22 February 2016 - Happy Late Valentine's Day!

So this was a week of amazing. Things just worked. day after day. Like for example. we are biking down the street and I say to my companion, 

"Remember nacho? "

"Ya man, we haven't seen him in a while.

We should visit him soon."

We hop off the bikes a moment to schedule it in' and who walks by in that moment? Nacho.

 

Another day we go looking for the Pablos family. We stop by to visit them and the mom is there and says that everyone else is off working or in school or what not and that they wont be able to make it right now. In that moment guess who drives on up. The dad and one of the kids. 

Things like that just kept happening. Luis is all set to be baptized this Saturday. I wish you all could come. 

On other vibes. I've been slowly mastering the art of the flour tortilla. Shaping it is hard as can be but the flavor is just right. Perhaps i shall have to open a tortilleria upon return to home. 

The other  day we had a very interestiog conversation with someone. They had a question that surprisingly I hadn't received before. It's the classic, "What does life mean. How do we know we are living? What does it mean to live?" We start talking and I found it interesting that everything boiled down to a testimony. Knowing that God exists. Having faith in Christ. Knowing that God lives is knowing that you are alive. Knowing that He exists lets us know our purpose here in this life. Lets us see that we must look in an eternal perspective. We mess up and don't always "live" as we should but that okay. Having faith in Christ lets us know that we can live on even if life for a time seems, lifeless. Life is amamzing and beautiful. Make the most of each moment. lLive it.

Keep being the amazing people you are and remember to make every day the best ever!

I love you all more than you imagine!

Love Elder Smith

15 February 2016

About the picture last week, going in the bed of the truck is very normal here it is the equivalent of a minivan except a pick up fits more people haha. We fit up to 12 people in sedans and I've seen five people on a motorcycle.

Valentines day is a thing here too. It's very similar. Flowers, cheesy gifts and lots of candy. Of course us missionaries basically have nothing to do with it, but it's cool. 

So you're all aware and so you don't freak with the pics I'll send, the front brake of the bike jammed while I was going rather fast and I went flying superman style and crash landed Hindenburg on the cement. I'm fine just some gnarley looking scrapes but I'm fine. Then today we went to see the sunrise off microwave hill in guaymas. I was going up and I slipped on the path and jacked up my elbow and my camera went flying and fell a little ways and long story short no longer works considering it's in several pieces. It's been an eventful week but  super fun.

Church was super cool yesterday too. I got to speak and then Luis asked how to fill out the tithing slip and what he would wear to his baptism. He's really excited.

You can get sick, crash your bike, fall down and hurt r
fom head to toe but what you can't do is stop the work. It's been one of the best weeks of my life. We had great lessons and tons of fun. Luis is stoked for his baptism this month. We've just about taught all the basics and his so ready. We were finally able to find Marisela and Naydeli again. Omar is doing great. the list goes on. Then at church I got to give a talk. I talked about missionary work of course, its importance. I stole a bit of an Uchtdorf talk where he talks about Nehemia. Nehemia was rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and some of his enemies wanted him to leave the safety of the city under the pretense of resolving the conflict but Nehemia knew they wanted to harm him so he responded with a powerful response. "I am doing a great work so that I cannot come down" when I am faced with temptation or tiredness or whatever, I think of those words. I have engaged myself with a great work and I cannot leave it. 

To top off the week I got to see God's wonders watching sunrise on a hill over the bay. It was extraordinary.

Look for the best in every moment and make life special every day.Ii love you all and hope for you all to have the best week ever!

Love,

Elder Smith

8 February 2015 - A short letter/ amazing week!

It'll be a quick letter this week but long story short its been amazing. I'll start with the pics I've got.

1.  This morning we decided to take the bikes to Guaymas. its about 15 kilometros. this was part way through. behind me crossing the bay is Empalme

2.  Behind the hills in the distance is Guaymas. 

3.  Fresh fried fish

4.  The church building in Empalme is being remodeled so we went to church in style in the bed of an investigators pick up. 

We had a super cool experience this week. Last week I downloaded a bunch of Mormon Messages to use in teaching situations and we were showing a family one of them "mira a la luz" their neighbor was over and when it finished she told us that she wanted us to stop by to teach her son. We weren't even planning on stopping by that family that evening but when an appointment fell through and then another we felt like we should stop by. In the end we went by to teach her son, Omar. He's about 30 years old and has one kid. They both needed the message we are bringing. It's been so cool to start teaching them and I cant wait for more. I forever will appreciate how the Lord puts people in your path in just the right moment and place and it's just awesome. 

Jose Luis is progressing rapidly. Everything just clicks with him. He understands it all, does his part and is going to be so ready for the 27th of this month. 

Things are beautiful and lovely and fun every day. Life's great and I'm loving every moment. Go out there and make this week special!

Love you all!!!

Elder Smith

1 February 2015 - Keeping it real. Keeping it fun.

I guess you could say we are keeping it real fun.

This week was just wonderful may I mention. I loved it so much. Every moment was busy and productive. We started off the week with a great district meeting. We talked about goals and specifically those of dates placed and street contacts. We left that day stoked to work hard. We set high goals and all week worked to meet said goals. As a district we set more baptism dates and contacted more people than in any other week. I had triple exchanges this week too. Due to some little this and thats I went on exchanges with the elders of my district twice and then with the zone leaders once. The bulk of the time I had to leave my companion of now 2 weeks to hold up the area. It was amazing to see that even though he has only 2 weeks in the mission he was able to do an amazing job. I came back the first time and he had set two baptism dates contacted many and we had the next day full of appointments. What I love about the work of the Lord is that it isn't the experience you have that matters, it's the faith and desire you show. As we put our desires in line with those of the Lord, our ability to succeed becomes 100%. If we raise out faith to such a level that it begins to invoke the powers of heaven nothing of this world nor any other can stop us from changing the world. 

As we have been teaching more and more we've begun to see more and more how the Lord just loves us. My companion said it best. "I've barely met these people but somehow I feel a strong need to love and help them." As we begin to see others in the way God sees us the perspective changes. It's not just about being okay for a day or week. It's about eternity. The pain God would feel for an eternity to see one of us lost to Him for every moment of eternity to me seems unbearable. For that reason alone is motivation enough to let us feel a perfect love to others. We can't give up, we have to keep going. We can make it and not just that but we can help many along the way with us. 

We've had great opportunities teaching this week. Talking with Luis we were able to help calm some of his doubts and reservations and he chose a day to be baptized and begin the journey of an eternity. We will be working closely with him to help him prepare for the 28th of February. Marisela and Naydeli also chose the 28th to be ready for that important step. To fix everything necessary. Yajaira was baptized two weeks ago and now we are working to have her daughters baptized within this month as well. We were able to find some amazing people this week as well. Every day has been full of the most wonderful moments. I wish I was able to tell it all. I guess you all will have to head out on a mission someday to see it live haha. 

On other subjects, I ate for the first time almeja. I dont remember what its called in English, clam? But it as delicious. You grab em fresh crack them open squirt in lime and hot sauce and slurp em down. They're about 1 buck fifty a dozen so odds are i'll be hitting up that goodness alot.

Go out all of you and have the best week ever! Make every day special and then make it extra special for someone else. Love you all and i'll talk to you soon!!!

Love

Elder Smith