Tuesday is the Ricks Family's new favorite day!!!!

While Jessica is in the MTC, her P-day is Tuesday.  For those that don't know what P-day is, it is short for Preparation Day.  That is the day that as missionaries you use to write letters, do laundry, do grocery shopping and anything else you need to do to help "prepare" you for the week.  It is not a whole day, so using time wisely becomes very important. 

Now you know why Tuesday has just become our family's favorite day.  It is the day where we will receive her weekly email. 

Jessica told me I could post this email.  She also said I could change anything that might need to be changed.  I didn't change much because it was "so Jessica".  Some things might be a little difficult to read, but I think that adds to the character of the letter. 

Hope you all enjoy this email as much as we did!  xoxo

HI!!! TODAY IS MY PDAY!!!!! so like check your email all day tuesday so I can get on and we can maybe talk! I only have an hour sooo like where do I even begin????Grandma Ricks, pats sister found me!!! she was eating in the caffeteria on sunday and grabbed me ( I was like oh know because I already got in trouble with the presidents wife because my earrings were too big! lol I was worried what was next!) but then she said i am pats sister and I hugged her because I was so excited!!! hahaa. She was such a sweetheart! also the SUNDAYS here are just TOTALLY AWESOME! except every week you have to prepare a five minute talk and you get notified during the meeting if you are guiving a talk and I got called to give mine!!! IN SPANISH! hard but so cool! also I have had to say like 12 prayers in spanish in front of hundreds of people so I learmed that fast! lolol THE MEXICO CCM ( MTC) IS AWESOME!!!! like you know how provo is all inside and you are like trapped? well here we have 90 acres to roam free in lush green palm trees, big tress, grass and like all the plants you could imagine!!! it is awesome like I am so happy to be in mexico!! So we went to the Mexico city temple today!!! can you say gorgeous?? it was actually one the prettiest outside of the temples i have ever seen! look it up. it like looks all aztec! but driving through mexico city (it is like a 40 minute busride from ccm to temple!) is the craziest thing you will ever experience. first of all there are dogs. everywhere!! shan if you are reading this you would hate it because the dogs are so skinny and mangy it breaks your heart! and even worse the people are not much different!! it is amazing how poor some parts of Mexico city are. but you know what is so cool? EVERYTHING is painted bright colors!! all through the city the house are blue and green and orange and it adds a little bit of happiness to the poverty. where we are in the CCM, we are at the base of a hill and houses climb all the way up the hill. Its like one house says to another "oh hey there is no more room on the hill so can i like build on top of you? k thanks!" I couldnt even imagine how many people live on this little mountain BUT it is gorgeous!!! EVERYTHING is painted! the houses are so colorful and stand out against the lush green hill! so cool and a great view. Mom dont be worried about me in mexico city because we have like a 20 ft brick wall with another 5 ft of like barbed wire fence surrounding the whole mtc! also guess what? I GET MEXICAN FOOD! like real authentic tortilla and rice and mmm its delicious. but they try to give the Americans comfort food sometimes.. for example there were panckaes one morning and the Mexican people knew that americans liked syrup on their pancakes so they got syrup... CHOCOLATE SYRUP!!!lolololo soo hilarious we were all laughing so hard about it!!! but the food is really good we havent had the same thing twice yet and I literaly live off of mazanas (apples) tortillas rice and whatever meat they have that day! but I am so happy I am going to the US for my mission because we cant even drink the water here!! we all have water filtered water bottles lolololol crazy right? and it still tastes like really gross lol like way gross so thank goodness I am going to Arizona!! So we are in rainy season here and it is like gorgeous like 77 all day then around 6pm it starts to pour! Like we are talking hurricane status!!!! its is so funny every night all the missionaries know when to find cover at the same time every night! thats why it is so beautiful! sorry I cant uploud pics yet I dont have a cord! but dont send it to me because mail takes 3 weeks here wait until I am in az! so the mexico mtc is slowly growing. we were the third generation. There were about 20 girls and our group brought it up to 400 missionaries in the ccm!!! by the end of my six weeks it will be the second biggest ccm (mtc) in the world! we will have 800 missionaries! so cool right? tonight we get new native speakers to live with us and that will be good for learning spanish"! oh yeah spanish... um its like WAY HARD! BUT WAY COOL! our teacher has literally only ever spoken spanish to us! even on the first day! (she is awesome by the way!!! so sweet and ahh i love her! hermana rivera) so i got here late friday night and we taught our first investigator in SPANISH ON FRIDAY! we watched  an old devo by president holland  and he said "oh you havent haad much time to practice? well welcome to the mtc thats how we do it around here!" aahaha its so true! our investigator is Franco (he is an actor he is actually another teacher) but we have taught him three lessons and he has come to church and best of all, we taught him how to pray yesterday and he prayed for us!!! that was a huge step!! we gave him a bom to read so we will see how that goes! he is tought and doesnt speak any english so we struggle so hard trying to get everything out! my poo compeñara doesnt know any (like literally any!) spanish so I have to translate the whole lesson from her to him and him to her and do most of the lesson on my own but it has given me wayyyy good practice! when someone speaks slow, I now can understand the jist of what they are saying every time!!!! so cool! and I can kinda say stuff back.... kinda! Thats the hard part! but its awesome! so since there are so few girls here we are all so close! like I love it. Everyone is actually way normal and way cute! and every night when we have gym time (for like an hour) this one hermana makes a workout for us like cardio and strength and then we do yoga afterwards! so hillarious! the boys all play basketball but they have told us that they secretly want to do yoga lol the guys are awesome! Most of them feel like little brothers because most of them are 18!!! MY compañera and I are the only two in our district (there are 6 in our branch!) so the boys sing us a song every night before we leave the classroom to go to bed! it is so precious!! at first I was like what the heck is this..... but now I LOVE IT! So when I was in the temple today I had this overwhelming feeling that I am supposed to be here. Like for my family, for myself, and for the people in az. It was amazing I just knew without a doubt that I was here for a reason and that I needed to be here. way cool! oh also my girls from BYU i saw HANNAH SCOW!! we like see each other every day and it was such a relief in the beginning to see a face I recognized! we literally ran across the cafeteria and we were screaming and hugging and were just so happy to see each other! It was awesome. oh and shan I flew here with savy nielson! crazy right?? we have become good freinds and we realized we both were at the masquerade party?? she told me she knew you and all of  our firiends! weird! she wants to have a party with everyone when we are back!!! lol oh and I miss you all like CRAZY! MIK YOU LEAVE SOON!!! AHHHHHH  umm I am trying to think what else to write! My compañera is great ! She is 22 and so she is much older than everyone here but we have had a really good time! but seriously I am so glad I am in Mexico because everyone here is literally mexican! so we have no room to use english! all the workers and receptionists and teachers and everything so we get lots of practice!!! well I love it here and I am so happy I am here. I am learning so much. I will write more about that next week but I had to share other stuff this week! well My dear family, I miss you guys so much and I show the picture of us at the baseball field to literally everyone! like yup my family is awesome! kiddos I hope you are taking care of mommy!!! Well i love you guys so much and miss  you like wayyy wayyy wayyyy much! I cant wait to write you again next week :) I LOVE getting emails they made me so happy!!! oh and jenna I told everyone about the president monson thing in my card and they  think it was so funny and so great!!! ahhaah love you! okay well I lOVE YOU ALL!!!! and remember the Savior loves you. Well until next week!!!! <3

Hermana Ricks!

aka jes :)