Week 8 10-21-19 week two in the field!

This week was good. I lead my first lesson, it was awesome. I felt the spirit guiding me so much,  it was awesome. We also started to teach this sweet old lady. Her sister is a member and she's super sweet too. We taught her about the restoration of the gospel and she cried when we read Santiago 1:5 with her. She said she needs to pray more to know what the truth is, the spirit was so strong. ( she already believes that José smith is a prophet and she's been reading from a quad I guess) Idk what's stopping here from fully committing.  She then just kind of randomly opened the book of Mormon to a part where it talks about how the bible and the book of Mormon working together in 1 nefi. It was super cool. God was definitely guiding her and us as we taught her. 

Funny story though we were talking to a lady with a fruit stand and then a guy with no legs sitting on a skate board rode by, using his arm to propel him. No one batted an eye and I was just a little dumb founded. I just checked our mission map and I'm in an zone called Tacubaya. its apparently one of the closest zones you can get to the center of the city. if you know me you know I hate cities, so I'm happy I'm am doing this as my first area

Love you all and hope everything is well in Zion. The field out here is definitely white and ready to harvest. Have a good week everyone. Hasta luego (Hasta 91 samanas luego)

Week 7 Mexico city - the city with dog poop everywhere 10/14/19

okay guys…. this place is absolutely crazy. I got my new comp. he's awesome. He was born and raised in Texas so knows perfect english but was raised in a Mexican family so he's bilingual. personal translator. The mission is so not what they trained me to do in the ccm. (man I miss that place) Just lots of contacting random people and getting lost. were opening an area meaning were both news to the area. lots of Great people to talk too though. lots of people though that are super confused about what this life is about. but that's why I'm here. Teach the Good Word. I'm basically dead in the city but like the getteho area where there dog poop everywhere and tons of awesome taco shops with great food. place is hard but definitely awesome.

anyways Two miracles happened. When we showed up to our area we had a guy run up and help us with our bags. later talked to him in his tendia and answered some questions about the pamphlet the other missionaries gave him. really cool guy. named Eduardo. We started going in to is shop every night before going home so I could practice my Spanish. we share a message too every time. We invited him to church on Friday just kind of out of habit and he was like maybe. then Saturday night we didn't visit him and he called us asking when church was again. THAT WAS THE BET FEELING EVER. He attended with us the next morning and felt the spirit. He also said he'd  prepare to be baptized in nov6. awesomest thing ever. Our first fetch.

miracle two. Ill start this ne off by saying m having not the best time adjusting to real missionary life. it's rough out here. the smells, some of the food, the language is a bit different. ( a lot) Friday we were finishing up at a members house who fed us a bunch of veggies. almost threw up but my comp when she wasn't looking took all of the gross ones. after all that and not understanding a Word of the lesson I was depressed. What am I doing here. how am I supposed to get lost in the work if I'm getting lost in is the words these people are saying . at the end of all this the mission president called. A voice from the heaven in the voice of a Texan. He gave me reassuring words about My Spanish and other loving words and then hung ups. brief moment in time but it was great. we left and then the best thing ever happen. It started pouring rain. *feel the rain on your face*.I loved every second of it  God answered all my prayers that day and showed forth his hand so could so I could continue in faith. Exactly what I needed.

Gods real everyone. the church is true. The TRUE gospel OF Christ is restored. love ya'll and until next week.

hasta luego,

Elder Corbett

Week 6-SSSIIIIIIIIIXXXXXXXX (6) 10/5/19 CCM

Okay let's just start off by saying this has been my most spiritual week here I feel like. First let me tell a story that's not so spiritual. my companion came out of the bathroom two nights ago and was like where's all our tee pee? I go in and I realized there's a phat broma(prank,joke) going on here! I barge in to the room over from us that's part of our district and start point fingers and accusing people left and right.(there's much to do here at night) my companion comes in and picks up a chair and start threatening if they didn't give it back. Then someone said "we don't got tee pee either". Come to find out all the teepee in all 5 rooms was gone. none in the supply closest. it all disappeared. we started threatening the other room that's notoriously loud at night. We ended up finding 30 rolls of tee pee under a blanket in the closet. no one confess so I don't trust anyone in my house anymore. 

On to more spiritual stuff. Last day of pro mix was Saturday and that was really special. my companion annoyed me a ton but when I heard him bear his testimony during a lesson I teared up a Lil. I didn't even understand very much but the spirit was so strong and testify that whatever he was saying was true. It was a really special experience. Sunday we listened to a old deco given by Bedpan to the Provo MTC. He started off by saying the natural man is like the cookie monster. "give me cookie now, or give me baptism now" then he basically slapped everyone of us in the face "who cares what you want!" it hurt for a second but it was such a good wake up call. I am not here for what I want. I need stop complaining about stupid things and just get over it. The rest of it talked about conversion, and the only way were going to be converted is if we forget about being converted and serve people and love them as Christ would. I was a really spiritual video. I was also just coming off a fast and it answered every single part of my question was answered.  I realized what it truly means to put off the natural man. it's by first stopping the bad things and then start replacing them with good better best things.  Really strengthen my testimony on fasting. 

Also our last day of class was yesterday. My morning teacher hermano 8a (ochoa) gave a really good little presentation on the people he was acting as for our "investigator" when we practiced teaching him. they were all people he baptized while on his mission. He then said something I'll never forget. "if you truly love the people you  teach and truly understand what they need from the gospel. you won't have a lot of baptisms. The people you do baptize though will be true converts." Missionary work I've realized is more to do with being a true example of Christ then is does with getting people baptized. 

I feel like everything has just come together my last few day here. I'm so excited to hit the field. I'm going to get a phat punch in the first few weeks there but I'm so ready for it all. back home it didn't feel real I was actually serving a mission. I joked it wouldn't hit until the plane ride over. then I got here and it didn't even feel real. now it's real. I'm ready to serve these people of Mexico city west mission with all my heart might, mind, and strength. 

con amor,

Elder Corbett

for mom and dad. 

Thank you so much for your letters. really special. for me. I can't receive them any more though cause I m leaving but regular cards are welcomed. 

I have been forgetting to tell you but I need my partriiacal blessing. 

For my mp3 thing if you ever do that for my birthday. I'd love the sound track from movies such as Les miss, pirates, phantom of the opera, interstellar, you know just good ones. also some really good Christian country would be awesome. also a album with the whole book of Mormon in Spanish. 

Also would love some dope actually good pens that won't run out of ink fast and that writes small. I'll be on latter with all the pic so don't send it out yet but love you as always and thanks for helping with my emails. means a lot.

Pic one- the number one suspect for these heinous crimes.

pic two- a kind soul I met on the way back from a devo that was leaving the next day and said he had a tone of soda he needed to get rid. of course I am helped him with pleasure. 

pic three- my night teacher caught at the wrong moment hahahapic four- the picture I look at when I'm feeling down. it always reminds me I'm in Mexico and I have no right to be sad.

Week-5 Latinos are crazy. 9/27/19

This past 5 weeks has been the longest weeks of my life and also felt like only couple days have passed. it's awesome. ccm is awesome. not gunna lie it sucked pretty bad the first 2 weeks but I'm so happy I've stuck it out. This past month has been the best.

First let's start with a funny story. during Sunday devos its really nice to relax and take off your shoes. an elder behind me made the mistake of putting his shoes under my seat. (don't worry I know him) he also made the bigger mistake to fall asleep. Me thinking I was funny just took one shoe and was going to hid it somewhere he'd never find it. so I handed it to a guy across the aisle. I thought he was just gunna put it under his seat. he proceeded to pass it on. which then that person passes it. it literally go to the other side of the auditorium. I kind of at this pint realized I had no idea how I was going to get his shoe back, so I ended up pranking myself.  When he woke up he was pretty pissed, he did find his shoe and it was pretty funny. 

Second what I learned. I learned a lot from 2 more days of pro-mix, more than just Spanish now. My Latino companion is super crazy, not gunna lie he tests my patience. He never wants to settle down and focus, he's literally loco. His unfocused manner is really help full for me though cause it help me to want to be more focused and more deliberate as to not be like him. Having him as my pro-mix companion has been probably the best thing to happen to me while here. It's been a challenge but I've finally been able to gain control over my focus. 

Last I'm so happy for all the challenges here. I've started to be actually grateful for them cause I'm starting to see the fruits of my labors. A couple days ago we had a Skype call with a member to invite them to do some kind of missionary work. We talked with a 13 you named José. It was our first legit lesson with someone not acting as someone. it was so fun and felt so good.  My Spanish is super rough and our lessons are still not the best but I'm seeing them improve. I came to the mtc with zero Spanish and now I can invite a member to help in the work of the lord. I've seen the lords help every step of the way through these challenges with Spanish and companions and adjusting to this new life. 

I'm so happy with this past month. love you all. Loved all the letters this week. 

Bye,

Elder Corbett

mom= love you and thank you so much for all your help with sending these out really means a lot. I loved your letter this week. love you so much I've been praying for you so much and dad of course. hope you enjoy you time with the family.

dad-love you too dad. I miss out time to gather at pine valley. so happy we went and did that. also hope work isn't tooooo crazy and mom isn't driving you crazy without me there to calm you two down Hahira. and advice though with a comp that doesn't seem to focus on the here and now and seems to get carried away in thoughts about home or just his gf or just anything?
love you guys

also gotta send some pics later today so don't send it out yet

Here are the pics

1)the pic I talked about last week

2)the cereal I got in a package before absolutely taking it to town.

3)some of my friends from pro mix.(the one laying on everyone is my companion.)

4) I joined in a random pic with some Latinos and then some turned out to be 

going to our mission so we got a pic with everyone going to our mission. 

5) all of our pro mix friends and my district

6)Elder Torres. my new best friend.

Week 4- mas esponol 9/20/19

Our teachers are speaking basically only Spanish, it's great practice except they told us they're going really slow and saying everything in super simple Spanish.  It's gunna be ground zero when I leave the ccm (MTC). Then also Tuesday we had what's called promis and we get a new companion for a day but they're a Latino. I got a really cool guy, super funny like me.   We were preparing a lesson and it took us 30 mines just to figure out that I wanted give an overview of the lesson at the beginning. I understood more of what he was saying then I thought when I'd  listen really hard.  We developed a system where he'd say something and if I didn't get it I would  just write it down so I had time to process what he was saying.  After lunch I was so brain dead I kind of didn't understand anything. I have it again tomorrow. I'm excited because I learned a lot last time. I'm finally starting to get more used to it. 

Most nights the presidency walks the streets to make sure all of us have our lights off by 10:30 I think their getting tired of that so they have basically said they will stop doing that and leave it up to the district leader. They also said that we can stay in the common areas until 9:45. so we all sit around in the common area and bring out all our snacks and have a mini fiesta. That lasted for about 2 days because it turns out when you share your snacks with a bunch of dopamine deprived 18 year olds they don't last very long.

Also throughout the day there are random fireworks that go off but there more like mortars that just explode and WITH A LOUD BOOM no fire involved. When that  happens  I start yelling out random district numbers from hunger games and then raise three fingers. 

I've started to see the gift of tongue a lot more. While teaching, me and my companion used to be like 10-90 now it's more 45-55. I can talk a lot more and don't have to read from my script at all anymore, it's been great. My companion likes to go on tangents and it's bad for the lesson, but now I know what to say and can cut in with a good question for the investigator, I'm actually helpful in lessons now. I can bear my testimony of things super easy now. or maybe just easier, it still sounds like I'm a laggy YouTube video. I also started practicing my Spanish by reading the bom in spanish, with the English nearby to translate along with my dictionary. I've learned a lot that way too. even though I'm only two chapters in.  I have been learning a lot more about the scriptures cause I'm thinking a lot about the words. 

Good week this week can't complain.  Also I can't upload pics again so I'll just tell you the funniest one. it's of a picture of a drawing, one of the hermana drew of me and my companion passed out cold in one of the nap time devos on Sunday. it's so funny.

Until next week, love ya'll,

Elder Corbett 

Week 3 9/13/19 (Friday the 13) party's over. no mas fun

This week has been a blur. It's been a lot of fun but now, we've started teaching lessons for real. We totally sucked our first one. Our next few we totally killed though. It's been great with the lessons though. It's been hard to get used to focusing in study time without music playing in my ears. That's been a fun challenge, it's like I actually need self control to focus or something. we got the big red book with lots of great phrases to help me with my teaching. It's really hard to remember all the word you need to know when you're in a lesson so I often just say a lot of the same stuff in a slightly different order lol. 

To be honest I don't remember anything funny that's happened, everything is work work work now. We did have a mini spa night last night though. p-day eve we go hard out here. Tomorrow and Sunday is their independence day so me and my roommates are gunna sneak out and go fiesta with them. naw just kidding, we're going to do the opposite. We have to be in our casas by 9, no exceptions. Also the wall to get out is super high and there's barbwire at the top. I'm too tired to walk to class most of the time so I don't even want to try.

We went to the temple today. I got a dope sock tie at a little shop by where everyone buys ties by the temple.  That's how you tell if people here are veterans or new boys, I'm official, baby. But the drive there was super interesting. The first 45 min we just chilled and looked at the crazy world and joked around. then the last 15 we sang hymns in Spanish. I don't have a hymn book so I just hummed. I started to feel the spirit so strong while we sang. It reminded me of the whole concept of being in the world but not of it. despite the fact that I was looking out the window in to this crazy town I could still feel the spirit stronger then I have all week. it was great.  

1 nefi 15:24- hold to the iron rod with everything you got and the devil won't be able to touch you(that's at least how I remember it)

Until next week,  love hearing from y'all,

Elder Corbett

Also a cool thing happened at the visitor center today.  I've been praying a lot for help with my Spanish and then this random 11-12 boy came up to me while I was waiting for my companion in the bathroom and started talking to me. I didn't know everything he was saying so we used a little Google translate on his phone to help us communicate. it was awesome and such a blessing in my life. It felt like that kid was sent from god to help me with my Spanish. It makes me  tear up out of joy, God is really out here helping me out. 

Week-2 9-6-19 party has begun

So I had a couple miracles with the language  this week. First off on Saturday last week, 3 whole different groups of Latinos came and talked to us randomly while we were just studying outside. They help me with my Spanish practice. One of them said that they saw the gift of language  in me and my companion. I think he was just talking about my companion cause he is doing so well. I have a bunch of Latino friends now. I learned how to say "your zippers is down" in Spanish. I say that to them all as a joke and they think it's funny.  We've played a lot of soccer and I'm getting better, day by day like the Spanish, right?  We played with the Latinos and i lobed it over one of their heads to my companion and then my companion scored, it was a miracle. My companion is fire at soccer though too.  The second miracle with Spanish is that I got the first vision and the mission objective memorized. I knew no Spanish and already have that totally memorized. 

Me and my companion are getting along very nicely.   We were made district leaders on like the 3rd night and he was supper uptight but I don't take life too seriously so he is loosened up now. Maybe I did my job to good though cause we can't stay focused in our night classes. The teacher asked one of the elders why he looked sad and if it was because he missed his family. The elder actually had terrible diarrhea and was in a lot of pain so we couldn't help but laugh at it . I almost peed my pants we were laughing so hard. there's a lot of that kind of stuff in class. At night though it is so bad cause we are so tired.

I'm learning so much spiritual knowledge and what this gospel really is about. One of the biggest revelations from god was Sunday when the branch president spoke to the district leaders and called us unto repentance and said this basically "you on the Lord's clock now, you need to be doing what' he needs you to do. This isn't a time to make friends. this is the lord time so don' t be wasting." After hearing that and telling our district that we've been wrecking our goals. We've done a ton of memorization. were way ahead of schedule for that.  Two people already have all 42 themes and references memorized. I've learned this week that you need to realize that god sees in you so much more then you see in yourself.  You gotta work super hard and stay focused. but, we each have so much untapped potential and if we only look in the Lord's lense we can then achieve it.

hasta luego

Mom. love you still, I really miss your hugs. I literally never thought that I'd be able to say that. When I was sick I had to get a hug from one of the elders that was kind of like a big teddy bear. It was nice but nothing like yours. I can't send pictures yet either. love you bye

Week 1 8-31-19

Week 1 8/31/19

A lot of things I want to say so sorry for it not being very cohesive. 

So the MTC was great for the first and second day. We get here and everyone's saying bienvenidos to me, which mean welcome but it's kind of like, hey newbie. The foods is ight, it's cafeteria food but Mexican and kind of better. The pineapple is awesome though. I eat a whole small plate full, every meal. Look up what lots of pineapple does to you for me and email me. Also its super pretty here. The mountains are super cool and I want to just go hike them. Also they give you a class on meditation, kind of. I learned how to become a mattress. it was so funny. Everyone here is awesome and everything is so funny.

 After day 2 though everything kicks in and they start actually doing teaching and bearing your testimony. Its super stressful cause mi compenero knows so much Spanish and I know so little. He kind of talks most the time and I just read my little script I prepare. Its super hard to learn a new language with 3 years of French stuck in your brain. That's the only thing I don't like about the CCM, all the language expectations and feeling so far behind. I've been working really hard and try to speak as much as possible when I ask questions and talk to people. mi compenero helps a lot with pronunciation. I've talked to a few Latinos and they are so funny to talk to. They always read my name tag and say ohhh corvette. and then goo VRROOOM VRROOOMM . it's funny.

Some spiritual thoughts I've had after this morning, a couple general authority spoke to us.  Some of the things that I got from it.

1) master the natural man then listen to the spirit. 

      I need to sacrifice my worldly desires to be able to be more in tune with the spirit.

2 ) humble myself to the spirit and fear not in the work. 

      even though I don't know what anyone is saying in Spanish yet, I need to be humble to the work I need to do, to be able to learn it. I also need to learn the language of the spirit which is more important than learning Spanish. I also need to follow those promptings without fear.

3) I need to give myself to the lord and lose myself for his sake. 

    Jesus gave himself for me so I should do the same for him. He literally gave his entire life from beginning to end to help me return back to Heavenly Father so this is the least I can do. 

Anyways I love you guys and miss you all like crazy.  Love to hear more from you guys. austin.corbett@missionary.org. suggestions on how to better learn a language are moy beinvenidos. anyways hasta luego.

por mi madre .FOR MOM please correct all the spelling mistakes before sending out to everyone love you thanks. I'll be back to talk friday morning or some time Friday so be ready for a Google hangout call. I tried dad but ya'll weren't ready I guess.