Brad's Email!

Hello everyone. It has been another great week here in Utah. I am excited to go to Mexico, but i am very blessed to be here in slc and speaking Spanish and i was a little bit selfish before when I got transferred and was a little down about being moved again. Hopefully I learned my lesson from it and will learn to just always try to be happy no matter what. The longer I stay in any area the better it can get. It is kind of sad about my last area because the missionaries there now have dropped some of our investigators that we had been working hard with. Some of them i saw it coming, but some of them it was very sad to hear about. hopefully they;ll have another chance in the future and be more accepting. I'm glad to hear that everything back home is going well. I am doing great here. The weather has been significantly warmer and that has been nice. I have had to do a lot of walking this week though. I think I'm getting a little too used to having the car. We trade off the car every two days with another companionship. I am excited for all the the things that we have coming up in the area and in the mission. WE are doing some special things for Christmas which will be fun. One of which includes being able to hear from Elder Holland! I got to hear him in the mtc as well and he is one of my favorite speakers. I don't know if we'll get to meet him or not. Elder Mueller said that when Elder Bednar came last year that they didn't, but maybe we'll get to shake his hand or something. Either way it will be way cool! We also have a decent number of baptisms scheduled for its month and the very beginning of January.

We have a baptism for a 16 year old girl named Michelle tonight. She is from Nicaragua and we have been teaching her for a while. It is a huge blessing that she is being baptized tonight i feel though. Earlier this week she was still praying about the date, and didn't seem to crazy about it. One night it was just me and elder mueller because elder martin was on exchanges. We had an appointment with her and our objective was to go over and to teach a little and then try to make sure/ resolve any of her doubts about being baptized tonight. We were both thinking before hand that it really might not work out and I was really nervous that she was going to say that she didn't want to. We went and shared a message about temples, and about eternal life with our families and an eternal perspective. It was interesting that that was our topic, but it flowed very well. We explained how baptism was really just the first step and a door to obtaining all of the blessings that our heavenly father has for us. It went great and she told us she was ready to be baptized, and now its happening tonight and I'm way pumped for it!

Another funny thing that has been happening that last few weeks is with our recent convert Gilberto. He is from Cuba and awesome, even though he is about impossible to understand. He has come out with us and has born his testimony very powerfully about the book of mormon. It has been cool to see him progress even further after his baptism. He is going to get the priesthood this Sunday, a temple recommend, and he just got a calling to be a ward missionary. The problem that we are having with him though is with his old girlfriend. The real problem with them is that he doesn't speak English and she doesn't speak Spanish. He has been trying to get divorced and has been dating this lady, but she had no idea that he wasn't already divorced and she found out a little while ago and now there is a ton of drama about it ha. I was surprised she didn't know though because i found it out the very first time that I talked to him. Basically we have been the mediators/ translators for their drama, and it feels a little bit like junior high again. Hopefully it will all resolve for the best though, but its made for some awkward/funny situations.

The last thing I want to share is an experience that I had with the Ramirez family. We went over one night and talked to them about the restoration. We watched the Restoration dvd about Joseph Smith's vision and it went great. I had the opportunity to bear my testimony to them about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and that this is the Church of Jesus Christ. After I asked them all how they felt, and they all share their feelings on it and explained the spirit. Some of the girls are very shy so its hard to get them to talk, especially the 18 year old, but we are working with them. I asked Ermalinda (the 15 year old) if she had read more. She said she was almost done with 2nd Nephi. I then asked if she had prayed about it yet. She then said that she hadn't, so i explained the importance of reading and praying and committed her to pray about it that night. The next day me and elder mueller came back because one of our appointments fell through. We started teaching and I asked Ermalinda if she had read. She said that she had. I then asked her if she had prayed about it and she said yes. Then I asked her how she felt. She then looked up and said that she felt a warmth and then chills. I was so excited when I heard this. And with a huge smile I told her that that was the holy ghost and that she had got her answer. I felt the spirit when she told me her experience and I am way excite for her and for the rest of her family to have the same experiences.

I had a lot of other cool experiences this week and really felt the Lords hand in helping me to speak Spanish perfectly when I needed to and also in finding more people to teach and in being guided in the lessons. This really is His work and I am doing my best to be a worth instrument. I hope that you are having a great week this week. I love you all and miss you. thank you for all that you do for me.

Love,

Elder Smith