October 29, 2013

hey fam bam! here´s some fotos for y´all.
ok mom´s 20 Q:
1.Did you get the package?  I called the office and they haven´t received any package for an
hermaña smith. that was a couple of days ago but i know that a
missionary couple are heading to madrid this week for a fútbol game
and they´ll pick up all the mail. if they don´t bring it back then
hopefully í´ll get it at zone conference which is november 19th. if
not, then.....i don´t know when. maybe in january.
2. Are the people of the Islands different than Madrid?  its so different here and we get a lot of receptive people. i
haven´t met as many rude people here opposed to those i´ve definitely
met in madrid. we´re working hard but its really a lot of contacting
or finding some old less actives. which is a lot.

3. Hair problems with the salt water? yes i do have some hair left. we´re going to the farmacia and
grabing some hair pills and  special shampoo and conditioner for this
stuff. poor hermana cassinat is at her whits end with her hair. my
skin does feel softer though, so its a win win situation.
oh now dads 20 q´s:
1. unfortunetely i speak less spanish here because its more contacting
then teaching, so a lot of times hermana cassinat and i are passing
time by doing the whole name this movie! trivia. in the zone, don´t
know. but there are 2 spanish speakers in our district, somos 14
2. we cook mostly. i haven´t eaten at a members yet but we have an
investigator named aida that made us pancakes. hermana cassinat and i
cook a lot and we like to cook fried chicken and pasta and all that
good stuff. we haven´t had money for awhile cuz its so expensive to
travel so we´ve been eating a lot of pasta and mucho of the instant
packages from the states. we had mac and cheese yesterday! wow that
was good. members are super good with la obra misional. they pretty
much do it for us instead of us asking them.
whew ok now the week! This week was fun and honestly i gotta be
careful because its like having too much of a good thing! i´ve been
trying to improve my teaching skills more that i´m not stressed with
other stuff and its a slow process since we don´t really teach a lot.
but its been great and hermana cassinat has been a great example and
teacher. she´s just awesome. it was so cool, we went into this bar to
grab some water (now hold your horses bars here aren´t as bad as the
states) and i saw a pass along card of jesus christ on the counter! i
look at it then look on the back and it was my card! i had written it!
hahaa it was awsmoe because at least someone was jkind enough to put
it up instead of tossing it.
we have an investigator named leo, from ecuador (soon to be the 2nd
south american in the rama!) and we taught the gospel of jesus christ
and temples. what we do is we take the pamphlet for the Gospel (which
is la fe, el arrepentimiento, el bautismo, el don del espíritu santo y
a preseverar hasta el fin) and in the pamphlet they have pictures of
jesus to go with each of them. we take them out and then cut up a big
poster of the madrid temple and we stick the pieces on the back. we
show the steps and then in the end we can reach the temple. he was so
focused on that and it was such a good lesson! we asked him to be
baptized on the 16 of november and he said yes! we´re so excited for
him and hope that he´ll continue to preseverar hasta el fin.
so it was day light savings time here last saturday and oh my
goodness!! they shut everything down and they partied ALL NIGHT LONG.
we have some awesome videos of it.
but i love telde so much. i am so blessed to be here. its so different
than madrid, but i´m glad that i have this chance to be here.
oh we´re in charge of the halloween party for the branch and i looked
in my recipe folder and lo and behold! most of them were perfect for
halloween! so we´re cooking no bakes, carmel popcorn, apple crisp,
rice krispies, hot cider, etc.we´re very excited :) but yes a little
stressed. we´ll send pics next week! we´re dressing up as eachother so
i get a chance to wear hermana cassinats clothes! yesssss.... :)
i love you all so very much! i´m so grateful for all of your letters
and your kinds words. know that there´s someone in telde that loves
ya!
con mucho amor,
hermana smith

October 21, 2013

Hey fam bam! hahahahaa i just laugh thinking of Telde now. not in a rude way, but in a YOU DA BEST way. i love it here. and sure the oceans awesome and every thing and i see it like 5 billion times a day, but its all good and i´m having a blast!

Thanks for all of your kind words. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. and i´ve had like 400 conversations with Elder Buhler about Caldwell. He´s awesome and we keep figuring out people that we know. He worked for the Christenson mint farm! he knows them and was good friends with kelly jenkins. his parents live by the kimball building, so maybe you know them dad?

ok. moms questions.

1. Her name is Jamie Cassinat and she is from California. she is the funnest person to be around with and an amazing missionary. She´ll be going home the end of next transfer so she´s hoping to stay with me one more transfer. she´s a nurse going to byu provo and we have a lot of the same qualities and tastes, which means she wants to snuggle up, pig out on good food and read a book at the same time. like me.

2. Buhlers are amazing. They´ve been on almost all 7 continents and they are one wild couple. hahahaa just spending a couple of minutes with them can give you a good discription. you can read their blog to find out more information. oh and i would love to have some dirt to tease elder buhler with. hermana cassinat and i are very excited :)

3.oh yes the islands!! i was told that it was super humid and i shouldn´t bring lotion. so i didn´t. big fat lie. its more of a desert than idaho! there are cactisus here!! oh and we can´t drink the water because its salty and your hair falls out. we have a picture of the hair we collected from sweeping. just 2 weeks of hair. 

4.yes i will send pictures.

5. Buhlers live near las palmas, not in our area. they live in the old mission home. we live alone in a big apartment and i found one cockroach but it looked like the one from the last apartment so i´m thinking it just crawled in my luggage for a ride. too bad the thing didn´t die on the plane. but they have cockroaches here, but they´´re about an inch and a half longer and fly.

thats so exciting for jay!! ´he´ll be blessed. cant wait to hear where jess will go.

Ok! So more about my week! This week was absolutely amazing. I have literally never had so much fun in my entire mission. I love Telde! The people here are so wonderful. We have had the privilege to talk with so many people on the streets and even though most of them are crazy drunk, I have never felt unsafe.
The members here are amazing. They are so hard working and very aware of helping one another. The movie about President Monson (on the lords errand or something like that), there was a story about a branch in Canada when he was mission president. The Branch President had asked for a big church building, but obviously they couldn´t have one until they had more members. For the telde branch, the ward list is 10 pages long, with about 8 pages of them inactive. Now, when we have a first lesson with someone, we write their name on a list in our study room and we think of what calling will be good for them in the Church. With this mindset, we feel more of an urgency for them to understand, so that they can fulfill that calling. Even some investigators, who have been investigating for many years, we have said, "But Ignacio! We NEED a Gospel Doctrines teacher!" I have had so much fun doing missionary work with this!
We had a first lesson with this man from Nigera named Gabriel. When I was in B6, I´ve taught Nigerians and I´ve gotten no where with them. They were either evangelical preachers or they were in the drug thing. But Gabriel was so receptive. He told us that he´s been baptized in many churches but if he doesn´t like one thing that doesn´t go with the bible, he leaves them. We introduced the Book of Mormon to him and he was so astonished, saying that ´´he has never heard of Christ visiting the Americas´´. He had heard that the Mormons didn´t pray and were devil worshippers, etc. We had a wonderful lesson sincero with him and he kept on asking us to tell him more. He was absolutely wonderful and I can see him doing so well in the church. He has a Canarian wife and son and he said he wants a spanish book of mormon too so that his wife can read it too. We feel so blessed to have met with him!
One thing I have learned more this week is compassion and charity. We contacted this man who was either drunk or a little not right in the head and since then we´ve met with him 3 times. The first 2 times, it was mostly contacting his friends around him, but this last time, a women came up to us with we were talking with him and she starting talking to him. He completely changed and was worried for whatever mishap happened to her. She looked at us, and seeing our faces, said, ´´He may seem crazy, but he´s not. He´s a good man and a good friend.´´ After that, he completely changed and he was very focused on what we taught about the Book of Mormon. I was very shocked and was able to see him in a different way, a way where he can actually progress to a calling in the church. He´s gonna be our geneology expert :)
Many miracles have occured this week that I can write down. But I am so grateful to be here in Telde! I feel like I am supposed to be here and for a reason! This feels like a completely different mission than in Madrid, but I´m excited to work here.

I love you all! Que tenga una buena semana!

Loves y hugs

Hermana Smith

ps. mom. is this long enough for you? hermana cassinat and i had a good laugh at that. i´ve spoiled you too much.

October 14, 2013

Well family. TRANSFERS!! And yes I did get transferred. Tooooooooo.......(drum roll) the islands! I'm on La Gran Canaria in an area called La Telde. It's super awesome but I'm still trying to recover from the 3 hour plane ride. Yeah, I know it's a little pathetic. But I really am happy to be here even though EVERYONE was super sad to see me leave. It was really humbling for me because I never really knew that...my Colombian investigators were crying and their daughters gave me these great bracelets. Plus leaving the members was super hard. I'll miss them a lot. It's sooo different because I'm moving from one of the biggest wards in Spain to a small branch with 30ish members. There are two districts for all the islands and most of the people in my district are from my group! So it will be great to see them all again. My companion is Hermana Cassinat and she's super sweet! I'm very lucky to be working with her and I hear that she's a really hard worker. I am SO grateful for that! We work with this senior couple named the Buhlers. Elder Buhler is from Caldwell! I showed him a picture of you dad and he didn't recognize you. Lo siento. 

I don't have a lot of time but I just want you to know that I am very grateful for the opportunity everyday to preach the Gospel. I feel very blessed to be here in Spain and that I have a wonderful family that supports me in every possible way. I love this Gospel and I know that we can receive every blessing from our Father in Heaven if we follow His teachings. I know that through our Savior Jesus 

Christ that we can return to our Heavenly Father. I love you all so much and I pray for you. Now that I'm in the islands I'm not sure when I'll get my package from y'all but I hope you know that I am grateful for all that you do. Have a great week!

Love y hugs

Hermana smith

Mom I do have an embarrassing Spanish mess up story but its not exactly.......appropriate. :) love you!

October 7, 2013

Hey familia!! 

Thanks for your wonderful and encouraging letters. They are greatly appreciated! I want you all to know that I have literally felt your prayers on my behalf and am so grateful for them:) 

This week has flllooooowwwwwwnnnnnn and it shocks me to know that transfers are right around the corner! I am so grateful for the opportunity that I had to listen to conference (except the last session) and to hear and feel the words of the prophet and his apostles. Can I just tell ya? That line from Elder Bednar...Hermana Stepp and i have changed the words up a little for Barrio 6....´´If you are praying for missionary opportunities, then I [thank] you. But, if you aren´t praying for missionary opportunities, I advize you to rethink your ways and REPENT."

WWWOOOOOWWWW. ouch. man. i was cheering that man on. Every talk was defintitely revelation from God. I had a bunch of questions and Hna Stepp and I would talk about them a lot. Then they were mentioned or talked about in Conference! I can´t wait to get my hands on a Liahona. We know of some people who´ll need this.

I don´t have a lot of time today, but I hope you know how much I LOVE YOU ALL. Each one of you have a special little spot in my heart! I have been thinking a lot about being a successful missionary and what that means. I thought of a lot of things, but it all comes down to love. If I love them, pray for them, worry for them, study for them, help them, then there is no way where they cannot say no. I have been studying a lot about humility. Claro, every person needs humility and more each day, but I felt prompted to study more on it. And you know what I found out ? I need to rethink MY ways and repent. But instead of feeling a burden for that, I feel uplifted. Like someone said in GC, repentence is NOT a punishment! I felt so much better and free-er. Because me declaring repentence to la gente de españa is not a punishment. it is a privilege! I love you all soooooooo very much. and excuse my preaching to you. i get into these little tangents sometimes. 

loves y hugs!! hopefully next week you´ll read of where i´m going!!!

hermana smith