¿Como esta? Este semana fue muy bueno y muy difícil. Haha Hmm thats weird you couldnt find it. I know they have it in the states because most of my district had had it before...(´¨had had¨ stupid English) haha. Yeah I ws thinking about you when I was sick, . I´m not sure how it works but I just had to take a pill for like 2 weeks and then I think its supposed to fix it. I have another pill too to take if it gets bad but Ive only used it twice and just right after I got them because the first pill fixed the problem. They worked instantly, I dont know maybe its mental but either way it works. 

The birds- Yes and there are sooooo many everywhere. The other day we were teaching our investigator ´Miguel´(hes actually just our teacher pretending to be one of his favorite investigators from his mission) anyways were sitting there and a breeze comes by and knocks a big ole chunk of dried bird poop on to my lap. Good thing it was dried. Then another time we were teaching Álberto¨(same situation different teacher) I put my hand down on the bench into some bird poop. I have issues. The birds are sooo loud all day too its kind of insane how many there are. 

Im glad you liked Tenorio he´s such a good man and soo funny. In one of his talks he was telling us about how he met his wife. He was a branch president in a very successful branch when he was in his early twenties and he received a call from the stake president saying they wanted to make the branch a ward and he was going to be the bishop. Tenorio was very surprised and then said ´but Im not married¨ the president said I know you have 2 months and if you don´t find a wife we´ll call one of the nice single Hermanas of the stake to be your wife hahaha. So he prayed specifically about that (I remember now this was in the specific prayers talk) and the next sunday there was a new Hermana that moved in from the Mormon Colonies in Chihuahua. He said the moment he saw here he knew and then he pretty much went straight up to here and begged her to marry him haha. He has sooo many funny and very spiritual stories. The people here are so humble they notice so much of God´s hand in their lives. 

Im so excited for you to be a missionary and I cant wait to hear more about what goes on.  

I I love Mexicans!

Its crazy it is already spring break!!! Im glad to hear that you guys are having fun....and that you replaced me with KIM....just kidding haha. Its crazy how close Ive gotten to my district and how it just seems normal now to be with them every day. They and my amazing teachers are my substitute family. I am going to miss the half that go to Monterrey. Its also kind of hard to be with them everyday too though and I definitely understand everyone that talks about hard companions now and I know that its something that I need to learn to deal with and it will help me in my life. Im so glad I have a good companion that truly is one of my best friends here.Please pray for me to have kind thoughts because it is a struggle haha. I have also become great friends with Elder Turner and he´s going to BYUI and keeps telling me how excited he is for it and that we will be able to hang out after the mission which is way cool so you guys will probably meet him someday. Elders Haggard, Tuia, and Clark are also going to BYUI and I really like all 3 of them too so itll be fun.

Yep this is my last week in the CCM. Its sooo crazy! It went so fast. I leave monday morning at 7 which is super nice because most people leave way early in the morning...like anywhere from 2:30-5 so its nice that because we are in the city our mission president will come pick us up. There are 4 American and 3 Latino elders going there that day. Its also nice because I get to email again on Saturday night to give you more details on my travel even though Im only driving. Also we have been doing this crazy thing. We´ve always been encouraged to speak only spanish but thats so hard when youre not in class like at meals or at home, but now our teacher is making us to 5 push ups for every english word you say and there is someone in the district assigned to keep track of someone elses english words. It is so hard because we cant even say like ¨como se dice toast¨ because it is still speaking spanish. I live in my dictionary. But I am also so grateful that we are being forced this way because we always try but it is so easy to get off track when no one understands spanish as well as english or knows all the words. I know I learn so much even after only a few days of doing it I can see so much improvement. Also trying to tell jokes or stories in spanish makes everything 10xs as funny so theres a plus haha. 

Talk to you more on sabado (saturday)!

¡Adios! Mucho amor

1st Month

Hola, I'm not sure what my favorite thing to eat is. Honestly the food is really good but it is all the same. The natives say that it will be better in the field because this is just cafeteria food. My favorite is either the hamburgers or the chicken bake just because its nice to have American. haha the chicken bake is from costco so if you get the chance you should try it its super good. I have had some rice pudding and it was alright it was store bought though so Im sure it will get better. They have this really weird jello-pudding stuff here I cant decide if I like it or not but it looks like jello but its not clear and its creamy like pudding. They have like every flavor you can think of and sometimes its really good and sometimes its not. I really like the tamales and stuff here and the fruit is all really good. 

About being sick. It was weird because I never got very sick from the food like a lot of the other missionaries do the first week but my stomach had been hurting off and on for the whole time Ive been here and its not like a sick hurt just like a sore hurt and it was mostly around my upper stomach and my ribs. Anyways it got pretty bad wednesday night so I went to the infermería on tuesday afternoon after I couldn´t handle it anymore. I was scared it was just going to be gas or something and I didn´t want to be a wimp but apparently I have some type of stress induced gastro something or other problem where my stomach releases to much acid when Im stressed (which is weird because I haven´t felt overly stressed but he said it could be just new things to) so they gave me some magical pills and now I feel wonderful so all is well with that haha. 

The temple was so awesome I seriously hope we can go back someday as a family because it was amazing. I am so glad it is in my mission and I will be able to go back and also take investigators there. It will be so awesome to be here for the rededication too. 

Everything really is cheap here. 1 dollar equals aound 14 pesos and even with that everything is way cheap. You can get a candy bar for like 4.80pesos so its pretty cool. Yes! We definitely need to have a Mexican vacation and we need to go to a bunch of ruins for sure. 

So this week has been really great. So last tuesday after I emailed we had the devotional which was live from Provo by Elder and Sister Cook and then we went back to our classroom for testimony meeting. It had been a really nice day but as Elder Haggard was bearing his testimony he started talking about the first vision and how when ever you teach it something happens (which we have definitely already seen) anyways as soon as he started talking about the first vision there was a HUGE crack of lightning and the loudest thunder I have ever heard. Then the power went out. (which is actually pretty normal here but normally it comes right back on after like 30seconds) There was hail the size of ping pong balls and it was super windy. Then we went out in the hall and noticed our friends in the classroom next to ours needed some help. I guess one of the Hermanas had been having a really stressful hard week and storm was the straw that broke the camels back. We asked her if she wanted a blessing and she said yes. It was so spiritual, her district leader our friend Elder Reis (from Hawaii whos brother is in the district movies) gave the blessing and it was awesome. During the blessing the sound from the storm outside went away and all you could hear was Elder Reis. Then the lights came back on and we went back out in the hall and started singing hymns with other people in our building (there are probably 6 districts of 8 in our building) I love the spanish hymns and scriptures because it makes me focus on the words and theyre meanings. They are also very beautiful and I love the unity that singing brings. It was funny some of the Latino elders had saved a small bird from the storm before the hail had gotten too bad and they were holding it wrapped in paper towels haha. As we got done singing called to serve the bird decided it was better and flew out of the Elders hands and down the hall. The hermanas that didnt know that there was a bird in the building freaked out haha. I also hate birds but I only freaked out on the inside and laughed at the hermanas on the outside. After an hour the storm slowed down just enough for us to walk home and then started up again. It has rained every night after dinner sense then but never very hard. It has been fun to wear my raincoat and sweaters.

We also had some amazing devos this week that I will have to tell you about another time. Did you look up Presidente Tenorio? He is amazing. He have a lesson on sunday about specific prayers and so I decided to try it out and be more specific. I decided that I would pray for specific help in my language goals and that I would be able to work hard enough to be worthy of the gift of tongues. Yesterday was amazing. My spanish definitely improved a bunch just yesterday and our lessons went great. I know that God hears our prayers and he really does want to help us. 

Thanks for all your love, support, and prayers

Love Elder Inskeep

¿Qué pasa? (What's up?)

They play volleyball a lot!

Elders Inskeep & Te in the visitor center.

The Tijuana Temple

The district and the Chirstus

The temple gate

Church office building by the temple including Jarin's mission office

Selfie?

The district at the temple

Jarin's lunch

Definitely the hardest and most looked forward to part of the week is emailing time. I love to hear from you guys and all of my friends. But its the only time I feel a little home sick. Other than that Im doing great. Everyone says the blog looks great. Im glad you get to do so much missionary work. Everytime I here of someone going to Idaho I tell them how great it is and how awesome the people are. I hope I hear of someone going to Pocatello, everyone Ive met is going to either Twin Falls Nampa or Boise.

 Its not just sunday in spanish everything is in spanish its so hard. The only time I can speak english is with my district but our teacher just told us yesterday we shouldnt be so everything will be getting way harder haha. 

So this week we did a lot of cool stuff, on wednesday we went downtown to the immigration office to do more visa paperwork. It was sooo fun. Its weird im considered an immigrant though. It is so different downtown it was so cool. Its their capital so they have all these monuments like we do in DC for their revolution and wars and stuff. Also skyscrapers for miles. I love this place, Im sad i couldnt take pictures because it wasnt p day. We had some street tacos which is what Mexico City is famous for and they were so good!!! I never really liked corn tortillas until now hahaha. The streets here are pretty much just like the state fair everywhere haha, people and booths selling anything from tacos, churros, and hamburgers to pottery and furniture haha. Its crazy. The coolest part was probably driving past the government buildings and all the cathedrals and ruins. Some of the really old cathedrals are built on top of the ruins because the Spaniards didnt want the natives to worship their gods in their temple so the just built on top of the natives temples theyre way cool. I cant wait to go see them. 

Today we went to the temple and it was so beautiful and way bigger than it looks in pictures, It was as big as IF or bigger. They said it was the biggest temple outside of the US and has the 3rd biggest visitor center, also the biggest temple square besides salt lake. The visitor center was really cool and it was fun to meet the hermanas that work their because they are in our mission!!  The visitor center had so much cool stuff I loved it! They also had a cool gift shop and I got Jace something with the money he gave me haha. When I leave the CCM I´ll find a FedEx to send it home. The teachers said to never trust the Mexican Postal system even with letters but they said fedex works. 

On sunday the CCM president gave a devo and it was super awesome he spoke in conference back in 2007 when he was a seventy you should look him up it was good. His name is Octaviano Tenorio. He is so funny. We also had a broadcast from Holland again that was sooo good. And last tuesday night we had a Devotional by a Mexican Area seventy that was very good too. 

One of my teachers Hermano Cayetano is going to the US after we leave for his vacation to visit temple square and some mission companions he had from Rexburg and Pocatello. I told him it would be cool if he saw you guys haha. Hes so awesome. He doesnt know much english though haha. We also get to do this way cool thing called TRC= Teaching recent converts so we actually teach real people its so crazy because they dont know english and they are real people but its so awesome to learn!!! 

I know theres so much to tell you I really should keep a list because I know I forget stuff. Itwill be fun to talk to you for reals in a couple months. Agh I knew there was more

I love you some much

Adios

Elder Inskeep

2nd week

Hola!

¿Como esta? ¡Muy bien! ¿Y tu? hahaha

This week as been pretty great. I probably won\t have as much to say sense we are now in the swing of things but it has still been awesome. Thank you for the update on things and also the pictures! I wish I could print them out they look great! When I\m out in the field you might have to send them to me. I\m glad the science fair went well and that you guys liked the area broadcast thing. Hows the blog going? I got lots of emails about it so it sounds like youre doing great!! Also thank you for the cards you left me in my suitcases they mean a lot to me and they make nice bookmarks haha.

You can tell Carter that yes my companion is choosing the right and I love getting emails from the kids. 

Spanish is getting better but definitely keep me in your prayers because I really need the help. I understand a good amount of whats going on but it takes me a long time to figure out how to respónd to most things. Our teachers are really great though we have Hermano Cayetano and Hermano Tinoco we spend most of our time preparing lessons to teach them and they pretend to be investigators. We also have a couple spanish lessons a day but most of the learning happens from just being around it. Sense it is 'week 3' we are not aloud to speak english for most of the day so that is muy loco. I feel like I´m just getting really good at spanglish and really bad at both english and spanish haha. We also found out that it is summer here right now and this is the hottest it gets which is awesome because its not extremely hot. Its way hot when we have to wear our suits on sundays and to devos but Its pretty nice besides that.

I really like my companion a lot and we{re good friends but its hard to be with him at all times haha. Its crazy this is my second week (at the CCM they call it the third week) at the end of the week we will be half way done. It seems like I´ve been here forever but also like I barely got here. Its weird that there are so many missionaries newer than me because I feel brand new! Its fun because I get to meet a lot of new people and we´re all here for the same reason. The latinos are on a different schedule than us and most of them are only here for a week and a half if they are going spanish speaking so we dont get to see them much which is sad. It also seems like there are new senior couples like every day so they must not stay long.  

Probably one of my favorite parts of being here is sundays because so much goes on and its so spiritual and no stress. I especially love when we have CCM wide meetings and we sing. Even though I don´t understand most of the words it is so spiritual and it feels so unified I definitely believe the song of the righteous is a prayer and how awesome is a prayer said by hundreds of missionaries relying on God for help in learning the language and learning how to teach his gospel. We also have weekly devotionals either broadcasted from Provo or live here from general authorities. We´ve heard from Elder Bednar and Elder Holland from Provo and we´re supposed to be hearing from a Mexican area seventy soon.

I love it.