I just figured out from Sarah Merkley how to post Coleman's letter, so here are his frist few weeks. I love reading about all of these boys' experiences. I am so proud of all of them!
Week 3 Y'alls:
Hey guys. It's crazy, I can't believe that it is already the third week. I swear I was in here writing home to you guys just yesterday. I guess the saying is true, days are weeks and weeks are days. I went to the temple again, and it was cool, hard in Spanish but cool haha.
I don't really know what to say about my week, it was the same as last week I guess. Just pretty average haha. My teachers are really cool, I like them a lot. My morning teacher is this huge poly guy that lived in Utah and used to climb a lot, so I talk about that with him sometimes, and our afternoon teacher is a guy from Mexico that is way fun but super strict. I am not making life long friends with anyone here haha, but the guys in my district are cool. They are a bunch of high school grads, so I am the mature one sometimes (definitely not all the time. Or even most of the time.)
I am learning a lot of Spanish and I can pretty much go a whole day saying no English words, so that's cool I guess. I always forget to take pics, but fair's fair because you don't send me any either haha. Tuesday was my exact halfway point in the CCM, so that was really crazy to think of. My comp is the same, but I guess it is whatever. I am becoming patienter, little by little by little.
I miss America a lot every day, and I can't wait to make it into Texas. The first thing I'm going to do is get as much American crap fast food and shove it all into my face. That is cool that you guys are in San Diego, I bet it is fun there. I remember when I was the "oldest" after Nate moved out. Tell Liza not to worry, you will re-ignore her soon enough haha.
Conference was really cool haha, I never thought I would write that sentence. I liked it a lot and took notes and whatnot. I am the only person in my district going to Fort Worth. In fact, I am the only person I know of in the entire CCM (800+ people) that is going there. My comp is going to Dallas, there are 3 going to El Salvador, 2 to St. George, and 1 to Cali. It was super weird to not go to priesthood with Dad, it didn't feel real haha. I definitely miss the Outback tradition, that was the best.
Well, until next week, do good and keep the famdamily together.
Love,
Cole
His favorite place! Ha ha!!
This is the "butterfly" for Leena!
Makin my Momma Proud:
This week I listed some questions in my letter to Coleman and told him a story that I heard at General Relief Society Meeting, so his letter responds to some of those things.
Hey Famdamily,
This week was good. The saying here is that the Days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days. I definitely feel that way, the days are long but i cant believe it is P-Day already. It is so crazy. Here we go
1. Still no diarrhea. I actually took some stool softener pills on a dare, but i am still regular as ever.
2. The best food was these things i called chicken circles. Pretty self descriptive. The worst meal was some mystery meat, and we got there late so there was nothing else to eat. I was digging around in there and i found some hair, a ton of gristle, ligaments, veins, and literally leaves from outside were in the meat. So that was gross. Most of the time there is cereal stations so if the food looks gross i eat cereal and fruit. A lot of fruit. I have had a banana with almost every meal, a ton of apples, and they have a pear apple hybrid that is pretty good.
3. The Spanish is good. I can pray and bear my testimony fluently. I speak a lot of Spanish during the day, like 60% of the time. It is hard but i think i am learning fast. I know a lot more than i did when i left, so that is cool. The best advice i have heard is not to get frustrated at how much i don't know, but to be happy about how much I've learned.
4. I try to speak as much Spanish as i can, but if i don't know the word or how to say it, i will talk English.
5. My comp is... frustrating. We are all learning together, but i am used to learning fast and screwing around after that but now i kinda have to help my comp learn. We are "teaching" investigators that are our teachers. Sometimes my companion will start talking and he doesn't know that much Spanish so he will say things like "jesus crist played for our sins" or something and i have to hold in a laugh. I kept a timer of the amount of time i spent waiting for him in one day and it was 55 minutes and 8 seconds. In one day. so that was hard, patience i guess i don't know.
6. Megan is great, i talk to her all the time, and i see McKenzie Maxfield a lot too so that is great.
7. there is not a whole lot more to take pictures of.. every day is the same haha but i will send all the ones i can
8. No, the mail here is way slow, i guess it takes like 2-3 weeks for a letter and 5-6 for a package to get down here, but I'm emailing some people.
9. Yeah, it is pretty fun most of the time. Learning Spanish is fun sometimes, and my district is pretty cool. Nothing like the ol crew back home, but better than some of the other ones I've seen. Nobody really gets my sense of humor here... so that sucks. but most of the time it is great.
That mountain story is true haha, i am used to going up and then down and then up, instead of going slow with the rest of the people. I freaking miss hiking, and the mountains, and nature so bad. I miss chaos, everything here is so structured. But whenever I think it is hard and it sucks and its just way too sweaty or i hate these stupid clothes, i can always feel that this is where i am supposed to be. I do miss alone Cole time though. That is hard to have a companion.
A picture is worth a thousand words:
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Coleman and his cousin Megan. Together in Mexico!!
The First Week:
To preface Cole's letter there are a couple of things you should know: Before Cole left I was giving him tons of advice and one of them was to take some anti-diarrhea medicine with him since he is going to Mexico. And in his Coleman-like way he replied that he wants to get diarrhea. and that it's a good cleanse and stuff like that. It made me laugh so hard and we teased about it quite a bit those last few days!! So in my first letter to him I asked him if he had any diarrhea yet. Also he and Nate have their own language that consists of a lot of Sponge Bob references and other weird movies, etc.
Whats up family? I just got back from the temple in Mexico City. It was soo cool! I got to go through the entire thing in spanish, which was really cool.
So I guess Ill just tell you about my week. The first day was pretty sucky. I got there finally and I was so tired all I wanted to do was find my companion and go to bed, but my companion wasnt there yet. So I pretty much just YOLOd it alone for the first day, went to a devotional that I slept through that night, then went back to my Casa at night. I went into my room, and there was still nobody there. So I put away all my clothes, wrote in my journal, and got everything ready for bed. Finally, at like 10 pm the other 3 guys in my room showed up and I had a companion finally. Waking up hasnt really been hard for me, probably because of the 11 straight months of work waking up at 6. I think I get more sleep here than I did all summer. The mexico CCM is pretty cool. The grass is so green and they cut it almost every day, Dad would be so jealous. There is like a 8 foottall cement wall with a chain link fence on top, and on top of that is some barbed wire. Outside the CCM is insane. It looks like somebody dropped a bomb on a regular city, and little kids planned out the rebuild. There is no structure here, it is just crazy do whatever you want buildings everywhere except the CCM. I think I know why i got called to come to Mexico. Its because i needed to see how great America is. I really cant wait to get back haha, I really appreciate the states and make fun of the kids who have to live like this for the next 2 years. The spanish is coming along way good I think. We have been teahing an '' investigator'' for the past week. Its really a teacher, but he pretends not to know english so its kinda hard. I usually end up talking a lot more than my companion becuase he never knows what to say so he just looks at me. It is kinda hard but I learn better by doing anyway, so thats good.
The CCM is kinda like a mix between high school, seminary, EFY, and a hitler youth camp. Haha, there are so many rules and stuff and all the kids are super high schooly, but its cool haha. My district is mostly pretty cool. There are 8 dudes and 2 girls. Three of the guys went to the same high school in Arizona, and so they are all friends. One of the guys is exactly like Jordan Todd Woods. He is always singing, and loves the theatre and whatnot. All those guys live in the room next to mine. Then there is my room, the guys are way nice. My companion is nice and all that mischief. If I had to describe him, I would say he is pretty weenie hut junior (explain it Nate). He is just a weird kid, and we dont talk much, but at least he gets up on time and wants to work. He always takes a while to get ready, so I wait for him a lot. The girls in our district are older, so they act like theyre better than us. Its pretty annoying sometimes but they keep us on track sometimes, so i guess its 6s.
I am pretty sure the reason they didnt give us a P-day until 10 days later is because they dont want everyone to write about how much it sucks. The first few days are way hard, its 16 hours of study, eat, class class class, eat, class study study, eat, study, sleep. It is hard to get used to for sure. But it is good now haha. I actually like it here. The food here is... well... haha nevermind. But Mom, I am proud to say that I have had zero diarrhea here. In fact, my poops have been more solid than ever, even though I go 3-4 times a day. That is my relaxation time, I get a few minutes of alone time, without a companion or a teacher. Some of my favorite times have been on the toilet. I see Megan all the time, I am actually like 7 feet from her right now on the computers. I also saw a girl from my tech class, Lise. My favorite person to see is McKenzie Maxfield though. We talk about home or just funny stuff that happened and its good to know someone from home to talk to about little things like that. I think if I had the choice, I would actually choose Provo though.
All the days blend together way too much. It is probably around 65-70 degrees hereeveryday, and it rains every night. Sunday was my favorite day, because I got to take a little nap and church was way good actually. I play a lot of basketball and a little volleyball and whatnot for exercise time, so it is great. The first few days we didnt get any exercise time so i was losing my mind but now we get to ball out everyday and its way fun.
It is way great to hear about home! Its weird, it feels like Ive been gone way longer than that, but also it was like it was yesterday. Ill send some pics and whatnot as many as i can. The mail here is apparantly way slow, it takes about 2 or 3 weeks for a letter, and 4 to 6 weeks for a package, so if you are going to send me a package, do it soon please haha!
A few requests-
Please call me Cole. Haha I hear Elder Hansen WAY too much haha, its weird. Everytime I hear or read Cole it is like christmas haha.
Send pictures!! Of anything you can see haha. Anything that is like home.
If you are sending a package, will you send me some pics of friends for the album, a family pic or two for the frames, some toothpics (I need something to chew on all day, I have had this popsicle stick forever haha), CANDY, some drink mixes, and Nate, could you get me a scrub brush or two? haha i feel so dirty all the time, and I wanna scrub.
I miss everyone, but it is going great. I really, really miss music, so Mom was right.
I love you all so much-
THE Elder Cole Hansen
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