soooooo strong! I wish all of you could've been there to feel his love, and his power through words. He said there are three ways we recieve answers to prayers. 1) We receive confidence, and peace from the Spirit which is a green light. 2) We will receive a stuper of thought which is a red light.  3) We will receive nothing. So what do we do when we receive nothing? It shows us that we may not be ready for the answer. It shows us that we must grow spiritually, maybe pray more or read the scriptures more and become closer to God before He is ready to give us an answer.

That is why it is so important to always have the Spirit to be with us. Its important that we always are doing the right things even down the the little things like our language, or our thoughts of other people. We all can do better at this. If we can keep our language clean, keep our thoughts clean, and especially keep our actions good, then we can have the oppurtunity to have the Holy spirit to be with us and to guide us. So when we have the spirit as our companion, we can grow closer to God, and recieve more and better answers to our prayer. He spoke on how we need to have quit times during the day to just ponder questions we may have in life. I wish i spent more quit alone time at home. I hope you all can do this. (: The last thing he said which really stuck out to me was that we need to pray even when we have no desire. God knows how we feel, but he wont help us until we ask him for what we want. When your laying in bed, and you just wanna sleep, get out of bed, and get on your knees! I cannot stress the importance of it! Always pray on your knees or on your feet. (:

     Okay, well more about what ive been up too! Same things almost every day! We wake up, get ready, study for an hour, go to breakfast, have 3 hours of spanish, teaching, and more studying, then we have sports time when we play ultimate frisbee, soccer, and volleyball. Ive always been teaching people to do backflips cause its fun. (: Then we have like an hour to study, or write or read. I have been reading the book of mormon, and im almost done with 3rd nephi. Im also reading our search for happiness. Both are extremely good books that I reccomend (: Then we go to lunch, and lunch is the biggest meal of the day. Its still usually some weird food, but some of it is good! They have way good chicken stuff! Then we go back to class for a second spanish, teaching and studying class! Then we go to dinner, followed by 2 more hours of study time. We like to have a little bit of fun at night time. We come up with the craziest games. They are way fun. We usually study for an hour, then talk about cool things we learned which usually turns into a deep gospel discussion about Josph Smith or the Lamanite and nephites. I learn alot during these discussions! Then for the last 30 minutes we do some fun stuff to keep ourselves sane! after the district study and fun time, everyone goes back to the apartments, and gets ready for bed, everyone talks for a little bit, then we go to sleep and start over. Except sundays are amazing, and tuesdays have devotionals, and thursdays are days where we email, do laundry, and play sports(: So we work really hard to prepare for the language, and the study materials to know what we are talking about. But we also have lots of fun! Im sadly gonna miss this place. Its a small paradise (: Lauren, you should bring some binaculars (or however you spell it) It would be cool to look out onto the city, because all you can ssee are tons of houses and mountains!

      Another really cool thing we learned about this week was how amazing the atonement is for all of us. Jesus Christ died for us so that we could live with our heavenly father again, I cant even describe or comprehend how amazing this is. Without out that happening, we would literally have no way back. But the coolest thing about it, is he knows how we have felt at our lows, and our highs. He knows how we feel every day. The best part, is there is never a time that we could be so low that he wont be there for us. He has felt our worst, along with everyone elses worst together, at one time!! So even when things are hard, dont feel bad. because Jesus Knows how we feel. So offer a prayer, and if you do it sincerely I promise you will feel much better! I wish i did more of these things back at home, but I want to share them with you guys so that you too can feel what I am feeling! I read alot about captain moroni in the book of mormon! What an amazing man! If you have never heard of him, get a book of mormon, and read like the last 20 chapeters of alma! A truly amazing amazing story and man! Can anyone help me with a question that I have? Whenever the lamanites are cursed, does that literally mean there skin was darkend or is that metaphorically speaking. It talks about it all through the book of mormon. And then sometimes it talks about their eyes being darkend. If someone could help that would be awesome (: Last thing I learned alot about this week was repentance. Repentance is not just being forgiven of our sins. It is when we constantly try to align our will with Gods will. We need to repent each day even for the small things we do! I promise it will make a difference in your life. (: Its amazing how much Ive already changed because of all these small and simple things that God asks us to do!

     Lets see, It sounds like everyone is doing awesome from all the emails I received this week! Its so great hearing about whats going on at home (: If you have questions, be sure to ask away (: Im here for one more week! I should leave a week from monday or tuesday! This past monday was when the first group of Americans left to their missions! Pretty cool! I came in the third week, so yeah! Im learning lots every single day, Im praying for everyone at home each and everytime I pray. I love all of you soooo so much and i want everyone to make improvements in their lives. I know the things I have written about are true, and can make a huge difference. Its the whole reason Im on a mission, to bring others unto Christ! So im going down to Chile to hopefully change peoples lives. So thats why I need everyone I know and love and have spent time with to change their lives too. That means YOU! I need a support team of people doing things at home that I ask of, so that I can help other people too!(: It breaks my heart to know how downhill the world is going, which is why we all need to try better! Even me, Im trying my best to do the things God has commanded us. If I can do it, so can you!

     I love all of you so much and wish I could be spending time with you every day! But I know what Im doing is important so I gave up everything I did, and everything I was to do this work. So that is my testement on how important these things are. I want to live with all my friends and family after this life, so I need everyone to do these things(:

My challenge for you this week:

1. Pray morning and night for 5-10 minutes on your knees.

2. Keep yourself good so that the spirit can reside in your heart and guide you.

3. Finish the First book of Nephi in the book of mormon paying special attention to how faithful Nephi is.

4. Love everyone you meet, and smile as much as possible!

I love all of you and miss you guys so much! Pray hard, work hard, and play hard. Life us supposed to be enjoyable. Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they may have joy. -2 Nephi 2:25

Love,

Elder McGee

Picture one: Our branch President, and first councilor, President Suaste and President Flores both from Mexico City and speak English fluently (I grew a lot)Picture two: I got a haircut. (:

Mi familia!

Mi familia!

Oh, how I miss you all you so much.(:

This week has been amazing, like usual, but I am continuing to grow so much as a person and a missionary, and in Spanish.

So many things to write about! I'll start off with last Friday! I'll do my week in chronological order. Friday was probably one of the hardest days so far because it was the day after P-day when I get to write home (obviously). I have it to where Kylie can text my email, so we go back and forth for a couple hours on Thursday, which is amazing. (: Friday was a pretty long day and it lagged on because we didn't really have anything to look forward to. 

We have Devotionals and movies on Sundays, Devotionals on Tuesdays, P-day on Thursdays, and nothing on the other days except for lots of study time! So Fridays we have nothing to look forward to on Saturday. We have been teaching a lot of lessons in all Spanish to other missionaries and teachers who act like investigators. 

But then on Friday something amazing happened. I was struggling a little bit with thinking about home, and just memorizing some things in Spanish, and I was just having a little bit of a hard time, so I sat down on a bench and just prayed my heart out more than I ever have in my life! I prayed for about thirty minutes, and my companion thought I was sleeping afterwards. But I just poured my heart out, and prayed for everyone individually and for me to have strength and happiness and reassurance that what I am doing is right. I prayed about everything on my mind, and everything I could possibly think of. 

I then sat and pondered for about ten minutes, and it was probably the most peaceful, yet exhausting ten minutes of my life. I felt the Spirit of the Lord so strongly that I was almost in tears. It was amazing because it wasn't just one little feeling like I've had my whole life. It was ten whole minutes of strong burning in my heart, and tingling down my back that reassured me that I am doing the right thing and that everything will be just fine! 

I then prayed for the Gift of Tongues with more sincerity than I have ever before. After my whole experience, I just focussed and memorized a pretty long Spanish scripture: The first vision as I mentioned in my last email or Blog. I memorized it faster than I ever could've before. It was amazing, and I can't really even explain what happened that night. The wind was mellow, and the air was cool. I sat in the middle of the grassy knoll and prayed my heart out with sincerity, a broken heart, and a contrite spirit. I never knew what that meant before I actually did it. 

What a powerful experience to know that our Savior, Jesus Christ is our Redeemer, and our Brother. What a powerful experience to see God's hand in my life more than I ever had before. And what an experience to truly feel the the Holy Spirit (Espirtu Santo) as a Comforter and a messenger to relay information from our Heavenly Father. For anyone who is reading this, I Challenge to to set aside ten, twenty or even thirty minutes to get down on your knees, and  plead with God, all your troubles, thoughts, needs, and especially your gratitude for Him.

Without Jesus Christ's Atonement, we would have no chance to live with our Father in Heaven again. God needs to know our thoughts, and our needs, and we need to express our gratitude to Him because he has given us all our knowledge, our worldly items, our families, our blessings, and everything in our lives is because of the grace of God. 

We are His children and He loves us, but we can't go through life without having a relationship with Him. The best way to increase your relationship with God, is to put your knees to work. Treat him like a good friend or your father, and talk to Him like He is right there in front of you. The things we can obtain from having an awesome relationship with God are promised to us with more than we could ever imagine or handle. He is the reason we have anything and everything, so tell Him thanks and tell Him about your life. Through the Holy Spirit as our messenger, and through Jesus Christ -- all good things can be accomplished. Choose ye this day whom you will serve, because if you are not with God, then you are against him. 

I just want everyone to be happy and experience the happiness I have had in my life. I am giving up everything I have: my hobbies, my talents, my girlfriend, my family, and even myself to serve the Lord for two years and share my happiness with others to invite them to come unto Christ. The Lord is planning on coming back soon. I can feel it. There is a reason that I am part of the Church's task force to go out and to share the Fullness of the Gospel with everyone. I am part of a fleet that will never be so high in numbers. I am on the front line of the battle with Satan to bring to truth to all those who need it. There is a reason why missionary work is so strong right now. I'm not sure of it, but I will let you know the reasons when I find out. With over 90,000 missionaries to soon be out, and the rate of Temples being built are higher than ever. I know that Jesus Christ himself is almost ready to come again. They cut off the Peru MTC and the Provo MTC because there was not enough room there. So if you are not ready, get ready. If you are not clean, get clean.  Let's join forces to overcome the devil and allow the war to be won by the Saints again!

So theres my rant. (:

As far as numbers go, we have around 100-150 new missionaries arriving each week. Like I said earlier,  the other 2 largest MTCs are at capacity because there are too many missionaries there. They are sending us here in Mexico many of the missionaries from Provo and Peru. This is not a lonely place anymore. We have had to move classrooms, and we can't even fit into the huge auditorium now. I wish to share the power of a bunch of 18-21 year olds who gave up their lives to serve the Lord. Anytime we all sing a song, it's amazing the power that comes with it. There are seventeen branches, with four or five districts in each, and 10-12 missionaries in each. Each district has its own teacher too. You can do the math, there are alot of people here right now. Its pretty crazy and amazing!

We had a Devotional from President Pratt about Temples. He is a church lawyer, and has helped find land for many of the South American Temples to be built upon.  He went to every single dedication in South America! He is an amazing man inspired of God. He is very loving and very relaxed but likes to keep things in order. 

I love it on Tuesday Devotionals when all the new missionaries arrive and they have no idea that we all wear suits on Devotional days and Sundays. They all come in in white shirts and ties, while everyone else is wearing suits. He makes a joke every week. He says all of you in the white shirts must have arrived today right?  Everyone laughs. I also love it when he asks someone to read a scripture and they dont have their scriptures. He gets so mad, it's funny! But he's an awesome guy! 

Sunday, we had an amazing day! Sundays are always great because you don't have to study Spanish, all you have to do is listen to the amazing talks, and feel the Spirit! We had a pretty awesome Priesthood meeting all about Power and Authority of the Priesthood! Then I taught our District meeting about the power of prayer. I spoke of my powerful experience earlier in the week, also my prayer that allowed my video to go viral. Everyone loves the viral video story because I talk about how I prayed for it to happen so that I could pay for my whole mission! All the missionaries in our zone always ask me about that story. I guess its pretty cool (: 

They also always talk about Kylie. I guess I have the most beautiful girlfriend out of all of them. and I agree (: I pray every night for every missionaries girlfriend! Haha. 

After district meeting, we had Sacrament and Fast and Testimony meeting. I bore my testimony on the importance of being happy and how the Gospel is a happy Gospel. I started off by walking up there and smiling for like twenty awkward seconds. Everyone just laughed. (: It was great! We then had a great Devotional by Elder Holland of the Qurom of the Twelve. It was a DVD, but yeah! haha. He talked all about how once you are converted, strengthen thy brotheren. Also, if you love me, feed my sheep. It was very powerful. If we love Jesus Christ, we have to feed his sheep and share the Gospel with everyone! Being a missionary requires an overnight change to be the best teachers in the world, with the most important message ever to be shared, with no hardly any training, no certificate of education, and no teaching experience. It's amazing how God can enable us to change into who He wants us to be almost overnight!

Let's see... The food is getting a little better! We now have cold milk, and full meals (: Umm Spanish is still progressing, I can teach whole lessons in Spanish, and carry on a pretty good conversation! I am having a little trouble memorizing all the irregulaar verbs and the conjugations with all the different tenses, but I'm not worried because they say if you just know the verbs, that you will pick up the tenses in the field! I only have nineteen more days left here! It's pretty easy, but I just want to get out and talk to real people and start the real thing. I'm probably not quite ready, but it's all good (: I'm almost through Alma now! What amazing scriptures there are in the Book of Mormon! It's amazing how when I start worrying about something, there are answers that I need to hear with what I'm reading that day! Crazy!

I am currently learning "God Be with You til We Meet Again" and it's an amazing song! I love it. (: It reminds me of Logan, because he played it the morning before I left!

I'm just so stoked to share the Gospel with everyone, and to return home with honor.

Pictures: Our study spot, some lighting, lots of Pizza for every Tuesday, and some pretty good tortilla stuff.

Well, that' about everything I've done this week! I love all of you, and can't wait to be hanging out in Springfield again! I can't wait to hear from all of you! I'm almost done with one month! Only twenty-three more. (: It'll fly!

Love,

Elder McGee

Good Morning Americans!

I have spent yet another week here in Paradise!

Let's see, where do I start off? Thanks so much for all the prayers and words of encouragement! I know that I could not do this without the support of you guys and God! I love hearing everything you guys are up to! So exciting to hear all the happy stuff going on!

This week I came to the conclusion that God is an awesome guy! I've been praying so much for all of you to be safe and happy and I can tell He´s got you covered.(: I also have found out how much He loves each and every one of us! He doesn't care if we make mistakes because we're all humans! He has answered so many of our prayers and blessings here in Mexico!

One of the guys in our District was very sick, because there has been a bug going around. I got to participate in his blessing and he was healed the next day! Amazing power that the priesthood (socerdocio) can bring to us! We got to watch a devotional from Elder Holland of the Twelve Apostles, and he blessed some of the buildings in the Provo MTC, and I know they have done the same to all the buildings here in the CCM. The blessing he offered was so in depth and detailed! It blew my mind! He blessed that the wallls would have Angels bordering them and that there would never be any acts of evil or violence within the walls. It's amazing! He's such a powerful man! I know I'm safe here even though I can hear everything going on outside of these walls! Mexico City is one crazy place! Can someone like google something about a canon going off many times a day in Mexico City and let me know what it means? Someone said that it's when someone dies! But who knows, you can tell a difference between gun shots and the canon! All night long there are wild dogs, and sirens, and canons going off!

Dad, I hope you're still working on bulding that awesome building in the back yard! I wouldn't mind living there for a couple months when I get back (:

The weird Mexican food is kinda getting old! Not only is it Mexican food, so everything is spicy, but its also cafeteria style food! Every morning we have dry pancakes! They have no syrup! All they have is honey, and chocolate and strawberry ice cream syrup! It's pretty great... Everyone is always very happy to serve us and meals are an enjoyable time of the day so oh well. (:

If anyone wants to send packages, the best way to do it is through a service called DHL. They do International shipping and it just seems to work a little better.  That's what the Mission President said! But I'm out of here in like three and a half weeks, so I don't know if it'll make it! I just got everyones "Dear Elders" from the 16th and 17th yesterday! So if you're going to do letters go ahead and send them to Chile (:

When I get down there I'm going to buy some more T-shirts, ties, and some Vans tennis shoes! I feel like a complete weirdo wearing running shoes and jeans on Prep-day! It's probably cheaper for me to buy stuff down there, so I probably won't ever ask for anything. I'm not sure! Hopefully they have Reeses Peanut Butter Cups or else I might ask for some of those..(:

I got to try some horchata the other day. Amy said it was something to try while I was here in Mexico! It was really weird.. But the locals seems to love it. So be it. (:

Every day we play soccer on this sweet field thing! It's just like a basketball court so it's on pavement, but it has metal soccer goals and a fence all the way around it, so its just like playing indoor soccer! It's so fun and such a good workout, but shoot I need to stop hurting myself! It's the only time of the day we can run around, so I run around like crazy smashing into people and tripping on the pavement! And not to mention all the bruises from not have shin guards! Like a fourth of my right foot was purple this week from kicking some other dude in the shin has hard as I could on accident! But hey, it's fun! (: I also got to play with some latinos the other day! They were really good!

As far as Spanish goes, I have a two-hour Spanish class in the morning, followed by an hour of study, then I have an hour of this cool Spanish computer program. Then I have another two-hour Spanish class at night, followed by an hour of personal study, followed by an hour of district language (Idioma) Study! So on average about eight hours of Spanish a day! It's great and I'm learning so much more than I did in High School in two weeks rather than two semesters and it's so exhausting! 

And that mixed with about three or four hours of reading the Book of Mormon, makes me fall asleep in thirty seconds every night! I'm currently in Alma! I've read some really funny things! When Zeniff and his people leave Zarahemla they go into the woods, and for some stupid reason they all star fighting each other and kill like half of each other. The guys that stayed alive went back to Zarahemla and told their wives and children that they killed their husbands. How stupid?! Just goes to show that people that don't have the Spirit in their lives have no direction! Also in the beginning of Alma, Alma the Younger just goes and fights off the whole side of this river bank and then takes all the dead bodies and throws them in the river and then Alma's army goes across a dead body bridge and kills everyone on the other side of the river, then Alma goes back home and baptizes a couple thousand people?! Like holy cow! 

Every day in our District meetings, the whole class always gets involved in these really deep discussions all about Heaven, or Joseph Smith's body guard, Porter Rockwell! Dad, one of the Elders in my district is just like me and you! His Dad loves church history and knows everything about it, and they have been to every church history site, so him being just like me picked up random facts about Joseph Smith or cool stories and we bounce off of each other telling all the amazing stories of his life and other cool things! It's awesome!

One of the Seventy's came and gave us a Devotional and he along with my Mission President grew up in the Mormon Colonies here in Mexico! I didn't get the chance to ask if they knew all the Bowmans or not, but I'm sure they do! I'll ask President one of these days. (:

I was about to give a lesson to an investigator we were teaching, and she asked me why I had dirt on my knees, it was cool to explain to her (in Spanish) why we should pray on our knees as much as possible to show respect to our Heavenly Father and to humble ourselves before him! We then taught her how to pray and proceeded to do so on our knees! What a powerful experience (even though the investigator is fake) to share with her because she noticed dirt on my knees!

I promise anyone that wants to read the Book of Mormon that you can do so.  If you want to find out more, start each reading with a sincere prayer asking to have your mind opened and to be able to understand what you are reading. The Spirit will help you do so! I don't know why I never read much before but now I'm kicking my self wishing I had! The Book of Mormon is so true! I don't know how anyone could deny something that literally happened and was history! No one denies that Columbus found America, or that the Civil War happened. How could someone not know this happened?! Joseph Smith was the biggest stud ever!

The three most important things to happen on earth were the Fall, the Atonement, and the Restoration of the Church! I know this Church and Gospel is true! And for anyone to deny it they would have to be crazy! One thing we can all do better with our friends is not to just be an example, but to let our friends experiance what knowledge we have and experiance the power of the Spirit! I wish I had taught more friends in High School. I thought being an example was good enough! But to pray with people and to tell them Joseph Smiths exact words of the First Vision is incredible! I am memorizing it in Spanish right now, and it is truly amazing! I can feel the Spirit so strong every time I read it or say it! If you haven't read it, look it up in Joesph Smith History. I think verse 16 or something!

I don't know if you'll understand this or not, but read it slowly and imagine the First Vision and you will feel the Spirit. Vi una columna de luz, más brillante que el sol, directamente arriba de mi cabeza; y esta luz gradualmente descendió hasta descansar sobre mí. Vi en el aire arriba de mí a dos Personajes, cuyo fulgor y gloria no admiten descripción. Uno de ellos me habló, llamándome por mi nombre, y dijo, señalando al otro: Éste es mi Hijo Amado: ¡Escúchalo! Amazing stuff right there!

I love it when everyone tells me what your up too! Keep it Up! So awesome to hear about Logan and Michael at EFY, and so exciting to hear that everyone is reading 3 Nephi 11! This week I challenge everyone to read 1 Nephi 1, and Joesph Smith History 1 and then compare the two! It's actually pretty incredible to see the similarities! If you can't find ten minutes a day to read a little bit, then you're lazy. I'm reading three and four hours a day!

I'm praying for everyone! I love all of you and I miss good ole Springfield tons! Two years will fly by! And I'm stoked to be in Chile in about three weeks. (:  Have questions?  Ask me.

Yo se que El Libro De Mormon es verdadad! El Espirirtu Santo puede ayudarles nos mucho! Nessitamos oracion cada los dias! Me gusta El CCM mucho! Yo te amo ustedes mucho! 

Con Amo,

Eldere McGee