Hey family how is it going? Thanks so much for the letters and package that you sent me. It is great to hear from y’all. Time is flying by fast, the last week went by in a flash and I have learned so much. I am no where near fluent in Spanish yet and I still have a long way to go. Elder Miller and I had our first lesson in Spanish and it didn't go to hot but it didn't for everybody. Elders went into the lesson with all kinds of phrases on their hands and arms and in their scriptures. But we taught a full 40 minute of the first lesson and we did really well at that but we still have some kinks that we need to work out. I have learned when you put your trust in the Lord and in the Spirit and not focus on what you have prepared you can teach so much more powerfully. You teach a person and not a lesson, and that is what is important. Also prayer is what sets the tone for a lesson, and it invites the spirit. So I am excited and nervous at the same time to head down to the DR. I will learn the language faster, not be contained in a box, but there will be no English which is kind of scary. The Sunday and Tuesday devotionals are great but we haven't had any of The Quorum of the Twelve because they have July off. But we have had many members of the 70 come talk to us. There are 4 Elders in my district that are heading to the DR as well. We leave August 5th, so we go from Salt Lake to Dallas, to Miami to Santo Domingo, so any free time that I have waiting in the airport I will call y’all. We leave at 3:00 in the morning for the airport which is going to be no fun, so I will call as much as I possibly can. I just sent a package home with a pair of shoes. I guess missionary mall gave us 3 pair of shoes for the price of 2 so check the receipt and make sure we didn't buy three pairs. If we got 3 for the price of 2 just keep the other ones for when I get home. Also in the package are the addresses you needed and some pictures i printed out that y’all might like to see. Also I have instructions on how to get my driving record and the information needed to get that. I found out I needed this to be able to drive a car in my mission, so if you could send that to me as soon as possible in the MTC down there that would be great. The times that I can possibly call you look like from 9:40 to 10:30, and 3:45-6:00. So that might help if you have things to do that day. I'm enjoying my time here and I got to see Brent and Carolyn when we were outside working on our Spanish contacts so that was nice. I have wrote some letters for the kids that I just mailed because I don't have enough time to write them on the email with the gay countdown I have here. A funny story real fast, our teacher Hermano Scott came into class with his zipper down and his fly open. Sessions and I were the only two in the class that realized it, so every time he turned around we would kind of laugh but we didn't want to point it out in front of everyone so we were going to wait till we could. But we couldn't hold our laughter in when he sat down and it was wide open so it reminded me of Jacob and I at the dinner table when we couldn't stop laughing but he finally heard us and demanded to know so we pointed down low, and he was kind of embarrassed so I thought it was as funny as it could get in class. I think Jacob is more mature than a couple of the guys in our district which makes it fun I guess. Also I forgot my meal card one day so I tried to use my friends Cosco card to try to get by and pretend I swiped my card but I got caught so I had to run back up to our class and miss a part of breakfast. It kind of blows that we have to climb 5 stories of stairs to get to our class so that is a work out in and of itself. We just call it the tower of Babel because it never seems to end. The DR. Pepper jelly beans you gave me were awesome and tasted way good. It is nice to have something to snack on when you get back to the dorms at night. I am constantly on the move and am always doing something which is good I guess, but its hard not having any breaks that often. This is the reason I guess people learn so quickly here is because you go to about 10 hours of class a day so if you think school is tough try this, but it is good because you have time to learn the things that you need to learn. It is cool all the things that there are in the Gospel and it is starting to make perfect sense to me. I have a better understanding of the basic doctrines that I have known my whole life, and I am able to explain it so simply so others can understand which was hard to do at first. I appreciate so much all the things that y’all have done for me, and I will continue to work hard. At first it was hard not to be able just to pick up the phone and call y’all but I was able to get over it fast and focus on the work. I would write more but the computer keeps freezing so I gotta go. Have a great week and continue to write.
Love, Elder Smith
If you see words with extra letters, that is the computers fault
(There were lots of double letters, so hopefully I edited them all out for easier reading)Marti
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