February 24, 2014

Hola Familia!!

This week was good and interesting. We had many lessons but we felt like there was still no progression. We both realized that we have a ton of lessons but no investigators that are really progressing like we want them too. With these situations happening, I´ve been trying harder to put my trust in the Lord and to really stay in-tuned to the Spirit.
Polo, our one legged man, has been having a really hard time because his brother, Francisco (who has some mental problems), has a restraining order in a super mercado and he entered and he´s been sentenced to 4 months in prison. Polo, who had problems smoking, turned to smoking and we felt like we were just coming back to square-one. Now we only want to focus on the smoking problem and focusing on prayer and reading the book of mormon. We really hope that everything will smooth out and he´ll be able to relay on God than on tobacco.
Fi is doing well but he still hasn't gained a testimony that President Thomas S. Monson is the prophet. We´ve had so many people helping us and helping him and they all come back to say, ´´He believes in prophets! He knows what they are! Whats the problem? Baptize him!´´ but we both know that he doesn´t believe that Thomas S Monson IS the prophet. We´re going to give it some time and not try and force him to believe. Fi will believe when he´s ready and received his answer.
Harrison, a recent convert, as been helping us with lessons and, when he can, he gives us his friends number. We met with one of them saturday night and it went really well! He has them prepared for what we teach and already has taught them to pray, etc. He´s a good little example for me.

Alex, the budhist one, is doing really well! We had an amazing lesson with him and he´s progressing well. He told us straight up that he wants to be baptized but doesn´t know when. He had a couple of doubts but we have a lot of help from the members, especially with the language barrier. He went to institute class and was joining in in all the class discussions. We were super excited!!
We have new investigators and we feel really hopeful for them. We´re excited to accelerate the Work here! We have new elders también and one is from rexburg and the other from arizona. The one from Rexburg knows Logan Castagno! Hello mormons and small worlds.

Thanks for all your prayers and letters. I always enjoy receiving letters!! (AHEM.) As I come speedily to my year mark, I have been trying my hardest to be the best missionary I can be. I have been trying my hardest to be a good missionary and example for people here and for my loved ones far away. I cherish your testimonies and all your kind words to me.

love you all! We´re going to have a mission tour here in the islands and Elder....umm....he´s from portugal....well he´s in the 1st quorom of the seventy. he´s coming down and we´re very excited t meet him :)

love ya!

hermana smith

so hermana fowers helped me upload....annnywhooo..because we love each other and we are weird, we went and bought friendship bracelets that tell our mood. it was quite sweet. so as you can see, i´m the ´´BEST´´. the second pic is of a mom and daughter from argentina. they´re members and the coolest and sweetest ever! the last one is stella, our investigator. she wants to wait until she and her husband are together to be baptized but he´s working in england right now. so the missionaries are teaching him there and we´re teaching her here. she´s from colombia!

February 17, 2014

TRANSFERS. oh man.

We´re together again! Nothing happened, thank heavens because this week was very crazy! But we´re grateful to have another transfer together in Las Palmas and we´re setting a goal to get all our progressing investigators, baptized and all other investigators progressing. We have so many investigators that are so prepared, but there is always something stopping them. We´ve been a little perpluxed at what we can do but I think if we just put more trust in the Lord and love them to death we´ll see some miracles.
The topic for most of our lessons this week was about modern-day prophets. Fi, who was supposed to be baptized on Sunday, and Yasmina both have said that they don´t believe there is a modern-day prophet. They both said that they´ll believe that he´s a great leader, but not a prophet. It´s been a little (scratch that- a lot of little) stressful and there were a couple of moments when I wanted to just take a nap, but I remembered what Elder Ballard said to us in October. I thought of the Savior and pictured Him in my mind and like Elder Ballard said, I felt better immediatly. I was reminded that this is NOT my work and I can´t do this alone.
Even though we felt it was a bummer week, the Lord gave us little miracles. For example, we had an investigator, Rocio, finally come to church and that was an absolute miracle. In all, though it was a stressful week, I am forever grateful for the power of prayer and the peace that comes from it and scripture study.

We´ve been getting double eating appointments and we are DEFINITELY FEELING THEM. Hopefully, it was only for the celebration stuff (like Valentine´s day, etc.) and we´ll get back to our normal size. Soon, I hope.

So Fi kept on failing us this week with almost EVERY lesson and one time it was the life or death lesson (the one that depicts whether or not he gets baptized) and...no show. so we decided to sticky note his door to make him feel better, etc. they were nice uplifting notes with scriptures and everything. so the next day we go over and see him.

´´So, Fi! Did you see your door?!´´

´´Yeah.´´

´´Did you like it?!´´

´´No.´´

´´Wait. What?´´ You didn´t like it?! Was it too much?´´

´´Demasiado.´´

Which means, WAYTOOMUCH. That was.........no sé. hahaha funny. Also, we have this awesome investigator named Alex and he´s just wonderful. We asked him to pray about whether or not this church was true and he came back to tell us he had prayed about whether or not our church was true...or the budhists. um. ok. his answer? they´re both true. he said our church and budhism is the same. then he said that the budhists don´t believe in God. DINGDING thats the problem. We think he was wondering if the budhists are good examples to follow, cuz they´re peaceful people, ya know.

Last thought, we visited more of sasha´s family! Its Pino and Loli´s family. I sent a picture and they are SO wonderful! we actually feel that we can get them involved more in the church through activities for the Young adults and Young womens. they seem very receptive and are really just wonderful. we love them already.

well! There´s our week! it was good and incredibly stressful, but it was still good.

love ya!!

Hermana Smith

pictures!

-Hermana Buhler made us cookies. she gave us choices whether we wanted mint andes chips or reeses chips. we wanted both, so i´m eating andes and she´s eating reeses chip cookies :) they were SOOOOOOO GOOOOOODD.

-THE BEST FOODEVER. literally, these peeps from honduras are amazing in the kitchen. we´re taking a cooking class from them some pday in el futuro. we´re SO EXCITED.

-some members! Milagro on the left and her daughter sara with her eyes closed.

-our sticky-noted door for fi...who ended up hating it. 

February 10, 2014

Hey fam bam! 

This week was really good. We're trying to work harder and work better together as we teach. With the end of this past week, we looked back and are trying to figure out what we could work on better this week. It will be great to try and work this out this week! We both want to work on our weaknesses and she's really good at making goals and keeping them. 

We have a new investigator named Julio. He contacted us as we arrived for a lesson on a bench and we were able to talk with him. We've met with him a few times and he's an interesting man but he is interested in our message. We gave him some stuff to read from the book of mormon and he read it and studied it! Literally studied it! We asked him to be baptized on the 9th of March and he said yes! He has a smoking problem and we're hoping it won't be too big of a problem. 
We talked with Yasmina with the YW president and it was amazing because Yasmina has the same situation that the YW president had. Yasmina has felt her dead abuelo's presence and that he wants her to be baptized and that he wants her to do the work for him. The YW president had the same situation! it was amazing her testimony and the spirit was so strong. We asked her for a specific fecha baptismal but she didn't want to set one. She's still progressing well and she really wants her kids to get baptized. 
Fi received his answer! He came home from church last week and was singing Gospel songs. He said that God touched his heart and was telling him to get baptized! He is so excited and is getting baptized this weekend. We feel he's going to be a great member and leader.

We're doing well and its been a good week. This is the last week of the transfer and we hope we won't be transferred. But its wherever the Lord wants us to go. Apart from a bus accident and me choking on an apple PLUS hermana cassinat has a boy!!!! (sorry Hna Cassinat…not sure if you're reading this). hahahaaaa!!!! Oh, so the workouts you mailed me? so i have 2 sets of them and i accidentally left part of them in the telde piso. so i go to district meeting and one of the elders told me that he found my victoria secret workout….hahahaaa that was really funny and awkward

i love you family! you're wonderful. until next week!

hermana smith

So pic with the heart is of a recent convert and she has super bad back problems, scoliosis. We were visiting her cuz she was bed ridden for awhile. 

Next is of a less active family. It was really quite an awkward picture. 

Then this is of Giovanni! He's a recent convert too but his moms an investigator. He's the best little kid ever. 

And this is of Sara with a welcome sign! Her parents and grandparents are the ones that are from salta area in Argentina. 

February 3, 2014

HOOOOOOLA Family!!

This week was good and time seems to fly by faster and faster. We´re always running around trying to get to places, so you´ll have to ask for updates later and probably when i copy my companions journal (i´m a wee bit behind). speaking of companions, i love hermana fowers!! we´re two peas in a pod. We both have things we wanna work on and we´re both willing to work on them together! We´ve been trying to improve our teaching, specifically on lessons for the first time. We have many things we can talk about and we just end up shoving a bunch of information into their brains. So after one lesson (which i don´t even want to talk about), we finally talked it out and we´re both working hard to be better at it. Also, for some reason, there are just some investigators that just really rub us the wrong way, each of us a different one. So we´ve been working on that-hahaa.
We have quite a bit of investigators with smoking problems and we have been trying more to have daily contact with them. Its been really good to see the change in them and for them to feel that they´re important to us. We´re trying to visit them daily and just share a strengthening scripture with them each time. It has worked out really well so far!
We were having a lesson with Yasmina and she straight up told us that she had told her boyfriend they were living together in sin and she´s already thinking about what do for her wedding!! She say´s she wants to be baptized so that she can do the work for her grandfather in the temple. Literally, she´s just wonderful. The problem is waiting for her to get married, but she knows the importance of it and said she´d get baptized right after the marriage ceremony.
We talked with Fi from Africa and we´ve been trying to figure out what he needs and whats stopping him from being baptized. Its great, because each time we visit him he´s more and more receptive to the Spirit and to what we´re teaching. He´s got a date for the 26th and we feel that its fijo for sure! At first, he didn´t have testimony, then with a testimony, he had problema smoking, then he wanted to be baptized in a river (ha) but now he´s fijo! (that means...uh...its set!)
We´ve been working hard to try and help our investigators. We have soooo many of them that are just inches from baptism, but there is always one little thing that is stopping them. It´s a little bewildering but we´re hoping that it will be their time soon. We love this work and we love working together!! It´s just a wonderful life.

and i don´t know why my computers acting weird. So if i send this letter and its highlighted grey, i don´t know why.

cool fact: we had our first stake conference after the stake was formed and they said that the canary islands are the first stake to be spread apart by islands. or something like that. it was way awesome!!! the missionaries sang the armies of helaman and it was sooooo cool. the spirit was so strong.

i love you all! everythings going well. i love the góspel and i love being a missionary. its da best!

love hermana smith