June 30, 2014

Hey my fam bam. 

This week was a lot of fun. But good heavens its madrid heat and i´m dying a little bit. thankfully its been cooler lately plus there´s wind so im not suffering like last summer. haha!! But I never realized how fun it is to contact all the time! It´s a transition for me to try and have lessons but its been really good. We had some good street lessons and have some good new investigators. We´re working really well together and I am SO grateful that Hermana Johns is my companion because she is so positive about everything and she is just always always happy. She is truly a blessing for me. She´s from Ogden and has 7 months in the mission. She´s 19 years old and her birthday is my last day in the mission!! august 20th!!  
We´ve been contacting a lot and have had little miracles happening throughout the week. We don´t get a lot of numbers, but we feel confident that the numbers we did get have alot of potentional. 
Honestly, I think the hardest part about our week was going to church and not knowing anyone. Thankfully we know some of the recent converts and they´re always open and nice. We decided to go to a relief society activity that night to try and get to know the sisters more and it was such a success!! We were able to talk to a lot of sisters and to create some friendship. It helped us feel a lot better. We´ve set up some appointments with some members this week to talk with them and know them so that they can trust us more. From what I´ve heard, and what the bishop has told us, there isn´t a lot of trust between the missionaries and members here. It´s a little sad but we´re going to work hard so that these members feel loved :)

WE were talking with a recet convert named liliana and she was saying how all the missionaries are angels to her. I loved hearing that but it made me think. Lately, we´ve been hearing a lot from the first presidency and the twelve about missionaries and members working together and that  the only difference between a missionary and a member is the name tag. So i was thinking about what Liliana said about us being angels and thought WHY cant the members be angels too? We´re the same thing, just working full time instead of part time. I honestly think that there SHOULD be no difference. Angels should be the missionaries and the members. Its amazing what you learn on the mission. I always write down what I want to apply in my life for after the mission. This is one of them. I know I´m an angel as a missionary, but I want to be an angel to someone as a member. 

I love you all!! Please try this week to be an angel to someone who needs it. I pray for you all and I am so grateful for your letters and support. 

love hermana smith

calle caja de ahorros 21, BºIZQ 28804 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, España

normally, whenever i stick an address down, its because i want letters and not just for dad to google map me ;) heehee. 

June 23, 2014

Wow, family. BIG CHANGES!!

1. Cuenca got whitewashed. They´re bringing a trio of elders in. Thats better because there´s only 2 worthy priesthood holders in the branch, haha. 

2. I´ll serve in Alcalá, a little bit out of madrid centro. 

3. My companion will be Hermana Johns and I think this´ll be her second area. I talked to her on the phone and she sounds like an angel! I´m excited to be with her.

4. we´re whitewashing Alcalá

5. I´m STL, which means Sister Training Leader. Its not training a baby missionary...but I do exchanges with each hermana in my zone. Its like a district leader or zone leader. algo así. 

6. My prayers were answered!! I will be working my tail off these next couple of weeks!! 

So i´m waiting for my new compy and I¨m on splits with hermana fowers...again. hahahaa we see each other too much. 

Another thought, I love how in your emails you always say, ´´oh dad or mom will probably tell you all about it so i wont say anything.´´. COMMUNICATION people! I don´t get anything from anyone! hahahaa!!! 

My last wonderful week in Cuenca was good but we were not able to see Peter, our bulgarian miracle. He´s getting a divorce with his wife and he´s super sad. He hasn´t had any desire to leave the house or to meet with anyone. It was sad for us to leave but I know that the elders will do a wonderful job teaching him and his mom. He told us that he doesn´t want them to call him. I think and feel that with time things will go well. Plus Hermana Clay will be in contact with him through facebook and she told me she´s planning on preparing him and his mom that way too :) Haha. 
We were able to see some progression in our investigators and we have some people who have a lot of potential! We have a friend from english class named Fernando and he loves coming to sacrament meeting and participating with us. The rama loves him and they can´t wait until he´s converted to the Gospel. Haha! They keep on talking about that. Honestly, its sad, but he does more service for us then any other member. Sometimes I think that some members feel like they don´t have to go out of their way to help people because we have perfect organizations for that in the church. Hermana Clay and I were talking about that and we both have set a goal to be like Fernando and to accept EVERYONE and to serve EVERYONE and to love EVERYONE and to go out of our way for EVERYONE. He definitely takes ´´Love thy neighbor as thyself´´ (or however it is) very seriously. He told us he´s going to italy in august to help an italian priest/father build buildings and paint and help the youth stay away from the Mafia. Haha. Oh Fernando. 

It was a wonderful transfer in Cuenca and I will never forget it. I learned a lot about loving others and focusing on the Spirit with Hermana Clay. I´m very excited for her to help her family out at home. She´s going to see these miracles accure! 

Mom, Dad, we definitely have quite a few people wanting to meet you in Cuenca!! Get ready for lots of love and hugs! 

I love you family! I´ll find out my address today and i´ll let you know next week. Stay awesome and be good!

Hermana Smith

June 16, 2014

Hey family!!! 

This week was probably the most miraculous week in my mission! When I say miraculous, I mean that it was just filled with little miracles! We had so many spiritual experiences, words can´t even describe them.
Our first greatest miracle is named Bulgarian miracle, or Peter. We were talking to a lovely old couple on the street when a Peter started talking to me in english! He told us he´s seen us twice this past week from afar and new we were NOT spanish. We talked with him about the gospel and the plan of salvation for 2 hours after that. We contacted Peter on Friday and have seen him each day since, each talking about the gospel and the plan of salvation. The first day we met him, we gave him a tour of the church and we so happened to have church material and a bom and triple in bulgarian. He took it all home to read and study it. we keep pinching ourselves, it´s like a dream!! he asks the right questions and he´s still going strong. Peter loves meeting with us! When he brought the church material home, he told me his mom had robbed it all and the book of mormon! He said his mom was reading them all! We had a lesson with him and his mom last night and she had SO many questions about the plan of salvation. She had studied the whole pamphlet! It was so amazing to use the scriptures and to testify to her. She had a lot of questions about the 3 degrees of glory and she felt at peace to know all this. We can´t see them today but we´ll see them tomorrow. Tomorrow, we´re going to go over lesson 2 and invite them to baptism. We feel that we´re at the beginning of a wonderful journey for them and for us. I have grown so much to love the gospel even more just from being with them. I´ll end with this because I can go on forever about them! I literally have given thanks each day to my Heavenly Father for putting him and his mother in our path. Thank you so much for all your prayers. This is definitely an answer from a loving Father in Heaven!
We had another great spiritual experience with an investigator named Edith and her son, Jonathon. So Edith has a lot of bad health and she has had a lot of trouble with her legs since she´s been a teenager. She started crying in our lesson on friday, telling us that she fears going anywhere by herself because she thinks she´ll hurt herself. Instead of teaching what we had planned, we felt impressed to talk again about the restored priesthood. We told her that there are worthy men that hold the priesthood that could give her a blessing of health and comfort. The next morning, we had a member and his wife come to perform the blessing and the room was just FILLED with the Spirit. She was crying throughout the blessing and you couldn´t NOT feel it! It was really an experience to never forget.
I´ve been getting little updates from hermana caballero about the people in Las Palmas and it makes me so happy to know that the work is doing so well there and Alex blessed the sacrament!! I´m so happy for him!! And yasmina!!! She´s getting married and her 8 year old daughter got baptized on friday!! That whole family will soon be baptized. Its really amazing, missionary work. It reminds me of a scripture that I haven´t been able to find but it talks about the joy it brings of helping souls come unto Christ. I feel that same burning feeling in my heart. With Hermana Clay ending her mission, I have never been so aware of how important this work is and how SHORT our time is. I love this work! I am so happy and proud to wear this chapa. 

well, family! I´m off!! Happy fathers day to all daddy´s!!! I actually sang in church on sunday and it went really well. I sang for you daddy! Transfers are this week and I´ll have my last companion. I actually asked president that he wouldn´t give me a ´´dying´´ missionary. I just want to work work work!! 

love ya!! you´re in my prayers, always!!

Hermana Smith

´´Es el amor que nos lleva´´.

June 9, 2014

Sorry, fam. REALLY don´t have time now!!! On to business!!

This week went by fast!!! I loved being able to attend the temple and I received so much spiritual strength from it. It was something I really needed. After that, I honestly progressed more in my testimony than ever before. I´m not sayiing I used the temple as an excuse, but I really did receive a lot of answers to my prayers. 
This week had its up´s and down´s, mostly because Hna Clay was really ill for a bit. It´s been weird because literally every week, she has another illness. We call it the Last-Transfer syndrome. She told me of other missionaries getting sick their last couple of weeks! So weird! Though we were in the piso a bit, I was able to get a lot done. I watched a lot of the district and it is so amazing how much you can learn from their experiences and testimonies. In all, this week was just a big spiritual banquet for me!!
We contacted this lady a few weeks ago and she could never see us. She, Susana, had told us that her siblings and cousins were all members in Ecuador and so we were really excited for this extra boost. But she could never see us. Finally, we ran into her a few days ago in the street and she told us that she had talked to her family about us and they were encouraging her to talk to us and to come to church!! She said she´s interested to know more and I was just so grateful for that little bit of info, to know thta she wasn´t alone in her getting to know the gospel. 
I learned a big lesson this week. So I have these rings that I bought here and one day we went to the bathroom in this library. I took my rings off and accidently left them after washing my hands. I didn´t think about it until 6 hours later and when I did, I felt terrible but also a little defeated. I was thinking that no way was I getting them back and I thought, well, this is just another trial for me to grow from. So I told Hna Clay that and she reminded me that whatever is important to me is definitely important to Him, so OF COURSE I can pray just to find my little rings. So I did and I felt prompted to call a member here. I told him my situation and he said he´d check it out. Later that day in english class, he didn´t say anything. He left to go somewhere and returning he said that the lady from the libarary was looking for him because she had found my rings!! That to me was such a building experience for me because I knew that God had answered my prayers. I always say that prayers are always answered, but I know now that even the LITTLE prayers are always answered, too. 

now other news. HERMANA HANSEN IS ENGAGED!!! aaahhh!!! so happy for her!!! married in august!!

thats all folks!! love you!!!

hermana smith

the first pic was hna fowers and i on intercambios (exchanges??)

and the next two are of us seeing each other for the first time in months. we were pretty happy :D

June 2, 2014

Hey fam! don´t have a lot of time. I´ll probs expain more next week.

This week was great! I went up to madrid!! to my old area!! Plus i had a chitchat with hermana fowers and it was SOOOOO nice and very much needed. we´re doing intercambios today so i get her to myself :D heheheheee. it was such a good experience to participate in Zone conference and all the messages were great and inspired. they mostly focused on Christs love and how we need to show our love in him by being better at missionary work and being obedient and all that jazz. my pen was flying, I was trying to write down all these thoughts and impressions! It really made me think of how i was doing with loving others. I´ve been trying to focus more on loving my contacts in the streets and imagine these people in white. It´s been really good and we´ve been able to have a bit more lessons! 
We started teaching this family from colombia and they´re amazing!! We contacted the son, jonathon, while he was walking his dogs (weiner dogs--I DIED OF CUTENESS) and we asked to explain more and he said that we could stop by the next day and teach them! When we met with them, his mom, Edith, told us her experiences with the missionaries in colombia and how she loved them. She said she was so excited that her son finally was contacted by the missionaries!! It was really quite a miracle. We´ve mostly talked about the book of mormon and the son has read what we´ve given them. We have a lot of hope for them. Edith has a lot of health problems and can´t walk sometimes but I actually just thought of maybe, when we talk about the restoration and authority, we could give her a blessing. I really think that will be a testimony strengthening experience.
We contacted this other lady and her daughter from ecuador and they´re wonderful. They have a lot of interest in coming to church and of learning more. We´ve only had one lesson with her but we feel that she just needs some friends from the church and everything else will run its course :)
They also talked about our attitude in conference and how it should be a positive one. I´ve been trying to change my attitude, like we talked about in the conference, especially while contacting. A lot of people will just reject us and normally I just brush it off and go to the next person. But lately, I´ve been thinking about WHY we were being rejected, because we weren´t doing anything wrong. And then I just felt really sad. I felt really sad that no one was accepting this message and that they´ll reap what they sow type of deal. I then thought of the Savior and how he was completely rejected in every way and how he carried on. That honestly changed my attitude. It changed my way of thinking and teaching. I could feel this urgency in my body, that they HAD to accept this message because it is the key to their salvation! Its really helped me a lot, because I can teach more clearly now. I´ve been trying to just tweak a bit of everything so that we can help these children of God progress!! What a blessing it truly is to do the Lord´s work. I hear a lot that we do the dirty work of missionary, but this dirty work is fun! It´s such a privilage to be wearing this chapa. 

well family! my time is running down. I love you! thanks for your love and support. sorry i didn´t write down as much as usual (ha) but until next week!

Hermana Smith