Zacks First Email!!!

Hey Family and Friends!! Im actually surprisingly having a fantastic time here at the CCM! MTC in spanish by the way. Mexico is wayyyy beautiful! Uhm so a week is actually longer than I thought, its hard thinking back to my first day haha. It seems like I've been here awhile! Luckily I have my journal with me... So night 1 was pretty tough, super homesick, but I decided to just live in the moment and not in the past and it has been working miracles! I have been soooo happy with my experience so far! I have already felt myself grow so much and my relationship with the Savior is getting sooo much stronger!! Prayer really is needed in life. Anyways my companion is great! We have bonded so much! I will put a pic of me and him later in the letter! I swear I have the best casa... we all get along so well! It's great! Everyone is funny haha times with them is probably the hardest I've laughed in a super long time! My district is small but everyone is great! We are way outnumbered by the sister missionaries but I think thats kind of a blessing because we have learned so much from them! They are great, we've bonded as a district super well, its fantastic! oh! The second day I got called as a district leader! Which will be tough haha poses its own challenges but I'm really grateful for this opportunity! Our branch president is so awesome, I think we got the best one haha hes a cool guy. oh! sorry this letter is all over the place but so much has happened this week haha but hey the first day I was here I said my first spanish prayer! I had a cheat sheet, but hey it was infront of everyone at a devotional type thing haha but now I'm a pro at spanish prayers haha I dont need a cheat sheet anymore and I can mostly say what I actually want to say! Ive learned soooooooo much so far here! My spanish is getting soooo much better! Everyone here speaks spanish so you're kind of forced to learn it fast hahah. Like I'm not good at spanish per say but I can like get through an entire lesson all in Spanish, I know enough now to like understand the teachers and kind of be able to respond but I'm looking forward to the next 5 weeks of this! Mexico has been quite the adventure! We play this game called "firework or gunshot?" because theres so many random bangs and what not through the day and alot at night haha so thats interesting. The food has been, interesting, its been kind of messing with my stomach but hey it tastes decent! Could be worse! Oh btw my Pdays are on Thursdays, incase you were wondering, should have put that in the first letter haha. Its been tough, mi compañero has been really struggling this week with homesickness and has broken down a few times and has been really down but he asked me for a blessing which seemed to make things better! It was also cool because I found this paper in my scriptures during one of his lowest times and it was reasons from President Hinkley on why to serve a mission! I havent seen that paper in years! There was for sure a reason why I found it so I gave it to Elder Clements and he said it really helped alot! Also another miracle this week, one of the sisters was having a really tough time this week and was debating going home so she came to me and asked me if I could give her a blessing, so I did, which was my first blessing I had ever given, I was super nervous! But I knew the Lord would help me out. So I gave one to her and she said she was really in need of three specific things from God and all of them were brought up in the blessing I gave her which really strengthened my testimony that the Lord really can speak through you. Cool experience, and she has been a ton better ever since then! But yeah I'm doing so well! Im loving it so far!!! Having such a great time, would'nt wanna be doing anything else and I have seen so many blessings from this already! Hope to hear from you all! Love- Elder Walden PS- Those are my roomates in that one pic, the other pic is me and my companion and then a picture of me with my badge. Also I have learned how to say "dope" it means "I feel you/you feel me" and "I dig it" in Spanish which is like all I say so I am doing well--haha PSS- I would also love to hear from everyone! You can email me at zachary.walden@myldsmail.net but I would love to receive letters also and you can send them for free through MTCmexicocarepackage.com. You just type it there on that website and they will print it up and deliver it to me for FREE. Would love to hear from all of you! Thanks for all the support!