Bienvenidos!

My District

Hello Everyone! The first week of the MTC is over! It has been so much fun being here learning spanish and the gospel. It started on Tuesday with my flights, where I was the only missionary on both of my flights, and then I had to make my way around the Mexico City airport by myself which was pretty new but scary. Then someone eventually found me and we made our way to the CCM. The city here is crazy, there are no line dividers on the road, every other car is an old Volkswagen beetle, and there are street vendors playing frogger everywhere. But then we made it to the MTC and I met mi companero elder Marine, who has only been a member for just over a year and he is a spiritual giant! He also just has so much energy and confidence (similar to my boy Luke Crockett) that it makes it really easy to talk to people and learn.

So far we have been doing a lot of language studies, y mi espanol es no bueno! it is getting there actually, I just finished memorizing the first vision today, and for only knowing pollo quesadilla on monday, i've made some pretty good progress. everyone is a lot better than me when it comes to the language, but luckily the latinos here are very loving so I don't feel bad about it lol. We will have language for about 6-8 hours a day, and then an hour for exercise (beach volleyball is my favourite) and then breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The food here is okay, I've mostly been surviving off of apples and watermelon because that is all that I trust. The showers here are cold and the drinking water is grossly warm. But the experiences I've had here outweigh all of those things. There is such a strong sense of the spirit here, even though your mind is clouded with sounds of fireworks, gunshots, street racing, or annoying green parrots. I still have never been more in tune with the spirit.

Da Bois

There has just been so many cool experiences in relation to the gospel here, our first day they had an investigator come and we talked to him, his name is kendrick, and he talked to us about his problems, with his family, and about himself, and how he didn't believe in god or anything like that. and by the end of our conversation everyone was in tears, the spírit was so palpable in that moment, it was such a wholesome experience. He was able to feel a celestial kind of love he was missing his whole life, it truly was a life changing experience.

I'm not sure what else to write about, the MTC is such a cool place and it makes me even more excited for the field, only in the MTC could you see a group of Hatians and a group of gringos from provo playing soccer together and enjoying life, there is such a sense of community in this gospel that is unrivaled by anything else.

That's basically it, I'm doing great! If you're ever worried about Elder Barlow at any point in time, just imagine him playing beach volleyball in Mexico City with a bunch of Latinos, because chances are that is what I will be doing at that point and time.

Adios!

My great view from class everyday!