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Hello everyone and thank you for your letters. this week was a really great week with a lot of great experiences. the biggest news is that there are transfers this week. tonight i will be going to coatzacoalcos and in the morning really really early i will go to villahermosa to be trained on how to be a trainer! im going to receive a new missionary straight from the mtc and going to stay in la venta for at least one more transfer. Elder sanchez got transferred to villahermosa an will be with another missionary from the US who has a few months in the mission i think. i still dont know anything about my companion. i think he will be mexican but im not sure. i´m a little worried about everything and training...but i am going to be very obedient and trust in the lord and i know that we can have a lot of success here. i had a really great experience with elder sanchez and we are very close friends. it is sad to part ways with him, but i learned a lot from him and know that he will continue being a great missionary.

also this week we had a baptism! It was a really great experience. we baptized Josue Alfredo Gomez Velazquez. He is the 10 year old boy that i talked about before that is always out in the streets and whose mom left him for 4 days with his 1 year old brother and who works 12 hours almost everyday for 25 pesos. He really really needs this gospel and i know that it is something that is going to change the course of his life. He is an amazing kid and has a strong spirit. he is probably the happiest kid ive ever met and has a ton of energy. The branch is behind him and the President is aware of his situation and knows his mom and is going to do a lot to help josue stay strong in the church. I felt the spirit very strongly in the baptism and was just really happy to see him be baptized. there is no greater work than the work of the lord and i have been very blessed here in the mission.

this week we also have been teaching a lot of people that are progressing a lot. We are teaching a 17 year old named cruz and he will be baptized this next week. it will be a great way for the new elder to get excited to baptize more! He has made some great changes in his life to be worthy to be baptized and has a strong will to follow the savior. i feel the spirit in the lessons with him and know that he is making the changes and really feels the desire to be like christ. He lives very humbly and is another child of the hna catalina, but has changed a lot and has great faith. We are also going to have a wedding next week i think for two of our investigators maria astrid and roberto. they have 4 little girls but arent married. there are a tooooooon of people here that arent married but living together with kids and everything. they have all their papers ready and we are going to go to the civil office to do everything this coming thursday and they should be baptized well she will be baptized this next coming saturday and he should be in two to three weeks after hes come to church. they are really great and he knows the bible really well and understands it. they live humbly as well and have a very happy family, and this is going to be so great for them. i am looking forward to them being sealed a year from now!

also this week one of our investigators who we have been trying to get to read the book of mormon for a long time finally read it. we asked her how she felt and she told us "well i was reading and i prayed and i got the feeling that i think it probably all is true... but then my friends started talking to me and........" she is getting a lot of pressure from her family and friends as well, and lots of people telling her lies about the church. it is something that i dont like that people do. she asked the same question that i ask which is why only for this church do people do that. and Its because its true. there is always opposition. a quote that i liked a lot that is more or less like this. god gives us a hundred reasons to believe and have faith, but he lets there be just those 1 or 2 things, that make us really work for our faith. we have to show him how bad to want to believe, and when we do that we have a strong testimony. i have seen this in just about all of my investigators. they love to talk to us and they feel good, but then there is a family member or friends who say something, or one small commandment that they cant keep, or something that comes in the way an they cant rise above it. We do all we can as missionaries to help them, but in the end we are nothing more than guides. it is the investigator who is developing this relationship with god and we just help them feel the spirit so that they can know that its true.

I love my mission and have had so many amazing experiences. i am a little worried for these next few weeks with my new companion, but i know everything will go well.

love

elder smith