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.