FaceTime at Christmas with McKinsey

FaceTiming McKinsey on Christmas Eve was great! We were so happy to see her!

December 16, 2013

Hey family!

ok so important stuff first: I will not be writing you on monday because pday for us is wednesday. And, due to lack of computers, etc. I will be FACETIMING JASONS COMPUTER CHRISTMAS EVE AT 4PM MOUNTAIN TIME and 11PM MY TIME. i´ll be facetiming from the buhlers iphone. if you want a bigger screen then we´ll talk skype but you gotta get ahold of the buhlers for that. We´re only supposed to be on for one hour so have your questions ready. 

one last thing: we´re in charge of an activity (the end of jan.) about family history. we´re planning on having a stand in a plaza and since telde consists of mostly old folks, we´ll be busy. but i need your (as in mama bert and ben and sasha and dad) help to give me information on how to do it for those who are not members, etc. thanks :)

another thing: i still haven´t received my package but please people you don´t need to send stuff to the buhlers!! i receive letters and packages just fine at my own apartment! but i recieved the thanksgiving letter. it was cute and the buhlers opened it for me and they had a good laugh. hehehee it is pretty funny. ´´THey shoved stuffing up his what?!´´ hahahahahahahahaaa. oh yea i´ll get my package this week. they send it down only with the AP´s or when a senior couple is travelling.

whew! got that off my chest. ok soooooo the week! Each week is great in the mission field. I feel so blessed to be a missionary in this time! Seriously, though. I have never felt so much love until now. Before, I loved missionary work. But I think i was looking at it more on an adventure type of thought process. now, I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. ahem. moving on.... 

we toured the islands!!! actually, driving here reminds me a little like driving in mexico...but we were on the edge of mountains. hahahahaaaa ok funny experience. there was this big semi coming and hermana buhlers driving and i´m right behind her. we slam on our brakes so that he could squeeze by then he just wizzed passed us. literally, he missed the mirror by like an inch then was even closer to my face. after hermana buhler and i just went ´´WHHEEEEEEEEEWWW!!!´´ hahahaaa we both saw our lives flash before our eyes. but it was wonderful!! its really chill here. i took sooooo many photos i´m already out of memory cards. we´re buying a flash drive today.

Anywhoooo....Hermana Cassinat (not cassiNUTS. we had a good laugh. so did hermana buhler. i think you two would get along dad) and I have been working with the members and trying to get references from them. We thought that maybe the fact is they just don´t know us very well. Some members we know well but others not as well. We met with 2 families this week and it was wonderful to actually see them in their home setting and how they really interacted with each other. Plus they didn´t have the stay still fold your arms dont scream dont kick your brother rules like they do in church. They´re great examples and they talked about how they´re trying to figure out ways to help us and the branch. I was really humbled at their kindness because we never saw this in barrio 6. I´ve thought many times this week how we´re in charge of Telde and therefore, we should be receiving revelation for Telde. I have never really thought about it until I came to this area and how true it is. We pray for our investgators and the members and to find people in the street. But it wasn´t until recently that I´ve started to pray for the people in the streets, that they´ll be more receptive and willing to accept our message. I feel that what I need and should do here in Telde is clearer and I´m extremely grateful that I am here serving! It may not have the most members or the madrid transportation, but I am grateful for the trust that the Lord has put in me to quidar this area.

OH! something cool!!! We were in intercambios this week and I was staying in telde. so me and this las palmas hermana are walkin home and i´m telling her this scary story about telde (i´ll tell ya later) then we get a phone call...and they said we were on hurricane red alert!!! ´´Get to your apartments by 3 and don´t come out for any reason until we call you´´. heehee, SWEET!! So I call hermana buhler and she says, this is so cool!! hahahaa all the canarian missionaries were super duper excited for this. but it all ended up being nothing and 2ish hours later we were out again. but the winds were pretty dangerous and we got rained on a lot but nada scary. we were all a little disappointed but grateful that nothing bad happened.

So I sang at church yesterday!! it was pretty fun and everyone started talking about how they´ll be lookin for me in the motab choir in the future. i said, you better!! heehee it was a lot of fun. i sang the first noel. we bribed some people from english class to come and here me. theycame! but then scrammed outta there right afterwards. oh well. poco a poco!

We were visiting this less active and she said, oh do you want to talk to my sister? she isn´t a member. ohh. well ok! her sister is bedridden and has a lot of bitter feelings abuot that and plus her mother died like 3 months ago. we had an amazing lessno with her and you could feel the spirit soooo strongly in that lesson. I love that lady so much. hopefully, she´ll accept us more in the future.

hahaa so on friday the 13th, all these events happened in literally 15 minutes and all so bizzar and hilarious. So we´re taking out the trash and she flings the bag into the dumpster. well, all this trash juice just sprays all over me and i´m so seriously grossed out and she´s just cracking up a gut over there. so i run to her and try wiping myself off on her and we have this giant struggle. meanwhile. this old man is just casually watching us from his boxing gym. then hna cassinat just punches me right on the arm and so i lost that fight cuz it hurt. then we realized we forgot something plus i had to go potty and we return to our apartment and i go first and run up the stairs. i hear this CRASH behind me and she´s all sprawled on the steps cuz her big toe didn´t quite make it over the step. i´m tryin SO STINKING HARD not to laugh so i´m just gasping, ´´oooohh aare you oooohahahahahahahaa!!!!´´ i couldn´t even let it out i was laughin so hard plus i still needed to pee and busting a gut was not helping!! then finally we left the apartment. now we pass the old man who saw hermana cassinat actnig like a child earlier (ahem) and then he invites us into his gym and gives us a private tour. soooooo pretty much there was no point to this story but i just had to write it down because all these events were all squished into a short period of time and i´m still laughing as we write this.

Well, family, thats all folks! I love ya!! I´ll talk to you next week. If the times are no good then email hermana buhler and we´ll get it taken care of.

love hermana smith

December 9, 2013

Hey! So we had a baptism! Leo was baptized and it was such an amaaaaazing baptism! We were freaking out a little bit because Leo and Irma were super late (came 15 min before baptism was supposed to start) but only because they went to the store to buy food for the baptism! They are so wonderful. He loved it and his sister and her family came. It went so well and the members helped a lot. He was confirmed yesterday and when he sat down, he put his hand over his heart and said, ´´whoa´´. Then he patted his heart. The Spirit was so strong! Plus, under the direction of Pres.  of the Stake and not under the direction of the missionaries and the Branch members, he received the Aaronic Priesthood right after his confirmation. Jolly good. Now this week we´ll explain WHAT he received.

Other than that this week went really well. We do a lot of contacting and talk with less actives since there are more than the actual active members. But we´ve received some good references and we´re hoping to get to teachin´ soon!

Thats so exciting about your lives right now! We´re going to tour the Islands with the Buhlers today so i don´t have a lot of time to write.

now for your questions: yes i´m getting leather covers. no i will never wear closed toed shoes. my feet want to be free plus i hate shoe shopping. all my winter stuff is in the peninsula so i bought just like 2 cardigans but thats all. i´m good and warm.

oh i´m singing next sunday and speaking the sunday after that.

love you all! have a great week!

loves kinsey poo.

December 2, 2013

Hey family!

Look like your week was just splendid and jolly and full of food. We were seeing a lot of that too. The Buhlers were kind enough to have a Thanksgiving dinner with all the missionaries on the island and it was sooooooooooooo much fun. The Déniz family came (family from telde and the husband is the first stake pres on the islands) and they´re soooo hilarious. That family plus the buhlers called for 3 hours of us busting a gut and peeing in our seats. We ate our hearts out and it was deliiiicious food. but of course, your food is better mom :) (shhh don´t tell hna buhler)

This week was good and we walked around a lot. We´ve cleaned out the area book even more and so we´re on the hunt more than ever to find new investigators. We haven´t had a lot of success but we fasted about it and during those 24 hours the Lord blessed us more than I was expecting. I shouldn´t have been surprised but I was. It takes a long time to go out of Telde to visit other areas so most of the time if lessons fell us, then we´re walking around and we pass like 3 people in 30 minutes. Especially at night time, then its a kiss of death sometimes. We´ve had quite a bit of meetings as a district and as a zone about finding new people and we´re trying new stuff. We had a chit chat with Hermana Buhler yesterday because Hermana Cassinat and I maybe had a bit of a panic attack and she calmed us down and told us that we´re just planting these seeds and then the missionaries in a year will be grateful for our hard work, because then Telde would be a ward, etc. It was a nice chit chat. 

Leo and Irma are doing really well but they didn´t come to church on Sunday to go to a family thing (we´re almost positive he went to play soccer with his family). We´re still planning on having the baptism on Saturday but we´re waiting to talk with him to know more before before making a sure decision. He´s a good little guy.

There was a branch FHE and we played this x box game thing. ok, they picked us first to play and of course, we blew it! score of 62. so all these little primary kids are creaming our rear ends and we felt that justice was not served and we were delt with unjustly. So we petitioned to play again and of course we went. and won. more like CREAMED THEIR LITTLE HINIES. 104!! oh yeah!

thats so sad that the tidwells are leaving!! nooo!!! what ward are they moving into? 

I love you family! you are all such great examples to me. I love hearing from each and every one of you. Please know that I love this Gospel and I know that Jesus Christ lives and that God lives, too. He is literally our Savior and our Redeemer. I know that it´s only through Him that we can all return to our Father in Heaven with our families for eternity. I have such a strong testimony of that and of the scriptures. They are true and they are the word of God. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that it holds the answers to our questions and it holds the plenitud del evangelio. Hermana Cassinat and I are always wanting 4 more hours of personal study every day! haha but we are so blessed to be missionaries, especially at this time. I remember something from zone conference and Hermana Jackson spoke about D and C 4. She went into details of it and I know for a fact that what has been profesied has come to pass and the field is white and it is ready to be harvested. People are ready to hear and receive this message of hope and of peace. Please don´t hesitat to share this. Can´t believe i´m saying this, but I´m a Mormon! I´m a Latter-Day Saint! I´m a missionary! I´m a representative of Jesus Christ and His servant! I know it! I live it! and boy, do I LOVE IT.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Until we meet again,

Hermana Smith

November 25, 2013

Hey fam!! estoy aquí. don´t worry. i´ll do a recap of the last 2 weeks for ya. you´re getting double the awesomeness today!

2 weeks ago we started talking to this guy on a bench and then his friends came and joined us. We had a really good conversation with them but they only wanted to know about English class. One of the men is named Thomas and he spoke English very well. We gave him our card and as we were leaving, Hermana Cassinat and I both felt that Thomas was golden and ready. We didn't see him until a couple of days later when he came to English class. Again, we both felt that this man was special. At the end he told us that he wanted to show us something. He pulled out of his bag a photo of two sister missionaries from 14 years ago with his daughter. He had been receiving the charlas and he said he liked them very much! Hermana Cassinat and I are very excited to talk with him and we both feel very strongly that he's going to be a great leader in the Church. We invited him to church, but he couldn´t come. That really bummed us out. He has an amazing voice. Hermana Cassinat and I call it the spanish Sean Connery voice. I want to video tape him speaking sometime. Sometimes we like to just sit and listen to him speak:)

Oh a funny occasion. So we contacted this slightly crazy guy (thats not unusual) and he kept on saying the only english words he knows ´´looky looky, boogy boogy, i like to move it move it!!´´ we try not to laugh in his face. but each time he wants to have a juice with us and this one (and last) occasion, he took us into this cafe...........well so i´m trying to have a conversasion with him and its usually the same thing, ´´no we can´t go to your house unless there´s another woman. i don´t care if you´re honorable. other people may not know, but we work for Someone who WILL know...etc.´´ meanwhile, hermana cassinat is bombarded by 3 drunk guys and she got some numbers!!! hahaha actually, nothing came of this occasion, i just thought it was overall super funny. don´t worry peeps; they may be drunk, but they are honorable drunk men!

we contacted this joven and he´s super cool. He doesn´t live in our area, but we´ve been trying to send his number to those missionaries. he works in Telde so a lot of times hermana cassinat and i go and try and teach him a bit. we gave him the bom and he´s been reading and praying!! He spends most of his time here in telde and last week we tried to meet him at institute in Las Palmas. In the end, algo pasó and he couldn´t come. but we were promised a ride back by the buhlers so we got to stay a couple of minutes. i remember talking to sasha about a few Canarians that i should say hi to and so i went up and talked to the institute teacher. I told him that Elder Zimmerman is my sisinlaws father and he said no me digas! haha he is such a wonderful man and spoke highly of the zimmerman family!

We had Zone Conference and it was absolutely wonderful. It´s a 2 day thing so we were at the old mission home in the mountains (Canaries used to be its own mission) and monday we played sports and ate all day. then we watched 17 miracles and i cried like a baby. then we had the actual conference the next day. WOW. So amazing! I sang with some other missionaries and well....2 of the elders got a ´´giggle attack´´, as they say it. hahahaaha we were so confused why everyone inthe audience was smiling while we singa super spiritual song. haha now me know. All the speakers were wonderful and I feltt they were definitely following the Spirit and it was all so uplifting. This is by far my favorite conference! The one´s in Madrid were good but i felt more chastized then uplifted. 

Update on Leo and his wife Irma! We have been working with him and his baptism. Yesterday, Leo and Irma came to church! Afterwards, we showed them the baptismal font and explained with the whole process. I dipped Hermana Cassinat. They were both surprised at how simple it was and I think that fear that they had is gone now that they know. We were going to have it this Saturday, but we´ve changed it to the next Saturday, the 8th. It will be so wonderful, because the rama will be so involved! they´re talking about having the primary sing a musical number and its so amzing because b6 never put their 2 cents in and here we can have a lesson an hour before and show up for the service on time and the members have done it all! and that means no more flooding baptismal fonts!!

I finished reading the book of mormon this week and it was really so wonderful. ah, i just LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON SO STINKIN MUCH!!!!! Hermana Cassinat, by her example, is really helping me set more goals to achieve. In all, she´s a wonderful missionary and I feel so blessed to know that I have this next and last transfer with her. A lot of times, I still feel like I´m being trained (she also reminds me so much of Hermana Hansen!!!!) because I´m learning so much. Oh yeah, and Hermana Cassinat goes home after this transfer, on Jan. 6th or something like that. Its crazy how time flies! I really admire her because she isn't letting the thought of her going home soon affect her teaching or make her lazy at all. Or trunky. We just don´t talk about it. But it WIGS my mind that the transfer is gone and we´re on a new one. I was talking to the Jacksons and asking their advice about going home dates. and they told me i needed to go to school and no i couldn´t do a half transfer....that means times a ticking and no me gusta para nada

thank you so much for all your prayers and letters. oh and the jacksons found my package!! aparently some elder stuck it in a closet in the stake building up in madrid and its been sitting there ever sense...but i´ll get it sooner or later!!

LOVE YA!

hermana smith

oh and we have permission to have a thanksgiving meal with the Buhlers this thursday!! yum.

November 11, 2013

Hola familia!!

This week was really good. Hermana Cassinat and I have been a bit worried about finding new investigators because the ones we have now aren´t really progressing. It´s been difficult and expensive when we don´t have the trusty Madrid transportation but we make it work. we´re best buds with the taxi people and the bus transportation. they call the buses here guaguas or in the english, wah-wahs. hhahahahahahahahaaa. But we are working and contacting and hopefully we´ll see some trusty new souls!
Our Ecuadorian, Leo, is doing really well and his wife is wonderful! Her name is Irma and she just came in from Ecuador and she is so sweet and really understands the doctrine. We think she´s supportive of his baptism but we get down to that this week. He will be baptized the 23rd of this month and we are very excited for him! We feel that when his wife gets baptized, she´ll be a huge support and booster for Leo. Things don´t really click for him, but Irma is super sharp. They came to church for all 3 hours and she was so loved by all the members! We felt so grateful that everyone was her friend. She seems really receptive and we want her to have the best of friends since she´s just moved here.
Hermana Cassinat and I are doing really well. Hahahaa we´re really good at getting distracted, so during a weekly planning session, we were figuring out a baptismal date for an investigator, then hermana cassinat said, oh thats pearl harbor day! then we ended up talking about military and how we wanted to join, then veterans then the goverment shutting down then we sang all the american songs we knew then talked about songs in general with good lyrics. then we scream and blame each other 20 min later. hahahaaa its sooooo hilarious but i don´t suggest it for any missionary!

I´m still trying to get the hang of things because the transportation and finding places here is so difficult, but she´s been a huge support. Our biggest problem is getting the members involved in lessons. Our district leader gave us a good idea to simply bring the investigators to the members houses and we never thought of it that way. We´re going to try it out this week! but the story of old bishop tidwell (not old as in years...)really helped and i took a picture of it so that we can refer to it later in the week:)

i´m glad that you´re week was wonderful! and busy! hahaa but i´m super happy to be here in telde! its a big fam bam here and i don´t want to leave!

now for the daily questions!

1. i received one letter and i´ll call the office just to double and triple check :) did you write another name on the package for them to not know? like rosa for example? (dad) oh and i received the birthday letter with the wonderulness song in it and the monthly relief society letter from my visiting teacher last wednesday:)

2. mail to the islands. please :)

i feel terrible not because i didn´t get a package (please) but because you all put your heart and soul into it. i´m sorry that your efforts and love and everything was lost:( but i´m just fine andi know that all will be well.

I love you all! please know that i love the mission so much. i love serving the Lord. it scares me that my time is ticking and i have t minus something amount of time left. but know that i am working and tring my best to be the best missionary that the Lord expects me to be.

Love you!

Hermana smith

A couple serving on the Canary Islands, Elder and Sister Buhler, sent a few notes about Kinsey to us this week (our dad was trying to sort out how things work there for mailing packages). 

[Sent on Mon, Nov. 11]
Hermana Smith is doing great!  Yesterday we were in her and her companion's gospel essential class for investigators and they did a fantastic job teaching about the Holy Ghost.  Her spanish is really coming along and she is very happy!
[Sent on Wed, Nov 13]
Your daughter is such a joy to serve with on this island!!  She is doing fantastic!!  In fact yesterday she and her companion were contacting all day in Telde and found some wonderful people to teach.  She is happy and doing well! She will probably be here for at least a few more months, as Elders and Hermanas usually serve around 5 to 6 months here.  Don't worry, we will take good care of her while she is here!!

Love,

Elder and Hermana Buhler

November 4, 2013

hey fam bam!
this week was super fun. i am loving the mission!  I love it here in
Telde and Hermana Cassinat is wonderful. I don´t think I´ll ever have
a bad day with her (knock on wood). She´s an amazing teacher and I am
learning many great things from her. She´s super down to earth and we
talk in a sid voice from ice age a lot. hahahaa.
It has been very interesting because Hermana Cassinat and I will run
into many MA´s in the street and looking at the members list, Telde
could be a ward. I´ve been thinking about that a lot and wondering
what we could do as missionaries to help Telde. We´ve heard about
wards and branches falling because of the members falling away and
ever since that, I´ve been feeling a little hesitant about even more
converts, not knowing if they´d fall away right after or not. But our
new stake President, Presidente Deníz spoke in a combined meeting
yesterday about this and it was so wonderful. He lives in Telde and so
he came to church and told us of his journey right from the beginning
of him following his impressions of a new stake to now. He told us
that he felt the same impression that Telde was going to be a ward
very soon. He also said that we need 15-20 active Elders to be
considered a ward, and we were only faulting 8. Seeing it like that,
it is very possible. I´m very excited for the future of Telde! hermana
cassinat and i did a high 5 after that. oh squirrel moment, we have
an investigator named moussa from africa and obvio his 2nd language is
english and so for high fives he says, touch my hand!! hahahahahaaaa
oh gosh we die every time.
We were in charge of the branch halloween party and it was stressful
because the primary were expecting a terror room and we looked stupid
for a second until our mission leader said he´d do it. hahaa but
turned out to be a huge success! We had 2 investigators and their
young kids come and they loved it. The relief society grabbed them and
they were all chatting up the whole night! we felt so good know that
we didn´t have to tell the members to do their job. They´re great in
missionary work.
Leo, our man with a fecha, is reunited with his wife! We had a good
lesson with only him and we went over the baptismal interview
questions. It went super well and i was so surprised to hear his
testimony about the Atonement and repentence. I don´t know Leo very
well so hearing that has helped me so much have more confidence in
him. His wife is super nice and wow is she a babe. we´re trying to
have a lesson with them both but it hasn´t happened so far. We´re
hoping for a turnout this week and hopefully she´ll be receptive to
our message.
Okie dokie! moms questions!
1. I was doing the work of the Lord and the Buhlers came at the end of
the day to sing. then we ate the lovely strawberry with cream cheese
frosting and sprinkles cake and went home to sleep :)
2. you can probably send packages to me in telde. we usually stay in
the islands for awhile so thats what i´m thinking.
3. i have not received anything because the office doesn´t mail them.
the office sends them at zone and district meetings, temple day and
for us islanders, zone conference. we have zone conference the 19th so
thats when i´ll get my stuff. but i talked to the office 2 weeks ago
and the buhlers (from their trip last week to madrid) also have said
that i haven´t received a package. i really am sorry to say that they
thnk its lost :/
4. we didn´t buy anything except go out to eat some turkish food
during medio día. but today i bought new shoes for 8€ cuz i´ve been
sewing mine for awhile to keep them together.
5 or 6. i gave a list of things i wanted to kelly a monthish ago so
you can ask her. but honestly just those church videos. i´m really
doing fine here. oh and skirts from sister missionary mall. i´ve been
trying to look for skirts here and its impossible. i´ve been wearing
the same 3 from that store. oh and borrowing from sister cassinat. i
mean hermana.
i´m really sorry to hear about mama bert and her friends :( and also
brians situation. it hurts my heart but this is a good time for brian.
he was meant to have that job and I can tell he´s giong to be so
blessed by the gospel. go daddy! you little missionary slash bishop
you...
But family, seriously. I am doing fine. I´m doing more than fine, I am
blessed. I´ve been really reading the scriptures and its been really
blessing my life. I know you all keep asking me if i need anything or
what do i want from the states, but I want to ask you all what I can
do for you. What can I do for you? Is there anyway where I can serve
you? I am serving a mission and I am taken care of.
I love you all! keep the letters coming
LOVE YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH!
hermana smith.