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

In the service of others...

Christmas!  What a week!  Our numbers are a little lower this week but hardly anyone wants to hear us with their families in town and what not. Plus a ton are gone. BUT Christmas day Elder Hughes and I found this couple macheting their back yard. There was a forest of plants and we worked for like an hour and then asked if we could share a message with them the following the day. There was a problem though. The wife insisted that we eat dinner with them, she made us food. And this family was not well off at all there was no way we could so no thank you right. The problem was that we had just had a huge Christmas lunch two hours before AND we had a big dinner with a member planned for that night like an hour and half later. So we ate her food. She asked us if we wanted seconds. We politely said that we really couldnt possibly eat more but thank you so much. She smiled at us and swiftly grabbed our plates and put another helping on. It was rough, real rough. But their generousity and kindness were signs to us of humility. So we invited there family of SIX to church and they were like Yeah! So we are like okay we will call you a ride from a member to come pick you up. Well in typical fashion of people that say they will go to church they neve come. BUT we see the wife after church in the street and she tells us they were dressed and waiting outside and no one came. That made me upset, real upset. Haha but they are super good and the best family we have found in a while. It was a testament to me that service always opens the doors to good oportunities. 

I got to talk to my wonderful family which was awesome. It was great to see them and talk. 

We ate way to much cake this past week with Christmas and a companions birthday..i havent eaten like this in a long time haha.

Not much more went on...except that the family of Geena(the one with the three daughters) finally came to church!  Like all four of them!  It was amazing they have like found serious desires now it is great. January could honestly be a really, really good month for us I am pumped.

Anyway I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and will have a happy new year.

Love you all

Elder Smith

Merry Christmas

I do not have much time this week but i want to write something.
So I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season. It truly is the most wonderful, magical time of the year! My Christmas will be slightly different than the years past!  First, instead of snow on the streets, i will be amongst tens of stray dogs.   I got some awesome presents from my great family. 

 I love hearing how great opf a break everyone is having. We get to stay out until 10:30 for Christmas which is going to be awesome. We had a day where every missionary in Reynosa went to offices and we got to talk to old friends and play games ANDDDD watch Elf...in spanish which means i understood roughly 5%.

Awww all is well. I am most grateful for this oppritunity to be here on this mission and to serve my Lord And Savior Jesus Christ.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.   Elder Smith 

Ginger bread houses

MTC district

Mexican Familia

I gave my clothes to another

... My companions are doing great.  We are four in the house right now. Elder Martinez, the new guy, is pretty interesting. He is 22 and has graduated with a degree in some kind of psychology. He tries to read our minds and stuff.  Other than that he is super nice and is a great missionary. We go in twos now though. Elder Hughes is with me and we are really looking for new investigators now. At least that is our focus because our progressing investigators all got baptized.

Oh! I forgot about last Saturday! We were having the baptism for Yazmine and Victor and one of our investigators. Jose, an investigator that really loves the church shows up and says "Oh no i forgot to bring white clothes!" We were like uhhhhh you want to get baptized right now? And he was ready, so I took off my clothes and he used them to get baptized, after a quick call to the president and an interview!  It was so awesome!

We worked super hard this week, and we didnt find hardly anyone that wanted to listen. That was tough but I have faith that they are here. We just have to keep diligently searching!

And now a list, of the things that i miss...

Movies. Movies. Movies.

My mother´s cooking

The High Priests quorom president not wearing tight blue jeans to chruch 

The RED, WHITE, AND BLUE BABY America will always be number one. But dont call the U.S. America in mexico because they consider this whole continent America, and it offends them beacuse they are "Americans" also

Not having to thank God everytime i step out of a car unharmed

U.S. Church. It is sooo much different i cant even describe it

The internet to settle disputes quickly

Nice couches

Carpet 

clean floors

snacks

Decembers that werent 80/90 degrees

Things i learned this week...

I miss a lot of things haha

But i love everyday here and honestly would not rather be in any other place in the world. The Lord is blessing us immensely and i can see those blessing all around me. We have this one investigator that is like 100 percent wants to get baptized. She is 22 and works and goes to school like the entire day. The only problem is that this is Mexico and they pay her like 2.50 and hour. And she is like the best person I have met in Mexico so far. Super nice and totally prepared for the Gospel. She is literally the only young adult here that follows every commandment without going to a church. But she has come to church 3 or four times now. The only problem is her family. Her mom is going through a divorce with her dad, who is like the worst dude ever.  He basically never talks to his 3 daughters. It is a bad situation. But he won't give her permission to be baptized because..well..a lot of reasons. And she is 22 but she is practically under rule because she lives in the house. And it is not at all possible for them to move right now. It is just a bit depressing because if she was in the States, her life would be literally 1000000000000 times better, because really her whole family minus the dad is super smart and sweet. Oh Mexico. Why are you the way you are?

Other than them we have a couple of other investigators that just need to pray with the faith they have. 

Christmas is coming!!! I hope you all are enjoying the season. Remember what this time is really all about! Remember the original gift that our Heavenly Father sent us and the importance of that gift! I love you all. And if you haven't already, look up He is the Gift on mormon.org and share it with your friends! Hasten the work.

On that note..please help the missionaries in your wards. Especially if they are awesome because really, we need the help of the members so much. We need your food, your rides after church, your teaching with us, your REFRENCES, and much more. Please please please understand the importance of missionary work, and really your obligation to share what you know. Muchas gracias por todas de sus oraciones!!

Elder Smith 

Pics only this week - no time to write