Friday, March 9, 2012

3-5-12

pictures: betsy (bishops daughter) gave me a ctr ring, baptism, baptism, villahermosa a truck full of cow heads, mamela (sorta like a mexican pizza sorta, but not really)

Hello everyone,

it was another great week here in mina. i have been able have have some great experiences. 

the coolest thing that happened this week is that we had the baptism of the hna lorena. she is the mom of josue and erick who got baptized like a month ago. she has been waiting to be baptized and is really ready. it was a really powerful service and we did a lot to prepare for it. we made invitations, program, and got lots of ppl to come. also the cake that mom gave me for my birthday i hadnt made yet so i made it for the baptism in the church. it went well and everyone loves american cake. i only ate a small square but it was more fun to share it ha. in the baptism we sang families can be together forever. i played the guitar and sang one verse in english and then lorena, josue, and erick and my companion and i sang it in spanish. it went really well and sounded good. we had a recent convert give a talk, her first one ever, and she did a really great job and had a strong spirit. at the end of the service hna lorena gave the prayer and started crying in the prayer. it was really a special moment. i love this family a lot and we hope to be able to help the dad to accept also. 

the family martinez lopez is the family we have scheduled to be baptized this week. we had a meeting with the stake president and when he heard we had a whole familiy he stopped the meeting and started calling ppl to prepare the service. he said he didnt want us to do anything but that the members would. that is good because here the organization of the church isnt so good. there hant been a elders quorem presidency for my whole time here and they called a ym pres who is a recently activated recent convert. it is good and gives them an opportunity to serve, but also means a lot doesnt get done. the bishop leans on the missionaries because he has nobody else. but slowly but surely we are making progress here in the organizaton and leadership. anyways... the stake president used our phone to call the leadership, set everything up and used all of our saldo (minutes on the phone.) phones here are a jip. we get 450 pesos a month, its free to talk to missionaaries, but to members it costs anywhere from 4 to 6 pesos a minute to talk. so we get like an hour of phone talking time to members a month. he used like 150 pesos in half an hour ha. but it was good. we are preparing the family for their baptism and they are really excited. they had to go to the hospital sunday but said they are ready for the baptism still and are going to go next week. 

we had the zone leader cousel in villahermosa this week and it was really good. we go for two days and talk about how to improve the mission. our focus this month is in sanctifying ourselves. we talk about a lot of things and there is always a really powerful spirit there with all the leaders of the mission there. today we played soccer and football on an artificial turf field. soccer was fun and i think i wouldve been a lot better at soccer than i am at basketball if I'd played as much as i did basketball, but oh well. it was fun. and mexicans have no idea how to play football haha. it was fun too though.

well i love you all and miss you. i gotta go get a haircut and get to work. have a great week. 

love 

elder smith






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