January 20, 2014

Hey Familiy!

So this week has been AWESOME!! Literally everyday I´m thanking the Lord because I´m here. But, I could have never reached here without the wonderful support of my family and friends :) So much has happened. Don´t know where to start! (Ok, maybe I do. No tengo ningún problema de hablar) (wow i´m so sorry if i said that wrong spanish speakers)

We received a call from President Jackson and he told us that a Seventy was coming down and he wanted to come visit our ´´golden´´ investigators, but only in Las Palmas. His name is Elder Ruiz de Mendoza and it was absolutely wonderful to speak and listen to him. He is an absolutely wonderful man! We were able to meet with him before seeing the investigators and we had our questions prepared (as asked) and he gave us wonderful advice. He told us that we needed to go into peoples homes and think, what would the Savior say to them? He´s very humble and really cares for others well-being. He talked with Yasmina, our Golden girl:) She always has questions to ask us, some of which are quite deep, but the one question she asked him was why there were so many churches. At first, I felt bad because I thought maybe we hadn´t taught it clearly before, but then he just opened up his scriptures and spoke directly to her heart. He applied every small detail and applied to her and her question. Before, she didn´t really want to pray to receive her answer. To him, she said she was going to pray. We feel that she´s going to do that and we´re so excited for her. We, missionaries and members, can feel that she´s going to be an amazing leader in the church and they´ve told her that repeatedly.
We were incredibly blessed to have this privilage and we will never forget it. We seemed to be blessed throughout the whole week and its just been so wonderful!
We´ve been trying to work with the people who have fechas and helping others to that goal as well. Its been a little tricky meeting with people, mostly because they have exams at this time or work. But we´re working well and its been wonderful.
Fi from Ghana still needed to gain a testimony so we took him off fecha but just recently, he received his answer!! We´re helping him completely drop smoking (he only smokes one a day now which is so good) and he wants to be baptized. We gave him a date in 3 weeks, and he said he´d be baptized in 2! He also said he wanted to be baptized in a river but we can´t really give that to him hahaha. We could try and have him baptized in the ocean but it wouldn´t fly. #islandmissionaries. (<--hashtags are a district joke) It was a great lesson! We´ve been focusing on families with him, because he has a 4yr old son and I think thats just helping gain more of a testimony of the Gospel. 

This week was just good!! Its a fast life here in Las Palmas. I´ve seen some of the Telde peeps walking around, so I´m definitely not too far! Plus, I´ve never snuggled so many animals in my life. its awesome :) one big puppy came runnin at me then just clamped his mouth right on my arm. he wouldn´t let go!! hahaa he wasn´t being mean and i knew that so i just petted him and played with him. then the owners started freaking out because he had my arm..haha. I was ok.

LOOOOOOOOVE YOU!!

Hermana SMith

so my cat again. she loves me.

then las palmas at sunset! it was cold that day :)

Yasmina and her kids. then pres. Déniz (pres. de stake) and Elder Ruiz de Mendoza, the Seventy.

Sasha´s faaaammmmiiillllllyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!! They´re great. i´m glad they know sasha because they understand american humor too.