10/3/11

Hello everyone. It was another great week here in villahermosa. It sounds like everything is going really well back at home and i'm glad that you all enjoyed conference.

conference was a really great experience for me. it was a little different because we went to the stake center. we were there the entire day saturday and most of the day sunday. i learned a ton from conference though there were a few distractions. i watched about three talks in english with elder peine ina room with some other missionaries, but then that failed, then we went into the chapel with everyone and then the power went out and we missed like 3 talks. also in the middle of sunday morning some lady stood up and started screaming and her kid was having a seizure or something. im still not sure. it was pretty crazy but other than that, it was normal. I was able to learn a lot and to receive a lot of personal revelation through the talks of how i can be a better missionary, help my investigators and how i can better myself as a person as a whole. 

i learned a lot about overcoming trials, the importance of the work that i do and most of all the importance of having the spirit and love. The spirit will guide us and will protect us, even when we are in the most difficult of times. it is the comforter, but also teaches us all things that we should do. as a missionary i am going to strive more and more to be able to listen to the spirit and act on what i receive. there was the talk by the guy from sunday school i cant remember his name, but he said there was a difference between having the spirit and teaching with the spirit. i have found that to be very true. there isa reason that we dont give memorized discussions anymore. it is because it limits the guidance of the spirit. it reminded me of a talk of elder holland before that talks about "if you have not the spirit ye shall not teach". he says that this is commandment language, like thou shalt not kill. if i dont follow the spirit it doesnt do much good to have the spirit, and i cant teach without it. i have been working harder and harder in understanding my role asa missionary and person in this world and how i can transfer what i learn to an eternal spectrum. there was the talk i think by elder cook that said, most of the things we worry about arent of eternal importnace, and when they are we can depend on the lord to help us resolve them. it is something i am impressed with president monson. even though he has so much of a mantle and responsiblilty, he is cheerful, loveable and loving. he is not overcome by his calling. he is able to do it only because 1 he is a prophet of god, and 2 he relies fully and completely on the spirit and has an eternal perspective. it is something that i read about in the talks they gave at presidnet hinkleys funeral a few weeeks ago that he was the same. his most commonly used phrase when faced with a large problem concerning the church was "oh, things will work out".  i love the mission and this opportunity to learn how to deal with responsibilty, relying on the lord, and staying positive in all situations. 

i had an opportunity to test that when on saturday our baptism fell through, basically for a member who decided they didnt want to come to conference and who was supposed to bring the investigator (natividad). i figure all is well and that we will better prepare nati who needs more preparation and use it as an opportunity to teach the less active family who didnt complete. hopefully we can help both

it was interesting here early in the week. a vile of the popes blood and one of his cloaks or something came to pomoca. it was really weird to talk to ppl in the streets about it. i used it to contact though and talked about how we believe in a living prophet and how they would hvaae the chance to hear him this week. nobody took the offer but hopefully they learned a little. 

we had a cool lesson sunday night. sunday night was hard. we got back, had a lesson where we couldnt teach too much because he was really busy, then went to a family that i love and the dad said basically he didnt want anything to do with us or god and wouldnt even let us talk, it was rough, but walking away from that instead of putting my head down, i followed president monsons advice and kept looking up. we talked to each person we passed, and then we talked to one guy and he invited us to come in and talk. he is a psycologist and intelligent, which helped a lot in our lesson. he was catholic but not active, but did know about the scriptures. i feel like he will progress and be able to be baptized. he askes the questions such as why are there so many churches and how do we know who has the authority. i told him we didnt have time then but tonight we are going to teach him the restoration and i have high hopes for him. 

I love the mission and am grateful for the life lessons that i can learn and for living prophets and apostles. I know that this is the true church of jesus christ in its fullness. i know that the book of mormon is the word of god and the evidence we have of the restoration. as elder holland says and the 70 that talked about the book of mormon, we cannot come to know for ourselves if the church is true until we embrace the divinity of the book of mormon and its teachings. it teaches us and answers the questions of our souls. read it and pray about it and expect and answer from god and he will give it to us. I love you all and miss you and hope you have a great next week. 

love 

elder smith 

pictures: baptism of judith, the door was locks so i had to climb over stuff to get the door open without the key, me and my hijos in the mission elder watts and elder peine, daughter of judith (3) with my tie and nametag,