Week 2

This week has been an interesting one. In the CCM we are broken down into Zones and districts, there are usually 3 districts (A,B,C) and there are usually around 8-10 elders/hermanas in each district but last week we one district of elders (B) left so we have only had 2 districts for the last week. The CCM President was released from his calling this past week and flew to his home today... IN LAS VEGAS he is in the tule springs stake his name is president pratt!  The new president is his second counselor, cant remember his name, but he has been gone most of the time being trained in Provo. On Sunday, I spoke in sacrament meeting, i talked about fasting and, drawing from the beginning comments about my zone, your zone is your branch, or who you go to church with, so on Sundays the Hermanas go to relief society while the guys all write their talks for the sacrament meeting we like to refer to as the Hunger Games, when the conducting person stands up and just announces the program and who will be speaking on the spot... so everyone goes in with a prepared talk but this week my companion and I spoke, BTW when you prepare a talk you are given 3 options to talk from this week was fasting, teaching with the spirit, and then our district leader forgot and so we only had 2 options until Sunday morning but at that point people had already chosen one but the third topic was scriptures but we both spoke on fasting. so after the girls go the relief society (which is with all the hermanas in the CCM together) the elders go to priesthood which is just with you zone so there were 9 elders in priesthood because we are missing a district haha and priesthood is in english, then after that is a quick district meeting about what you learned in your classes and sacrament with our two districts so everyone was super worried because there was a really big chance of them being called on, and then as sacrament is about to get started.... IN WALKS PRESIDENT PRATT AND HIS WIFE hahaha. it was really intense with him there... but i think my talk went well, or at least i felt that it did. After that is just basically jumping back and forth between your classroom and the auditorium for: a class with the president (which all missionaries except the newbies go to because they get the chastity talk), a devotional, and a video at the end of the day, the video this week was testaments which i love. Monday i got the pictures, cookies and donuts which were great. and today (TUESDAY) we went to the temple, which was closed so we just got a tour of the visitors center, took some pictures and bought some stuff from the store. this week went by way faster than last, days feel like weeks and weeks feel like months/days depending on how you`re week has been haha. Love you all and i pray for everyone all the time... in Spanish haha have a good week

Elder Hinrichsen and his district at the Mexico City Visitor's Center

The sign reads "We Follow Jesus Christ"

Mexico City LDS Temple

Week 1

Hola!!! 

  The first week on the mission. It is a weird feeling, and I definitely know the saying of weeks feel like days and days feel like weeks... well not so much the second part yet but everyone says that bout week 3 it flies by. The first day was basically just a bunch of welcome meetings, we met with a doctor to see if our shot records were good, ate dinner, got a bunch of materials and talked a lot about our purpose. We got some materials, more meetings then to bed. The second day was just meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting... lots of time to think about home so that day felt so long!!! We talked to a fake investigator with a bunch of missionaries. We basically just sat in chairs and were lectured about things here, how life was gonna be and honestly I felt like they made it seem a lot worse than it is, because once we got into the swing of things it got a lot better. We had a ton of meetings about obedience and about being a successful missionary. Friday is when we really got going into our regular schedule. We met our morning teacher, Hermano Tanoco, who served in our Las Vegas West mission!! he got home like a year and a half ago. Friday we woke up and had 30 minutes to get ready and to our classroom, which is basically where we spend all day every day, and had about an hour of study time, then we ate breakfast (the food is really hit or miss here, some days its awesome, others its rough, for example, some elders said the worst thing they had here was a single hot dog for breakfast, no bun, no condiments, just a hot dog, cant wait until that day haha) then we had our first lesson with our first investigator... IN SPANISH ONLY, and the lesson was supposed to be 45 minutes long, it was really scary preparing but when we were in there it was way better than I thought. the investigator talked a lot so that took up a bunch of time. we taught the power of prayer and that we have a God who loves us... in VERY broken spanish haha. after the lesson we had to do the missionary investigator cycle... (prepare, personal study, companion study, language study, teach) We prepare a lesson and decide what we will each teach, then study our own part by ourselves, then with our companion we talk about our part, then we translate our part, then we teach the lesson. This is the process we do all the time, when we are not eating, or sleeping we are doing a step in this process. Our day starts and 6:30 and ends at 10:30 the days feel to long because the middle of them is at 2 oclock!!! haha we eat in the comedor, which is just a gym type thing for the school that used to be here because the real comedor is under renovation. so we eat in a little gym type thing. we get an hour of gym time every morning but my zone but other people get it at different times every day. our zone is our branch, and there are 3 districts in our zone. our district has 2 companionships of elder and 2 of hermanas. my companion is elder gibb from American Fork Utah, he is going to Chesapeake Virginia. Most days are very repetitive, but Sunday was great. We had study time in the morning, the siters went to relief society, we studied, then we went to priesthood and the sisters studied, priesthood is all in english, thankfully. after priesthood we had a district meeting where we just discuss a topic of the gospel, this week was prayer, everyone just bore testimony of prayer, it was great, then we had sacrament meeting, this was fun... how sacrament works is, it is all in spanish and everyone is told the topics for the meeting during the week and everyone has to prepare a 5 minute talk and then people are told who is talking when whoever is conducting announces the schedule form the pulpit... luckily for me and our district, we had a bunch of kids leaving so they all spoke this week on testimony, service, and gratitude. the rest of the day was good, we had a devotional, which was a replayed video of a Holland devotional about our generation of missionaries, then we saw some videos about sister missionaries in the church, the stone cutter, and faith in Christ. We finished the day with something like a district testimony meeting, it was great. Every day other than that is very similar, we plan and teach almost all day. Its hard, its demanding, but I really do love it. My companion and i get along great, and we teach well together. Love you all, and hope you are doing well. I pray for everyone all the time, seriously though we pray here like 20 times a day. haha take care, talk to you next week.

Elder Hinrichsen and Elder Gibbs

Classroom at the CCM

His bed (he's on the bottom)

The Zone