hello everyone. i dont have a lot of time this week because we had a zone actiity today that took up a lot of our pday time and we just barely finished laundry which takes forever now, but i´ll try to say everything that i can that happened this week. overall, thinks are going very well. we have put a few more people on date to be baptized, and we have found more people to teach, and my spanish is getting better every day. i can understand a lot more, and am getting used to the accent here, though it is still hard to understand everything that they say, and i have to really focus to get it all. usually i get the gist of what they say and go off of that. when teaching and talking to people normally, i can say what i want a lot easier, and i think more correctly as well. i dont speak very much english with my companion except to ask a word, or occasionally a sentence or two, but we try not to. other than that though, all spanish. nobody here speaks english and nobdy is white. we still get lots of looks from just about everybody, and its funny sometimes. today at our zone activity we had our zone all together which includes me and elder clark nd elder knight from my mtc zone. we had a contest thing where we did different little game things, egg toss was included and some scripture things and some different races and stuff. it was fun and i got to know the zone a little bit better. we also played a litttle basketball after too. the hoops outside the church were at least 11 feet tall though so it was erally hard to shoot anything but a layup, but it was still fun. the only downside is that when you start to sweat here, you dont stop and it doesnt go away. so the whole way home almost until we got on the bus with clima (air conditioning) i was sweating haha. that is the thing that is hardest for me is the heat. i have a very nice tan line from my collar of my shirt, and all the missionaries look really goofy in our tshirts at the zone activity haha.
this week we had a lot of success. we were able to teach a lot and to find a lot of people to teach. alvero is one of our main investigators. he is a 70ish year old man and i cant understand anything that he says because he has an infection in his throat, studders, talks really really fast, and really really quiet. it just sounds like mumbling to me and i pick out a few words. my companion cant even understand all of it. Though it is hard to understand him, he has a ton of faith. one night we taught him lesson two: the plan of salvation. at the end of the lesson we asked him where he wanted to go after this life. he said the celestial kingdom, where we can be with god and christ and our families forever. we then went back and reviewed the 5 points of the gospel that we have to complete to obtain that. faith, he had. repentace, he said he had. then when we brought up baptism, he said he hadnt and said "quiro ser bautisado pronto". (i want to be baptized soon!) it was so awesome when we heard him say this and we gave him a date and he will be baptized in two weeks. another occasion with him, at the end of the lesson he told us that before we started teaching him, he was really sad because of all of his injuries with his body, but now that he has had lessons from us and learned about the gospel he feels happy all of the time and he doesnt mind the probelms quite as much, and he thanked us for what we have done and for helping him. and then just a few nights ago he told us that he prayed for the pain in his arm to go away which he has had forever, and he said that he hasnt felt the pain since. He has a ton of faith and is an amazing example to us and i have been able to feel the spirit in his house so much.
we are also teaching a boy named andres who will be baptized hopefully this week. we have to talk to his dad. his baptism will also be somewhat of a miracle. we have been waiting to be able to baptize him forever! he lives with his aunt who is a member but his dad has never given him permission. at an fhe one night his cousin came up to us and said andres´s dad said that he can get baptized completely out of the blue. we asked andres and he said yes and we set the date for the 8th right then. it didnt wokr out because his dad wants to talk to us and its a little complicated, but andres will be baptized this week or next week.
this week has also had its down side, well just harder times. the couple that we have been teaching crystal and pedro. I love them and they are awesome and have a little baby girl who is about 1 who loves to come play with all of the random stuff around me and is lots of fun. we were planning on giving them a date one night. we had an amazing lesson 2 with them and i was able to bear my testimony very powerfully to them about the plan of salvation and about eternal families. they really liked the idea of eternal families and the spirit was very strong in that lesson. from the very start when we sang families can be together forever to the end where we all bore out testimonies. the next lesson went well also but at the end they said how they werent ready for baptism. it was sad, especially when we heard their reasons. i think that they will still come around, but they might take a little more time. the wife is a lot more ready than pedro, but i think that they will be very strong members one day.
ah i dont have much time but a ton of stories. a cool story about planning really quick though. is this week we taught a less active lady who has a big problem. elder tanner asked me in planning that morning what chapter i thought we should read with them. immediately 2 nephi 2 came to mind and that was the one we ended up reading. i didnt know her at all or anything about her situation. It was perfect for everything going on in her life, and then the lesson went amazing and had a very storng spirit. it was another testimony to me that this truly is the work of the lord and he directs all of our actions.
my birthday was pretty much a normal day. nobody really knew or anything here and i definitely didnt announce it haha. at the end of the day me and elder tanner ate a twinkie ish type thing, and thats about it haha. on sunday also i tought the gospel principles lesson and it went really well, though i was a little nervous about talking for an hour straight in spanish, but it was really good and i think everybody learned a lot
well i got to go, but i love my mission here, and things are going excellent.
love,
elder smith
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