12-26-11

hey it was fun to talk yesterday. i dont have a whole lot of time today. but i hope you all had a wonderful christmas. This last week went really well for me. we had a lot of success and a lot of cool expereinces. we were able to have two baptisms. one for a hermano named heriberto and another named jesus. heriberto is really great and loves to come to church and is really excited to get healed so he can come out and work with us and have a church calling. he had a stroke a while ago and half his body is partially paralyzed. he had always accepted baptism but thought it was always too soon. we told him to pray and ask god and he always said he felt peaceful and good, but that he wasnt sure. then before last sunday we invited him to pray and then look for his answer during church. a few days after church we went to his house he went and got his book of mormon and told us to open it up to the first page. there he had written "ill be baptized the 22nd of december" and he was. it went super great and i got to confirm him a member and give him the gift of the holy ghost which was a first for me. jesus also got baptized and confirmed on christmas day. he is really old and has an infection in his foot. i helped him get changed and we took off his socks and skin was just falling off. it was really sad. i almost cried. he is a great man though and strong with all of the things that have happend to him in his life. he was an orphan at 12 years old and had to fend for himself from then on. it is amazing that god guides us to find all of these people that are prepared and really need this gospel.

i am staying here and am being the senior zone leader now so ill have to do a bit more. i didnt actually know there was a difference until now inbetween the two zone leaders so i learn a little more each day ha. im excited for the zone and the new missionaries that are coming. i know some of them. my comp is elder medina and i dont know him yet but hes mexican so that is good that ill keep working on my spanish. 

well i love you all and miss you very much. hope your holiday season goes great.

love 

elder smith

picutres: ward missionaries with jesus, baptism de jesus, heriberto baptism, ward mission team hymn at christmas activity, bishop santa, went to do a wedding a while ago and there was this kids dance thing. 

12-19-11

Hello everyone, 
hope that it was another great week and that all is well. this was a week of change and lots of trials and some really cool stuff too.

on wednesday i went on divisions with one of our district leaders and it went really well. he played baseball at a small college and it was fun to talk to him about sports and stuff, and we got a lot of work done as well. we found two new people to teach who accepted dates to be baptized. we also found an awesome family of 6. we got to the house and the little girls were outside. like 5 and 6. i started talking to them and then they got their mom. we talked a little and i started playing with one of the little girls and then she came around and went out the huge door they have in their fence. she then went back in and whispered to her mom, "ask them if they want atole" (atole is like a hot drink of flour and chocolate, its good ha). the mom then asked us and we went in and entering the house i saw a guitar. her husband plays. we sat down and she went and got her 16 year old daughter. she had her phone there and her background on her phone was a painting of john lenin. well the lesson was basically really great from then on haha. they are all really big beatles fans also. we sang a few christmas hymns, i played the guitar and a little boy even played silent night with me on his recorder flute ha. at the end i was tempted to play a beatles song, but i figured that probably wouldnt be the most appropriate thing to do to serenade a 16 yr old girl so i didnt do it ha. but it was a ton of fun. i am super excited for that family to keep progressing. i wont get to see them too much cause they arent in my area, but i have a really good feeling about thm. that girl even dated a guy in my ward before so they know a little about the church and everything. 

friday was a really hard day. thursday in the night my companion left to go make a movie for an activity with another elder. i was kinda mad from the start cause i think its a waste of time, and he was just there to "help", but basically just wanted to hang out with the elder who was doing it. i had to go out on divisions with a member from another ward and then my companion spent the next whole day working on the video. we missed appointments and one member who was going to help us got really mad because she´d reoganized her whole day to be there for a lesson and we didnt have credit on our phone to cfall her and we got there late and it wasnt good. i felt terrible. i gave her a note and some of my christmas candy to her as a present cause i felt real bad so hopefully that helps. It was worse though because friday i went to say hi and sing a hymn with one of my investigators named Olga who has been really sick. we went by and there was a man outside sweeping the sidewalk and i asked if we could go see her and he told me that she had died three hours before. That was really hard for me. we had gone and visited her like 5 times a week for the 3 weeks that ive been here. she was always in really bad shape but when we would sing her hymns she would always feel better and smile and thank us a ton. i started crying and had to go to a bench on the side of the road for about 15 minutes. though it was really hard, i learned a lot. the spirit taught me a lot of things about the plan of salvation. we went back and saw her and im pretty sure it is the first dead body i have seen. there really is nothing there without the spirit. When i was on the bench i said a prayer. i asked god to help her to have the gospel continued preached to her in the spirit world. she was about to get baptized here, and hopefully she will be able to fully accept it there. 

algo un poco mas feliz is that we had our zone activity today and we started by organizing our program for tomorrows mission conference. we have to do a presentation on the birth of christ. so i came up with the idea to have hymns in the background while ppl read the scriptures about it and then we would sing two hymns. away in a manger and joy to the world. we did the joy to the wolrd at the end and i did it like a jack johnson version with a little bit of a beat to it. it was a lot of fun. hopefully president will think its fun and not get mad, but i liek it hah. after all of the gringo misioneries got together and we sang a hole bunch of christmas songs and i played the guitar. i just figured out the chords, most the songs are the same chords. we even did the 12 days on christmas and had to stop and tink of what some of the days were, but it was a lot of fun and they were all belting out the christmas songs with my jack johnsonish guitar beat and it was fun. we also played basketball and soccer. 

this next week we should be able to have two baptisms for guys named jesus and heriberto. they are really great and progressing. they are old too though. they both walk with a cane or crutch. one walked an hour to get to church this week though and got there an hour early ha. theyre super excited and its way fun to teach them.

i love you all and miss you a ton and hope you have a great christmas. love you and miss you.

love
elder smith

ps. picture of the zone after a choir thing we did in all the wards called te hallaré mi quierido amigo or "i will find you my dear friend" about how before we came to earth we promised our dear friends that we would find them and share the gospel with them. we did a monologue and then sang the song. it went really well and lots of ppl here are converts, basically everyone is ha, and so there were lots of ppl crying. i didnt like wearing the christmas hat too much though, i thought it took away from the spirit, but it was fun for pictures after ha. love you all. bye

12-12-11

Pictures: my comp, birthdays of missionaries in zone, in fiestita, spider teranchala that was above my bed this morning when i woke up, elder who i live with who ate cake with milk for breakfast ha. 


Hello everyone. well another week has come and gone here in mexico and i have had a ton of amazing experiences. I dont have any time today so itll be highlights sorta. 

Well a ton happened. We found an older guy named Jesus. He is really great and will be baptized in a few weeks. we also did divisions with the assistants. i went with my old zone leader elder mozo who was also in my area before and so we went to some old investigators and helped a lot of them. one in particular is named victor. he suffers from vertigo where he cant stand or walk or anything without falling down. he accepted baptism in the first lesson where we gave him a blessing to be healed. he was really healed and it was a miracle. his family didnt let him come to church, but next week he will and he should be baptized the following week. 

theres a lady named olga who is basically about to die. she has diabetes and needs dialasis but doesnt want to do it and has really lost everything. it is really sad, but we feel she is only still alive so she can get baptized. we were going to do the baptism yesterday but she was really sick and couldn't leave. hopefully this next week she will be able to.

also i found out the zone i am in is the worst numbers wise in the mission. president and the assistants are really worried about it. i was very shocked that they are already expecting me to basically take over everything in the zone and change everything about it. it is hard but im doing my best and hopefully ill be able to help the missionaries here and my companion as well. i have been able to learn a lot from him so far though and he is a really good missionary. 

we did a special music program sunday called "i will find you my dear friend" " te hallarè mi querido amigo" it is a song and we did a cool musical number and presentation about the mission work in the stake. i am geting to know all the leaders and the stake president well and everyone is excited to help us and to work. 

sunday after our presentation a member invited the whole zone to her house and made a whole cake for each companionship. thus we have eaten a lot of cake in the last few days. we also sang the birthday song to all the missionaries that had birthdays in december. 

this morning i woke up and saw that spider terranchala thing above my head on the wall. i freaked out a little but i killed it with my shoe and it like exploded. we took a video of it and it was pretty cool. close encounter with nature haha.

i have had a ton of amazing experiences and i feel bad i cant explain them or say all of them but i am very excited to continue to learn and to grow and love to see the lords hand in this work. i hope you all have an amazing next week. i love you all and miss you.

love 

elder smith

12-5-11

me and yuri and norma, me and elder peine, me and our neighbors who always said goodnight to us in english, some of the other zone leaders,  me and my misioneritos, airplane to get to their areas ha

Hello everyone. i hope that you all had a really great week and that everything is going great there. 

this week was a week full of changes. on tuesday we had our district meeting and after we finished i went ot the mission office to check for mail and to fill out some reference cards. while there the new assistent, elder plummer (from my mtc district and a good friend), told me to go with him into another room. i thought he was going to show me something funny or something, but instead he said the president told him to tell me that im being transfered. this was at like 12 and i had to be back at the offices at 6 to be able to leave with all my stuff. its about an hour to and from my area so i didnt have much time. i went back and packed in an hour, then i went and ate and said goodbye to a few ppl but not many. it was really sad to not be able to say goodbye to too many people. I was able to say goodbye to yuridia and norma which was the most important. they both cried when i left which made everything really hard. everyone commented on my facial expression that i was really down. 

at six i got to the offices and left my stuff and then went into the stake center and walked into a meeting of all the zone leaders. Nobody really told me but walking in i realized that i also got called to be a zone leader. that was a bit of a surprise ha. We had a conference that day and the next and it was super great and there was a strong spirit there. We then left to go to our areas. I got two packages but couldnt bring them with me becaue i didnt have room. My new area is called Insurgentes. it is a colonia in the city of Minatitlan, state of Veracruz. It is a small area and the zone has 14 missionaries. My companion is really great and has been a zone leader for a year of his mission and has 2 transferes left before he goes home. He is from The city of mexico and is about 5 ft tall maybe. it is funny to walk around with him, but he is a really great missionary and has a strong testimony and i am going to learn a lot from him.

this week we had a ton of great experiences. We had an activity in the stake called, "a day in the mission". it was a primary activity. I went out with 4 primary kids and an elder from my zone and we went contacting ppl, singing hymns and sharing short messages. It was a ton of fun really and i liked being with the kids a lot, but it was also a lot of work. i was tired and reminded of my old sumer job of coaching sports camps for skyhawks and pride of the lake haha. It was fun to see them give out copies of the book of mormon and share their testimonies and sing. 

i am now the new ward pianist. i didnt do it in my last ward but here everyone compliments me a ton. i dont think there has ever been one here. i played at the activity and there were litterally like 20 little kids all around the piano and trying to talk to me ahah. the same thing happened at church on suday, and then i was asked to help the young women with a choir, and became the ward chior director person also. I am thankful for my talent to play piano, and hopefully ill be able to develop it a lot more in this ward. 

the ward is great and i am already really great friends with a lot of the members. mostly throught their kids and then knowing their parents. piano and everything helped out a lot as well with helping ppl to like me, but they are all really kind and all want to help us which is amazing!

some funny things. i forgot to return the keys to the church in villahermosa before i left. I used to always joke how when i traveled id forget just one thing. i was sure i didtn this time, til i saw them in my bag in my new area. oops. The other is a little girl had a doll that spoke english. only thing was it was made in china and the voice was a chinese lady trying to speak english. I couldnt help but laugh and pushed the button on the dolls toe about a hundred times haha. i also heard come together by the beatles today in a taxi which brought back memories and made me miss music. harmonica is going well and i can figure basically anything out on it now without it being too choppy.  the ward wants me to give piano and guitar lessons. we´ll see what happens. 

i love this gospel and i love being a missionary. being a zone leader adds a lot of responsibility but is a great opportunity to serve and to learn. I love you all and miss you very much and hope that everything is going great for you all. 

love,

elder smith