Monday, September 11, 2023 - At Least There is Ariana Grande

Hey everybody!!

Before reading this, my phone is bugging so I am having my mom send this email this week until I get it figured out, so if you want to respond to my email make sure to email me at zachary.bacon@missionary.org and not my mom, THANKS!!

Wow it's been a minute since my last email with leaving the Mexico Training Center and all, and now as you may have inferred my day for sending my email will be Mondays, but there is a lot from the last 10 days so let's get into it:

Leaving the CCM was actually quite a bit harder than I thought it would be. Didn't really realize how much I liked it until I left. We had a nice couple days while we were still there. I'll so some quick bullet points about the last couple of days there:

-met a guy going to Albuquerque on his mission, so basically he will be in high school musical #jealous #gowildcats #iloveandmisshighschoolmusicaltoomuch

-Spanish slowly kept improving, making tiny baby steps of progress

-more good times hanging with my teachers and people in my district. SHOUTOUT DISTRICT 2B I LOVE AND MISS YOU GUYS SO SO MUCH!!! also I think we forgot to add Hernandez to our mission emails so if anyone has his info I would love to get it😅

-my aunt Beth came to the training center! She works for the church and was here so she came and said hi to me in one of my classes, so so cool and fun to see family while I'm away. She also talked for a second during my final devotional/activity that I had while in the CCM, so that was really awesome and special to me. Shoutout Beth love you much❤️

-had to say goodbye to all of my teachers and my district, which is really sad and hard but I know we are all where we are supposed to be. God is watching over us and I know I'll see all of them again after the mission

We left the CCM at like 2 in the morning and had a long day of travel until we got to El Salvador. It was quite a lot to take in. Met the mission president and his wife, and then we did some welcome stuff and went to a house nearby and stayed the night. Guys we aren't in the USA anymore. The house was not the nicest of all time and it was just like "what am i doing here". Next day we met our trainer, and he is from Idaho and has been on the mission for about 20 months so his Spanish is great. He has been helping me a lot and we have recently been speaking only Spanish from 6:30am-9pm, besides from me asking what words mean and stuff. 

Our apartment here is actually pretty nice, he says it is definitely one of the nicer houses in the mission, but it still doesn't have any air conditioning just 2 box fans. The variance of niceness in this area is wild. The place where we do shopping is pretty nice, looks very similar to the US, but the majority of the houses other than where we live are really rough. It's definitely different but it is just an adjustment. We have had some appointments with members and people who want to learn more about the church, as well as done some little lessons with people and visited with others. Lots of dogs and chickens running around which is kind of funny. Also shoutout my mom I thought of her when I saw a mouse run across the floor in a house I was in visiting a member of the church here. 

When we were waiting in a building to finalize some things for our apartment, they were playing music in there and it was Ariana Grande which was sick. Just something kinda fun while we waited😁

On a more serious note, the mission since leaving the training center has been really hard for me. I don't know enough Spanish to contribute much during lessons, just reading scriptures out loud saying prayers and bearing testimony, and it's very hard for me to connect with people because I can't communicate. I also am struggling a lot from being away from home and being in a new place that I'm not used to. It's overall just hard for me to not be with my friends and family, and I miss all of you so so much. I am definitely struggling out here so if anyone or other missionaries have some words of encouragement for their first while in the mission it would be greatly greatly appreciated.

As I was sitting here responding to emails, I had the thought that I can't imagine being here for almost 2 more years when it's only my 4th day in the actual mission field. But, the words came into my head "persever hasta el fin" meaning "to persevere until the end". This is a part of the missionary purpose, and we have to continue to persevere even when it seems impossible and hard and place our trust in God. 

Love you all very very much, please please send me email updates, pictures, updates, anything, they really make my week

Elder Bacon

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