"...we really do have a lot to be thankful for"

Hey how is it going guys, I am doing great and I am doing well with my companion. I think we are getting that storm that you are talking about it has rained straight for the past two days and when it rains here it rains. I spent my P day in Santiago today, so I got some good old Taco Bell and I don’t think it has ever tasted so good in my life. I spent some money today on a custom scripture case so I can carry my scriptures and pamphlets without using a back pack for like 36 bucks or so, it is way nice so I thought it was worth it. In the picture you can see a sweet Astros hat I bought for about 10 bucks so there is some cool stuff here. And no we do not have day light savings time here, so sometimes I don’t think this country is the smartest, especially in a lot of things but oh well. I found a USB adapter so I don’t need one of those anymore, but yeah I am always willing to take money in my account, money goes a long way here. It is definitely nice to have an American in the house, but he is going home after this transfer so he talks about home a lot which sometimes sucks but it is nice to speak English after a full day of Spanish. I love my comp, especially his Spanish; Mexican Spanish is so much easier to understand than Dominican Spanish. Elder Franco is the district leader of my district, and also he was in my area a year ago which is weird because missionaries never repeat areas so oh well. He is a good missionary, even though he likes to bible bash here but it’s not very hard to win because the people here are not very smart and it is funny when they admit they are wrong, and usually they get all excited but then do nothing after that.

This week I learned why mom doesn’t like playing the piano for the primary during sacrament meeting. The first hymn went good then the second one was there and the third one was a train wreck but oh well it is good practice and they can’t complain because they can’t play either. This week I think I became a fan of not teaching lessons with members. When I was teaching about the Spirit World in the Plan of Salvation lesson the member went off on ghosts, the spirit world being on earth, and the evil spirits that follow Satan so that was interesting. I was like what the freak are you talking about man, shut up! Also when we were teaching the Restoration our member went off on the Word of Wisdom and Chastity and his testimony of the Book of Mormon while I was talking about Prophets and the time of Christ. Members usually just confuse the crap out of our investigators, so we need to figure something out. At least we are getting some references this week because the theme of church was on the members helping out with the work, contacting is something that I haven’t seen work yet but oh well. This area is difficult because most of the people we teach aren’t married so we have to get them married before we can baptize them. There are families we could baptize right now but they just have to get married first. Also drinking and gambling is a huge problem here even with the members. The branch here is alright, but they have so many inactives that we have to work with that it is insane. Many missionaries baptize for numbers which you could do here easily, but it is no good unless they are actually converted which is something my first companion taught me.

I am glad to hear all is going well at home, I bet y’all are excited for basketball. Yeah I got the baseball news that Texas lost pretty fast here. I can tell basketball started because they are watching the games in the colmados- mini grocery store on every corner.

I will finish in another email- Elder Smith



I told Matthew that it looks like all Taco Bells look alike,
He said yeah, but they had french fries and they were out of bean burritos. 



Yeah it was weird to think this week that it was Halloween, I didn’t now that it was Halloween until the next day. The people here treat every Saturday and Sunday like Halloween when the just get drunk out of their mind. I love the costumes guys, especially the penguin. I guess my sport teams aren’t doing to well this year so they got two years to get better before I get home.

I am going to try to start sending pictures home every week with my new cable, so that should make y’all happy. Also I will make a Christmas list for y’all next week, I really don’t know what I want, and you can only do so much here. The mission just came out with new rules that many people in the mission aren’t too happy with, I see this mission tightening up a lot while I am here.

I hope all is going well at home, we really do have a lot to be thankful for. There are so many things I wish I had here that I don’t have now, things that I thought I would never be able to live without. Cuenten sus bendiciones! Have a great week guys!


Love, Elder Smith