Baptism of Marlegne

Well this friday was great. We had interchanges. And my former companion(my district leader now) came with me for a day. And well..my acual companion(american from utah) is young. He didnt really get trained and needs help to learn the lessons. Not really my strength right now haha but im trying.

Anyway so Elder Ramirez(formar comp) had been teaching Marlegne for a month of two when he was here. But when she passed the interview tuesday we decided that friday we would be together to have a lesson with her and put a date...for the following day(saturday). She has been resistent to quick baptism..but we had scriptures, we had the Spirit, and it was just awesome when she finally said yes. So we had the baptism Saturday. Elder Ramirez, who is a really good friend now actually, hasnt had the chance to phsically baptize someone in his year here. And Marlegene said she wouldnt decide and that we should flip a coin haha. But, knowing that Elder Ramirez wanted to do it, we agreed to do the coin flip later in our house(without marlegne) and well, no coin was flipped haha i felt that was a little wrong. Elder Ramirez did ordinance, and it was an awesome moment.
Annnnd then Sunday. She goes up to get confirmed, the bishop says something to her and then points to me and tells me to come. So i gave the gift of the Holy Ghost for the first time which was a really, really cool experience.
Other investigators...sufficeth to say we are searching

. We can now touch doors haha which is grand.

Cambios! Transfers!

What a 2 months. Elder Ramirez has been really interesting. I have never laughed so much and so genuinely in a transfer. But alone with him for 2 months has also taught me a lot of things. For one spanish haha. And other things like patience, and hard work things like that.

My new companion arrives tuesday, named elder Warren and he has less time than me, but not in his training(first 3 months) so its gonna be reeeeeal interesting i think. Two gringos hahaha im only slightly terrified.

We have some seriously cool members in our area that i have some to know. The ones that love us are usually returned missionaries. And they have so much success and potential at the same time sometimes i want to skip to that part of my lie haha. But i wouldn’t want to miss out on these experiences.

Welp, 6 months. 3 more of those. It feels like a blink and an eternity at the same time. I can picture myself in my room, or in the living room of a friends house surrounded by brothers. Or in a dorm playing FIFA with roomates. But memories in the MTC or my old area seem like a long time ago. Haha its best to just focus on the task at hand.

The food here is still pretty awesome. Just when they make hotdogs my heart sinks.

Love ya all, thanks for the prayers!

Elder Smith

Trying week with local challenges but the stress of the language is coming along.

This week was without doubt the worst week work-wise in my entire mission. And its possible this week could be worse. Heres why:

There are two different cartels in these parts of mexcio. And right now the cartel that doesnt have Reynosa..wants reynosa so they are moving up from monterey, to fight. But this is the dumb part. All this is happening in like downtown Reynosa hours from our zone. But our leaders cancelled work for one day last week(we have to stay in our house) and every other day we have to return to house by 5:00. Which is awful because all our investogators get home from work..all our good appts happen after 5. ALSO we arent allowed to contact..touch doors or talk or meet with people we dont know. We had a whopping 5 lessons this last week. And well these rules will probably apply this week which is going to be rough. Investigators decompose(not sure if that word works) when dont have lessons with them. 

The bright light of the week was we had 2 investigators at church. One was her first time..she is awesoeme she could get baptized muy pronto. The other was her third time.. and we put a date for baptism this friday. Luckily for us..she has an awesome sister that helped us calm her concerns about a baptism so soon. Her sister is an investigator..she just has a husband that doesnt want to legally get married...like 60% of the men in this country. Ugh.

But if everything goes well this week should be number two for febuary..which was our goal. Then its off to prepare for march!

The challenge right now is finding people to teach and then being able to teach them..without contacting or working in the evenings.

The cold is officially gone and it is hot. The summer is going to hot her.

Oh and soccer got cancelled tonight so we are all really upset with that.

I learned there are like 11 temples in mexico this week.

The zone if doing great I believe. Something like 15 baptisms we are supposed to have by the end. For a month with 4 sundays I'm really proud of everyone.
The stress of spanish isn't really there any more. That doesn't mean I don't have a long way to go because I do trust me. But having the ability to communicate just makes life so much more enjoyable on the mission. There are so many things I want to learn now, but I can't read books fast in spanish, and reading them in english simply hurts me in my progression with the language.
The new elder in our district is from the dominican republic..and he is interesting haha.  For 2 weeks he's got no lack of confidence. And he LOVES to talk, always. And we eat with him and his companion every day and it is the greatest because he always talks to the members the whole time so we get to just relax and chill the three of us. Oh the food..still is so awesome. In this area I haven't had one bad meal. The truth is I haven't even had one average meal..the people here are so good to us. I am gonna miss having my food prepared for me haha.

***THIS PART FOR EVERYONE***

Disclaimer: It has come to my attention that some type of trailer has come out for Star Wars episode VII. I am going to do something that I have never done with this movie. I am not going to know anything, the trailers, the information, the actors nothing. I predict that with a complete suprise and with everything being new it will be an unforgetable movie experience. 

That being said, I don't get home  for 19 months. And to be clear I do not want to know ONE THING. If it was good..if it was bad..if it has a twist..don't wanna know it. Nothing.

If you decide to tell me something, or forget, or try to be funny....You will receive forgiveness because I have too. But you will be dead to me. Consider yourself warned

First Baptism In This Area - Still no bandwidth to send photos... maybe next week.

Awww what a week. Friday was great..our first baptism(and i believe the first in this area) and it was hilarious. Because this boy is just a little a different. He doesnt talk much and is super reserved. And we told him the water would be warm..buuuuut the boiler here like usual didnt work and the people with callings to fill the font don't really do it haha sooo we had to do it in really really cold water. And well there was a member family who was baptizing their daughter before our baptism. But we taught the little girl and the father needed us to baptize her.  So my companion gets in there with her and she does not want to go under. But they try anyway and she doesnt go all the way and gets water up her nose and starts to cry and scream and well they postponed her baptism.  And well our poor boy sees all of this and we just had to coax and coax and finally got him in the water.  And as soon as he came out..he ran out of that font hahaha..ohhh was so proud of him..and the experience because I did not want to postpone that baptism at ALL.

And well as for our other investigators that said they were coming to church..not ONE came and that stinks.  But we are looking to future and looking for more people, and working with the ones that we have that are good. 

As a representative of Jesus Christ I get to do a lot of things I haven't ever done.  One of those things is that pretty much all sensitive and personal information and problems we know.  And its just cool to know more..so that we can more effectively help people.  Like we ask people if they have problems with commandments or things like that..and I dont know we just are able to help people more in this position we are in.

We are still using potatoes for computers so I can't send pictures..but I have them and want to send them.  Next week hopefully. 

Oh! I have a special suprise..my secret recipe for my breakfast oatmeal every morning.

Oats(how much to put..depends on how good will the food be at lunch today)

Brown sugar(from an excompanion)

Honey(same companion)

Spoonful of peanut butter(crunchy for texture)

Water with the oats.. later milk and all the other stuff.

Ohh baby I get hungry just thinking about that breakfest!;)

Hmmm well everything is tranquilo here for the most part.  Hope everything is great in your homes... I love you all! I know a lot of missionaries send scriptures in their emails... I'm just gonna challenge you to read the Book of Mormon. It is one of the best things you can do daily. 

Maybe ill share a piece of doctrine new that I learn every week...

This week: The telestial kingdom isn't literally Hell..but it will be a personal Hell for man because he understands that there is so much glory and potential that he didn't achieve and never will be able too. 

With that..I invite you to REPENT!!!

Haha I love missionary humor..it's stuff like that. Like our leaders when we make a tiny error like forget something say ``Elder...we invite you to return to your home`` hhahaha ahhh its actually really funny maybe you just have to be here. buuuut you are all great people..stay on the safe path of the gospel of Jesus Christ and we won't have to worry about that^

Spanish is still a process haha but i'm loving it!  Love you all!

Elder Smith

No Pics... Just fruit...

Well this week wasnt too exciting..but i didnt write last week so maybe i can remeber stuff from then too. Well we had 4 investigators in church two sundays ago which was awesome. Then none of them were able to go because of family travels or work this past Sunday. We did have one investigator this sunday though. A 9 year old child. One of the ways we get baptisms is through less actives that have children that are over the age of 8. What we do is teach the family and try to reactivate them at the same time as we try to baptize the children. The child's parents are great people, they are both in wheelchairs and it is difficult to get them to church but we have his baptism planned for this friday. Only complication could be work for the mom but we will do it if it is in anyway possible. 

Other good investigators include these two sisters that live together. One has a husband. But the biggest challenge in mexico is getting people to get married. Because marriage(and divorce) are super expensive to do here so people dont do it even though they love each other. They just dont have the money so we have to scrounge up the money from the ward funds AND convince the investigators to help pay for it. It is super fun yeah haha, so one of the sisters needs to get married, the other needs to stop smoking. We have invited them to do both, we will see this week what happens...

Hmmm what more well my parents sent me a SWEET package that had clif bars galore. Also there is this one talk they sent by JR Holland entitled Safety for the Soul I believe. If you don't remember it or havent read it...go find it. He planchs  outta Book of Mormon haters. Planchs.. planchar is a word that means ´´grill´´ or to ´´burn´´ in english missionaries here use it a lot. Anyway he just says it all with such force it is great.

This week was espcially great in the fruit department. People gave me..many oranges and apples, a grapefruit, and a Cocoanut! You don't miss fruit til you don't have it. And I mean its way better here too sooo, I have pictures of the cocoanut it was pretty delicious, and better with lime supposedly.

My hair is super long but I can't find the time or the people to cut it haha.

Shoutout to my sister Kristi and brother inlaw michael AND the newest member of our family her baby girl Lucille Jane McCain. You won the terrenal-lottery Lucy, congrats;)

Thats all for this week really. Hope all is well and everyone is warm.

Elder Smith

First week in new area: Florida 1

Well the first week is over in Area: Florida 1. And the begining to everything is always challenging. I think back to the very begining of the mission(12 whoooole weeks ago haha yeah i know) and i dunno i just really, really enjoy being IN the mission not being a newbie. Or at least not a complete newbie haha. 

We Found some great families and people. Our numbers looked better than they have been and we had days with appointments for every single hour of the day which was so awesome. Contacting can be fun and all but ask any missionary teaching is having investigators is soo much less stressful and more satisfying. 

Mother nature likes to mess with us out here. This thursday she decided to turn the thermostat way the down into the 20´s. Not 32 Fareinheit...20´s. And that is negatives in celcius, which doesnt change the tempature it just makes it sound colder to me haha. I have never been so love with a metal box in my whole life. When i come home from 9 hours of being outside in freezing ice-like rain, and teaching inside houses with no insulation...and i see our little plug-into-the-outlet heater, all the stress melts away. I am going to take a picture of that thing for next week. The only commandment i am struggling with out here is number 2 because i think we have worshiped it a few times. Hopefully our idolatry is understood. So ladies and gentlemen, give your central heater system a hug today will ya?

We have people that i want to just say ´´yeah they are gonna get baptized without a doubt i know it!   because i do believe they will but literally things always come up it is just depends on if the investigator can handle it and if we help them enough. We try really hard we want to suceed in this area really bad. Thank you for all your prayers they are needed right now haha.

It was so cold one day they shut down the missionary work for 3 hours haha. None of these poor missionaries have winter clothes so we suffer for the month of january and then dread the summer heat to come haha. But i sincerely believe that the weather is a blessing. People see us in the street being murdered by the wind, cold, and rain and have pity on us and decide to hear our message. And once we get our opprotunity to teach the Spirit does the rest. 

This member has the COOLEST plaster figure of Obi Wan Kenobi from Episode 1 in his house. I sent the picture today of it, it is big and just so cool. If someone can find where that thing came from i would be eternally grateful.

A few investigators from my old area could get baptized this week that would be awesome i could possibly be able to go watch..or do! We will see what happens..

I love each and every one of you..hope all is well.

¡A special shout out to the Ridds for the ToneySacherys they sent..it makes my eggs in the morning perfecto bonicimo rico!

Elder Smith

My First Transfer In The Field

An interesting week to say the least. Tuesday and wednsday we worked to try to prepare the area because we knew that changes were going to come the following week. But mid-day wednsday we get a call from the Prez, and one of my trainers gets sent to Nuevo Laredo(9 hours away), the other trainee that was within our 4 at the house got shipped to Rio Bravo, and I got sent to a different area in the same zone. I left the next day(thursday) at 9:00 in the morning, so i had to pack real quick like and say goodbye to people. But the weird thing is that i am still in the same ward just an area like 15 minutes away from my old area. So i still see the same members and investigators every sunday. The real goodbyes will come later and those will stink. There are some really good people in our zone.

But my new area...is so big. it would take an hour and half maybe longer to walk the whole thing. It is comprised of 4 colonies, so we try to focus on one colony everyweek, but it is difficult because we have good investigators in almost all four colonies! And we need to visit them like every other day so it interesting we have to plan carefully and well. My companion is Elder Ramirez, he has 9 months on the mission, he is a good elder and works hard. We have done good things together these past 4 days i am proud of it. That being said i fully expect more success now that we are out of the begining. The poor guy is lactose intolerant and lots of people serve us milk here. He suffers on occasion. But it has been a real blessing to be here with him. My spanish gets a lot more practice without the temptation, or option really, to speak english. The food has been amazing here so far. My district leader is great. It feels great to be out of training, I get to do a lot more now it feels like being a missionary haha. Yeah I still love it down here in mexico. It is beautiful in its own way, and I would love the missionary work no matter what place.  And there is no feeling like being on a mission sharing hope, joy, and love.

I want to thank my family and friends for being the best people in the world and amaing examples to me and rest of the world.

A special thanks to the Ridds for their package..it was awesome and more needed than you guys can understand haha

Thanks to all the people that feed, give rides, and work with the missionaries in lessons because goodness we need it bad.

Our new house is just great. Its just me and an elder I can barely communicate with haha..but yeah so I remember back in october an elder telling me something. He said The winter here is SO cold. But its not like a utah cold its a different cold. It is so much harder.

I am here to tell you that it is cold. But it aint different at all. The only difference is the lack of heating devices in our homes. The first night was rough haha I had to use curtains for blankets haha because I forgot my blanket at the other house. I took my first bucket shower here. It is an experience I would not wish on my worst enemy. It is cold here haha but not for much longer I am enjoying it while it lasts, or at least trying to.

We have one family right now that I think will be baptized very soon so I am super super pumped for them and to prepare with them.

Hope every else is staying warm, love ya all.

Elder Smith