pictures. pizza, elder johnston went to the dentist, baptism of hno vicentehello everybody. it was another great week here and i learned a lot and had some amazing experiences. we have been struggling a little to find good investigatores. it seems we find them and they seem to be really great and then they dont turn out to want to talk anymore or they just want to talk but they dont want to do anything else. it has been a good experience and we have been focusing a lot on trying to help the zone to improve. there were a few problems in the zone this week that we had to try and resolve. we had to go to a companionship and have a talk with them because they werent getting along very well. hopefully it helped, we´ll have to see the affects in the long run. you learn a lot of things in the mission, like problem solving, having good relationships with ppl, patience, diligence, love. and lots more. all of which you have to apply everyday. i am grateful for the things i am able to learn from other ppl and the experiences i am able to have. we took elder johnston to the dentist one day because his bridge fell out. that was an interesting experience. i call the doctors and dentists here doctors in a box. because they just have a tiny little room where they work. this dentist just had to glue the bridge back in but he said he was a sergical dentist. i think he has the same time as dad does in dentistry. i dont think id trust him to do surgery though. he was nice though and we invited him to come to church. tania and carlos are progressing well. tania came to church this week and really liked it. we had a great lesson with her where we taught her the restoration. she is only 19 but she understood the principles of the priesthood and apostasy better than like 90% of the ppl i teach here. she wants it all to be true and is preparing to be baptized the 29th. tomorrow we are going to go to set the date for their wedding. hopefully it will be this friday. we had a zone conference this week. presidente castañeda came and talked a lot about how we can improve. he talked a lot about the things we talked about in the zone leader council. he talked about having an eternal perspective. of thinking about why we do the things we do. we baptize so that they can be converted so they can have eternal life. we are preparing these ppl for eternal life. sometimes we get caught up in the stress or technicality of things and forget the divinity of our life and existence. when we focus on the big picture and work to please god in all we do, we will be happier and accomplish much more in this life. he also talked a lot about the atonement and brought a very powerful spirit. i didnt even want to leave the room after he talked when there was the break. we talked about a scripture in mosiah 27:28 that says we have to repent almost unto death. we talked about what that means. we came to the conclusion that we have to go to our own Gethsemane. we have to understand really what christ did for us, and feel some of his pain. he talked about how many of the apostles and profetas are known for crying in every sacrament meeting. it is the most important meeting in all of the church. saturday we had the baptism for hno vicente. it went really well and there was a powerful spirit there. I got to play a song and sing. i chose "love at home", though in spanish its called "cuando hay amor or When there is love" and the words are a little more general not just about love at home. it went really well and i felt the spirit as i sang, and many ppl told me that it brought a great spirit to the service. elder johnston baptized vicente and at church the next day i got to confirm him. it was a great experience. he is an amazing guy and has a strong testimony. he has read and prayed everyday and understands everything. he is part of the ward already and is going to be a future leader for sure. next week he should receive the priesthood. he is 27. it will be amazing to be able to see his progress. well thats just about everything. it was a great week and i learned a lot. i love the mission and am so greatful to be here. it is super super hot now. i told mom that i went to sleep last night and at 10:30 it was 92 degrees in our room and we just have one fan to share ha. all part of the experience though. the ppl are amazing and we´re working hard to build zion here in minatitlan. i love you all and miss you a ton.love elder smith
pictures. got my easter package (thank you mom and fam!), mission pres came for a youth conference, my second pair of retired shoes i have one more that will last til the end though for sure doc martens, the kid we helped, food on sunday.
hello everyone. it was another amazing week here in mexico and we had a lot of really great expereinces. we had the opportunity to go to villahermosa for the zone leader cousel. we always have a two day meeting there where we talk a lot about the problems in the mission and how we can do better. our zone did really well compared to the others but we are trying to improve because the mission has been a little down. this month we put a huge mission goal and we are going to work hard to reach it. we talked a lot about the "real growth" of the church. we dont want to just baptize and then have the converts fall away, but the key is to help people really arrive at the conversion before baptism and then work with the members after so that they can stay together. we talked about how we can achieve that goal and it was mostly focused on becoming truly like christ, which was something that i had been focused on the days before we got there. it is amazing to see how the spirit prepares all of the mission leaders for the conference and share exactly what the mission needs. a funny thing. i saw a tv when i was leaving a house and it was the three ninjas on tv. we worked really hard with all the missionaries in the zone this week. we are trying to get them really motivated and to have more faith to see miracles. last week we challenged them to find 2 people to baptize in that very week that didnt have dates before. and this week we are trying to put 40 baptismal dates as a zone this week. we have seen a lot of miracles and i know we will continue to see them as we exercise more faith.we´ve been working hard with vicente and he is progressing really well. he has read a ton of the book of mormon and all of the pamphlets we´ve left and is developing an increasingly powerful testimony. he will be baptized this saturday. also we´ve been working witha couple named carlos and tania. carlos is an inactive member and tania isnt a member. we committed them to getting married this week and they are excited and feeling the spirit doing their family prayer every night. other funny stories. we helped a little kid who got his arm stuck trying to reach a coin he dropped. his arm was caught between a metal fence protection. thats the picture. i asked for oil and then we got a crowbar to get him out. it was odd. also in the same house that we ate mungungo last week she gave us that fish. i liked it and ate two, but elder johnston didnt like it too much haha. anyways there are a lot of great things happening here. we changed houses too and our new house is a lot nicer and just us two there which is better as well. im loving the mission and learning a lot and have a lot to get done and a lot to learn in the time i have left. love you and and miss you a ton. and hope you have a great next week. love elder smith
well not hardly any time today sorry. i love you all and miss you a ton. this week was full of miracles and i learned a ton in conference. coolest things that happened is that our investigator vicente came to conference with his niece and they liked it a lot. vicente will get baptized the 14th and hopefully we can start to talk to the niece. the members helped them a lot to feel comfortable and talk to them and everything. we did service for a convert of mine that is really poor. it is really dirty. he is old and cant work and his fam doesnt help him at all. it was fun and we helped him a lot. conference was awesome. i loved it and watched it in english for the first time in 2 years haha. much more powerful in english. had some hard times with an investigator who has a controling husband. they arent married and he wont leave or let her do anything. it is hard. she has a growing testimony and has received answers to prayers but needs the gospel but he wont let her. we´ll see what happens.we found and met a ton of really great new investigators this week and are teaching a ton. hopefully we can help a few families to be baptized in the coming weeks. we ate mundungo. which is cow stomach. i hate it. i had it once in the mission before but ate it all. this time i ate like half then had to stop or i woulda thrown up. my comp took like all of his and wrapped it up in a paper and put it in his backpack. i wasnt so fortunate to have the opportunity ha. its super chewy and smells like garbage haha. it was an experience though.
i love you and miss you and hope you have a great week. love elder smith
pictures. helped ppl chip paint and paint, road a tricycle to help someone move, eating corn with elder poulson, monkey, monkey reading little book or mormon, monkey climbing tie, kissing a chicken, baseball field in minatitlan. well it was an eventful week with a lot of cool experiences and some difficult ones. tuesday i waited in the bus station all day from 630 to 330 for all the misionaries coming and going and while waiting felt the earthquake. it was pretty cool. i thought i was just dizzy but then saw everyone else was also feeling it and realized it was an earthquake. sadly my first reaction was to take out my camera and take a video instead of run for cover. it wasnt too strong though, but just a cool feeling. it lasted like 2 minutes but was weird to feel the earth moving. i got a funny video too.. my new companion is named elder johnston from nevada. he is cool and really similar to me and is a great missionary so im excited to work with him.. i think we´ll have a lot of success together and have a lot of fun too. we found some great investigators this week that im excited about. from the family they are still suffering and we dont know why they arent coming to church. they were gone all week and got back. the little girl didnt get confirmed still and it is sad. she said she was going to church in the morning and then didnt show up. its rough. we need to work a lot with them this week. we got a reference from the bishop that he met in his taxi and she is named lorena. we went and met her and the first thing she said was. "i want to go to your church". i was shocked and we taught her and she is preparing to be baptized on the first of april inbetween the two sesions of conference. it is def a miracle. we had some great lessons with vicente also and he has been a miracle but was out of town i think this weekend and couldnt come to church so he fell off date for baptism. he is learning a lot though and reading a lot in the book of mormon. the book of mormon is the greatest tool for conversion. we went on divisions on friday and i went with elder poulson, who im living with next year. he is a lot of fun. the next day we got back they took us to this lady that is selling a monkey. my comp had to beg for like 15 minutes for her to let us in, but it was a ton of fun. if we could i would totally buy a monkey. it climbed all over us and was like wanting to cuddle up to you and stuff. it was way fun ha. we also taught it about the book of mormon ha. i completed officially 20 months this week in the mission and it is way crazy. i see all the people i know going home and find myself as the oldest missionary in the zone with two others from my generation. we went to a baseball stadium today for like the mexican major league team and the gate was open so we walked in and asked to see the boss to ask him if we could use the field for an activity. by the end we got intived by them to come teach the team the word of wisdom and the law of chastity. there are 28 profecional baseball players they want us to teach. we will have to figure out some sorta plan for that but should be really cool. and they said they´d lend us the field a monday we want too. im happy and working hard and learning a lot. i am excited for conference this week and for the zone. we are having a lot of success right now and hopefully april will be the best month in the history of the mission. i love you and miss you. love elder smith
fotos. baptism with family, with some members, i sang "im trying to be like jesus" w/ primary, birthday cake for cristalHello everybody, it was another great week here, but also a week with some challenges and sad things. tuesday we went on exchanges where i stayed in my area with an elder form another area in the zone. we contacted a man named vicente on the street and it was one of those where i felt like we should see him as fast as possible. we put an appointment with him for the next day. when we went he was waiting and ready. we taught the gospel of jesus christ and he accepted to be baptized the 1st of april. he said he needs to come closer to god and he has been completing with all of his commitments including reading and praying about the book of mormon. he also came with us to a baptism that two other elders were having in our zone and liked it a lot. the only bad thing is that there was a youth activity before we had helped out with and we played like 10 min of volleyball before the baptism started and he got to know ppl and it was all good, but then he hurt his ankle. i didnt think it was too bad, but he missed church because he had to go see a doctor ha. it is all fine now though, but ya the only bad thing about activities like that, though it helped him a lot so i think it was worth it. im excited for him and know he will be a future leader in the ward. we had some good meetings this week with pres castañeda and the stake presidency and also with the ward in making plans for missionary work in the stake and talking about how we can complete our goals for this year in raising the assistence and trying to split the stake the fastest time possible. we´ve been teaching a lot of really great ppl. we´ve been teaching the sister in law to palmira, maria and her husband javier. they dont know a lot about the gospel but they are trying and willing to learn. they have a date to be baptized together the 1st of april as well. we had the baptism for cristal on her birthday this last thursday. it went really well and we had a lot of members there. i sang the primary song "im trying to be like jesus" with the primary and it went well, and then their neighbor and member of the high counsel baptized her. after they brought barbacoa and cake and we sang the mexican birthday song, then i got everyone to sing "happy birthday" when they brought out the cake. there was a great spirit there and helped everyone feel unified. there are transfers and elder medina is going to go to palenque and i am getting a new comp named elder johnston. he is cool and i know him already. he will be a new zone leader so i will have to do a lot more of the things until he gets the hang of it. he is a good missionary though. it will be sad to leave elder medina, he has been a great companion and helped me to grow a lot. bad news. friday night jose fell again and drank. nobody told us. saturday jose and palmira fought because palimra was mad that he drank. it is sad that she didnt support him more and be positive. he was drinking EVERYDAY, before we found him, and he drank once in a week. i know it is harder for her to believe he can change because he had failed them so many times before and for so long, but he was really changing. everytime we met with him he had an experience where he cried telling us about, but she was always negative about him and i think it got to him. in life we need to talk initiative and do things ourselves for ourselves, but also we always need support. a positive attitude, kind words, and a compliment go much much much further than we may think, and the same goes with a bad word or tearing people down. it went much much further than i had ever imagined that saturday in the morning he left to cancun where thy lived before and we dont know when he´ll be back. we will keep working with the family here and try to contact him so that he can come back. he didnt get confirmed yet. they told us this sunday morning. it was rough. the lord blesses us with so much, but sometimes i let that get clouded out by the bad things that happen. I am eternally thankful for the knowledge that god has given me of his gospel. i have learned so much about the terrible consequences that occur when people dont keep the commandments, especially when it comes to drugs, alcohol, and adultery. it is a sad world unless we make it a better one. just as ive learned that, ive also learned that happiness is a decision. if we want to be happy, we can be. not to sound cliche or anything, but it really is true. i have learned to not be destroyed when bad things happen. whereas wehn i was reading in my journal at the start of my mission i def did ha. i know that god loves and knows us and that he has an eternal purpose for each of us. i know that everything in the end turns out well and that everything that happens is for our own well being. i love and miss you all and hope you have a great next week. love,Elder Smith
