The good news is that Leslie and Amauri got baptized!

Well now. This week important things happened.

First the bad is that with the Garcia Family, which is the family of Veronica.  For whatever reason unknown to me they are super cold now, like there is a problem there and I can

't see it. But they went from one week going to church and meetings and activities and such to now saying they are too busy to even see us in their house. Soooo updates on that this week.

 The good news is that Leslie and Amauri got baptized! AND their mom worked things out with her husband and he drives everyone to church now and we hope to see progress in the parents now. We could tell they enjoyed themselves at church.

In church we had 2 grand blessings. One was a returned missionary brought FIVE investigatores to church..three seperate families. And even though the brother is in another ward one of the families lives in our area so we should have the opportuntity to teach them tomorrow. And also the wife and daughter of a new convert came to church so i hope we can also work with them

Thanksgiving was fabulous. Fabulously uneventful haha. The day after i went to the area of the zone leaders and another returned missionary who is from Georgia but married and lives here now, served us his Thanksgiving leftovers which was great. And today some elders in the zone offered us a piece of pumpkin pie they recieved from a sister so we had our Thanksgiving just a little later than normal. I missed everyone though glad to hear you all could enjoy the day!

Anyway that was the week. It is cold as..something really cold here now sooo until April - ugh haha!

Elder Smith

...doing baptismal interviews, interchanges, Reynosa, doctors office, hospital, activities, or the church.

This week was seriously nuts. Like i have had crazy weeks in the mission before, but this week by far overcomes all others. First of all, we worked in our area for only one day, and half the day at that. 

The other days we were doing baptismal interviews, interchanges, Reynosa, doctors office, hospital, activities, or the church.

 So first was Tuesday where the APs basically presented the newer plan for the mission. We are so close to completing our goals for the year, but December is a hard month. So for November we are just moving so fast. It is fun and makes the time fly by. Wednesday I don't remember what happened.

 Then Thursday... so Elder Cruz who lived in the house with us (small guy that fit through the window last week) started to want sugar and started to have like weird spacing out periods. So after the food, he went to the hospital where they checked his heart beat and discovered it was irregular.  To make the story short..that same day they operated on him and put a pacemaker in (or by) bis heart. He is like 22 I think. Poor guy. So this week he is in another house and is in bed for 10 days.  The blessing is that he doesn't have to go home for now. He got to talk to his mom on the phone after the operation, which was nice. But it was nuts. And later my companion had to go to have his toenail taken out and couldn't walk for 4 days. So we were struggling to do all the things we needed with less people. The good thing is that this week I have my companion.  Elder Cruz is okay, and we still have one more week in November to do our work.

We have like 5 of us elders now with families in the Utah Valley right now.  And one of them is Mexican.  But his mom got married (while he was here on the mission) to an american from utah haha so now he lives in West Jordan. He has no idea where they live there. His name is Moreno and he is a ZL.

Thanksgiving will be a special time to think about all our blessings. Personally I am grateful for the Plan of Salvation which gives us the hope of something way, way better if we pay the price here. 

I am thankful that God had the mercy to put us in families and that He let me be included in my own family. I am grateful to call friends some of the best people I know. I am grateful for the mission and the bright future which it provides me. I am most grateful for my mother and father, who have made me into the little that I am!  And I hope you all enjoy the turkey, rolls, and yams.  And the pumpkin pie. Oooo that pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving - I hope you enjoy it!  It is a great holiday and you don't realize how awesome until you don't have it.

Take care all,

Elder Smith

Well this week i received Elder Berry from Alpine, Utah. There are fun things about American companions and fun things about Latinos. But with Americans there's like a real chance of seeing them afterwards so you can grow closer to them I feel like. Anyway Elder Berry has a lot of energy..we don't have like everything in common but it doesn't affect anything. I am enjoying the time with Elder Berry. 

We got locked out of our apartment because the other companionship lost their keys and I left mine in the house. And the owners don't have a key of any kind and were less than willing to help us out with finding a locksmith or something. BUT we go up and see the window is open. Now in mexico or here at least as you can see the windows all have metal bars around them for protection. And my companions always leave the window open and i always was bothered by it in the case of rain or other things when we got home at night. And we see it and look at Elder Cruz who must be the smallest man in the mission and he is like..¨I think I can fit.¨ annnnnd he fit hahaha!  And i was soooo happy we didn't have to call and pay a locksmith. As you can also see the space between the bars is slightly larger than my badge. So you can imagine the size of Elder Cruz. He is the one from a picture i sent a while ago of me sqatting with him on my shoulders.

We have a GREAT family right now that came to church and i am super pumped for them. More details to come later.

My birthday was an enjoyable Saturday. Saturdays are like the begining of weekends here. But it was a normal missionary day..it felt awesome to open packages from my loving family :D and my family and friends have all wished me well for 20. One year older and wiser too! Well at least the "older" part haha.

We have been talking about deep doctrine in the food appointments with a brother that reads and knows a lot. It makes me go crazy with thinking sometimes...

As far as the week outside of that..i am just trying to take advantage of the time i still have in Matamoros. it won't be much longer. Christmas will be here so fast i think. Time goes faster in the year 2 of the mission for sure.

Love to all!

Elder Smith

New companion this week, Elder Berry from Alpine, Utah...

Well this week i received Elder Berry from Alpine, Utah. There are fun things about American companions and fun things about Latinos. But with Americans there's like a real chance of seeing them afterwards so you can grow closer to them I feel like. Anyway Elder Berry has a lot of energy..we don't have like everything in common but it doesn't affect anything. I am enjoying the time with Elder Berry. 

We got locked out of our apartment because the other companionship lost their keys and I left mine in the house. And the owners don't have a key of any kind and were less than willing to help us out with finding a locksmith or something. BUT we go up and see the window is open. Now in Mexico or here at least as you can see the windows all have metal bars around them for protection. And my companions always leave the window open and i always was bothered by it in the case of rain or other things when we got home at night. And we see it and look at Elder Cruz who must be the smallest man in the mission and he is like..¨I think I can fit.¨ annnnnd he fit hahaha!  And i was soooo happy we didn't have to call and pay a locksmith. As you can also see the space between the bars is slightly larger than my badge. So you can imagine the size of Elder Cruz. He is the one from a picture i sent a while ago of me sqatting with him on my shoulders.

 We have a GREAT family right now that came to church and i am super pumped for them. More details to come later.

My birthday was an enjoyable Saturday. Saturdays are like the begining of weekends here. But it was a normal missionary day..it felt awesome to open packages from my loving family :D and my family and friends have all wished me well for 20. One year older and wiser too! Well at least the "older" part haha.

We have been talking about deep doctrine in the food appointments with a brother that reads and knows a lot. It makes me go crazy with thinking sometimes...

As far as the week outside of that..i am just trying to take advantage of the time i still have in Matamoros. it won't be much longer. Christmas will be here so fast i think. Time goes faster in the year 2 of the mission for sure.

Love to all!

Elder Smith

... Saturday was the best baptismal service I think I have ever been in.

So this week was fast to start off with. To be honest, I don't remember much of what we did in the beginning. But the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday flew by with stress, excitement, hope, and finally triumph.

Well the Hernadez family finally left the things they needed to and started to read and fufill their commitments so we planned the baptism service. There is just so much work and preparation that goes into bringing people to the waters of baptism. Part of Friday and all of Saturday we were focused on this family. Partly because the youngest daughter required a lot of explaining about things she didn't fully comprehend yet. Luckily they all understood most of what we were explaining.

And Saturday was the best baptismal service I think I have ever been in. We started 10 miutes late..but had 3 great talks given. One by the 1st counsolor in the bishopric was especially powerful. Also, we had the Prado family, another family we are teaching, attend that service which was a blessing. So by this moment the sisters were quite emotional and us too, really. So that is why they don't look very happy in the picture haha because they are crying. And then the ordanice happened perfectly and we had some food prepared afterwards. Great day. Then Sunday they were confirmed and that was also a great experience. I got to confirm 2 of them and the bishop confirmed another.

Really they have changed their lives a lot and have a lot of ´´ganas´´ as we call them here, to keep going in the church and such. So we were excited for them and the best decision they have made in their lives, until today. I love the work. I love the Lord for letting us play such a microscopic part in His work.

We had changes..Elder Berry from Alpine Utah will be my companion. Updates on how that goes next week!

Thanks all for your loving remarks and well-wishes!

Elder Smith

We found two new families that have real potential.

So this week was fairly different. First was Friday. Friday we were with the President here in Matamoros and a freak lightening storm came and for four hours it rained hard. It was funny - 

Sister Morales would be telling us something and then it would thunder loudly and she would be like..hey listen to that He is telling you to do this or stop doing this... haha - it was funny.

Anyway, it stopped raining at about 2 oclock. BUT the rain flooded EVERYTHING like no other. Various people told us it was the most rain or water really that the city has had in like forever. Everyone's house flooded practically. 

And we were stuck in our second story apartment (blessing haha) all day. So for that reason there are pictures of us chilling in the day time. After that we had the challenge of navigating through the city Saturday which wasn't too hard, until nightfall when all the local businesses of the city started to give out candy and things for Halloween.

This week we also found some magical shower head that uses electricity to heat up water as it spits it out. I was a skeptic..but a companion set it up and it WORKS which is amazing. it was the first hot normal shower since..well really since this time last year in my first area.

Professional Mexican basketball was on the TV in the barber shops today. it was so awful haha. The barber used a hand blade to trim my hair with shaving cream and all, so that was pretty cool. My hair was way long so I had to go to a barber shop instead of doing it in the house :/

And the work goes on.

we found two new families that have real potential. This week we have to work with the members to get them to go to church. So thanks for all your prayers on our behalf! We really do feel them.

Love to all,

Elder Smith