La Vida en La Venta!

hello everyone.

this week was another great week here in mexico and i am learning a lot. I dont have a ton of time today because we went to coatza today to buy some things and got back late. I cant remember really much of what happened this past week. We taught a lot of lessons, the most that i have so far in my mission in one week, but we have had a lot of opposition in the past few weeks. In just about all of our investigators, there are a lot of family problems. some of the problems are very serious and we are in the middle of them. We are trying to teach the gospel and help them. It is very sad to see some of the things these people have to deal with, but amazing to see the faith that they have and the trust they have in our heavenly father that everything is going to be alright. I have had many opportunities to pray for my investigators and seek inspiration from my heavenly father and truly strive to be an instrument in his hands to help these people. One thing that preach my gospel teaches us is that an initial doubt or problem is only the tip of the ice berg and that the real problem often is very different and much more deep`and to find it we need to build trust with the investigator. This happened with one of our investigators this week. she hadnt come to church for a long time and never really had a good reason and we found a very serious problem. she also has a 2 year old baby with cancer. She has amazing faith and it is amazing to teach her and to learn from her. we are trying to keep baptizing and to have more people in church every week, but it is hard. we have found some new people that are really great, but there are already problems that they have brought up that will be challenges. the scripture 2 nephi 2:11 has a lot more meaning to me that there is opposition in all things. My companion and I have changed it to that there is opposition in every baptism ha. We are working hard and will receive the blessings of the baptisms soon. we should have two this coming week and a lot more coming up as well.

this saturday we got a call that said we had to go to coatza for church sunday. we didnt know why but it was a last notice stake conference. it turned out to be a conference for all of south mexico and was a transmission where a 70, a sister from the reliefs society presidency of mexico, elder ballard, and president monson spoke! it was really good, though i didnt get to hear hardly anything of president holland because of all of the noise and the kids by me. i was a little frustrated with that and the fact that the entire time just about everyone at one point or another got up and walked out to the bathroom or something. There wasnt a time in all of the conference when the door wasnt being opened. Regardless, I felt the spirit powerfully especially when listening to elder ballards testimony. he speaks spanish but still chose to have a translator for some reason.

Also today we went to coatzacoalcos to buy some things. It was way weird to walk into a walmart and to see all of the big city. I have been in this little town of la venta for a while and is all i know of mexico and to walk into walmart, I felt like i was back in salt lake. it was a really weird feeling. It is nice to be out of the USA world a little bit here, but also I miss some of the stuff. I ate mcdonalds, pizza and ice cream haha.
I dont have any more time but i am doing great. have a little bit of a cold this week but other than that good. i love you all and miss you very much.

love

elder smith