Dallin H. Oaks came to the CCM !

¡Dallin H. Oaks came to the CCM!

SO. GOOD.

It was broadcasted to all the missions in Central and South America. It was kind of neat how they did it. Instead of having a translator up there with him like normal, all of the Latinos were given headsets to listen to it in Spanish. AND WE SAT FRONT AND CENTER. I forced my compañera to eat fast and leave dinner early with me so we could hurry and get to the auditorium. We were walking out of the Comedor and Hermana McDougal grabbed my arm to stop me. (which has turned into a normal thing with all the people I bump into) So I turned around and Elder Oaks was walking in the Comedor! The room was crazy still. He was smiling so big and waving at everyone.

The first speaker was Elder Whitney Clayton. Like an apostle of the Lord wasn´t enough, we got to hear a member of the seventy too! He stressed teaching investigators the importance of keeping commitments. He said that if investigators don´t keep commitments, they won´t keep covenants.

The beginning of his talk, Elder Oaks talked of miracles. He said that out of all the amazing miracles that have ever happened, the greatest miracle is when a man of the world becomes a man of God. Another quote I loved from his talk is that the difference between a green missionary and a mature missionary is that a mature missionary KNOWS he is a servant of the Lord. The whole thing was just so good! Ok, last thing he said that I loved- The purpose of the church isn´t to get people baptized, or even to teach them how to get to the Celestial Kingdom. But that the true purpose of the church is to show people how to be EXALTED in the Celestial Kingdom!! Whoa!

When the devotion was over we all got to SHAKE HIS HAND! After my turn to shake hands WITH AN APOSTLE we stepped outside the doors and I was so excited I jumped around. Hermana McDougal was entertained by that

Earlier before the devotional Elder Oaks van drove past our Elders and Elder Simonton told him he was named after him, cause his name is Dallin. And Elder Oaks told him when he shook hands tonight he would give him a hug, and he DID!! Everyone was a little jealous. When he came out the doors every Elder in our zone started hugging Elder Simonton so that they could claim to have "hugged" Elder Oaks too. We all lined up outside the doors and sang God Be With You Till We Meet Again in Spanish for when we came out, but he didn´t end up leaving that way, so that was sad. 

Now the rest of the week:

For TRC (where we teach real people) we went on exchanges and I taught with Hermana Asay. It was hard teaching with someone new and not given a lot of time to prepare well. One of the people we taught was a 14 year old girl who didn´t even try to pretend to understand what we were saying. So that was a wake up to how little we know. 

Made some new Latino friends! We play volleyball with them a lot and I forget my name tag pretty regularly when I change clothes, so they can´t ever remember my name, so now they all call me Nueve York! They yell it out whenever they see us in the cafeteria, it´s the best. 

A representative of the MTC director in Salt Lake sat in on one of our lessons! He came in at the very end of the lesson and pretended to be our investigators friend and wanted to know what we had been talking about. So then we summarized the whole 30 minute lesson in the last five minutes we had left. It was an experience for sure. We found out later our teacher didn´t know that that was going to happen, he was just as shocked as us! 

The elders do all sorts of crazy things. One of the elders in our zone, Elder Evans who is a generation above us, even had a goal to get the whole CCM talked to, and has succeeded more than once! The first time was our first week here, it happened because he had been teaching all the newbies the "pass out game", were you lock your knees until you pass out. Last week they stole a traffic cone and climbed on each other’s shoulders to stick it on a light post, it stayed there for a super long time! The past two weeks what has been HUGE in the CCM, is hiding spoons in peoples bags and pockets. Written on the spoons was " Pass me on, Don´t be seen" Later, they upped the stakes and wrote on them "Get me to Pres. Call and you win". There were over 50 spoons circulating the compound. Then this Sunday before our class with the CCM presidency, President Call shared a spiritual thought and scripture about being mature and growing up. After he finished, he was very silent, and just held up a spoon. The reaction was priceless. The new generations didn´t understand at all. All of the girls in my district just turned around and we gave our Elders “The Look”. Elder Evans made his goal. Twice!

That night the devotional was by Sean Cates, the CCM coordinator. He is a super funny guy, and has a brand new little baby we get to see in the Comedor a lot! I want to share his opening line. He stated the 14 Article of Faith:

"We believe in meetings, all that have been scheduled, all that are now scheduled, and we believe that there will be yet scheduled many great and important meetings.

We have endured many meetings, and hope to be able to endure all meetings.

Indeed, we may say that if there is a meeting, or anything that resembles a meeting or anything that we might possibly turn into a meeting, we seek after these things. "

Yesterday we got very dressed up for district pictures and our teacher Hermana Arnoud let us know that we need to look that good every day and that we don´t put enough effort into getting ready. We just laughed! I don´t think we will ever let her live it down that she called us ugly. ;D