Victor got baptized Saturday!

Hey guys how are y’all doing? Well in the past week it definitely had its ups and downs. I'm glad that mom had a good trip up to Utah and I could go for some good October weather right now. Congrats on the interception last night bro! I’m glad that BYU can at least beat Idaho State and I’m jealous that y’all get to go to the BYU game this week.

Well this week, I will start out with the good. Victor got baptized Saturday! So I got to do it and it was a good baptism and the water felt really good. We had an alright show up from the members, but had a lot of missionaries a lot of investigators came which was good. So we are going to keep working with him. Felix is in the marriage process so that he can get baptized, he is the smartest investigator that I have had in my mission. He always corrects the teacher when they are teaching apostasy so that is funny. The Polanco family is doing well and the dad is starting to get his desire back up again and he asked some great questions last night. With Alberto and Linaori, Alberto wants to get married but Linaori doesn’t right now so we are still trying to help them. We have another family we are teaching and the son as a ton of desire to get baptized but we are trying to work with the whole family.

So that is the good, the bad is that Hermano Reyes had to go home a take care of a couple things so he was sent home, my new comp is Hermano Garcia, . My new comp leaves on his mission to Mexico in 3 weeks so the next 2 weeks he will be with me and he is pretty tight. Also our Elders Quorum President just got in a huge fight with his wife and has ditched his family so our main member support is now gone.
So I am just hanging on here, we will see what happens next transfer. I have had 4 different comps in this area and its killing me seeing how I have to do everything. Monday and Tuesday I was chilling in Santiago with the assistants for the day driving around with them and teaching with them. I also got my first hot shower of my mission.

So I hope y’alls week is going good and better than mine. Take care guys, I love y’all a lot!

Love, Elder Smith

Elder Matt Smith, Victor done de Paula, Hermano Reyes

Victor done de Paula

Matthew's new companion Hermano Garcia

P-day beach picture

Coconuts

Yummy coconut water

Five American Elders Sitting in a Tree

Victor is getting baptized on Saturday

Hey guys how are y’all doing? I’m doing pretty well for the most part, really tired but I’m doing alright. We just got back from Santiago and I got to eat McDonalds for lunch which was amazing. So when I was eating I met a girl that is a Jehovah’s Witness missionary that graduated in 08 from Cy Ridge high school so it is a small world when I meet people from Houston out in the DR. In these past couple of weeks I have learned a lot of patience with my comp Hno. Reyes.

But this Saturday we are having a baptism! I’m going to get to do the baptism of Victor on Saturday! So the waters of baptism will be a nice cool off. Its funny that he was a contact we did on Sunday afternoon which is the worst day to contact during the week. He told off his other pastor when he tried to say that we weren’t Christians. But also we have Felix who is a stud and a half and is getting ready to get baptized soon. We are working hard with him to get him married. Also we have the Polanco family with who we did a family home evening with them and watched a movie and it was one of the most spiritual lessons that I have had on my mission when the family began to give their testimonies and it hit hard on Otoniel that has been kind of weak lately. So they should be getting married pretty soon. This past Sunday during elders quorum are elders quorum president was teaching apostasy during the class and our investigators were correcting him throughout the lesson so that was pretty funny. So our investigators are strong and we are getting a lot of people to church right now so that is really good.

So last week I was teaching the Elders Quorum on tithing and I think the problem with tithing in this country is that people don’t know what 10% of their income is. I was putting examples on the board and no one could pull 10% from the numbers, it was kind of sad having grown men that can’t do simple math. Math is a huge problem in this country, it is really frustrating.

I hope that all goes well this week and that dad had a good birthday. Take care and be safe!

Love, Elder Smith

Happy early Cumpleaños Dad!

Hey guys how are y’all doing? Happy early Cumpleaños Dad! I’m doing all right for the most part, a couple of complaints but oh well. Thanks so much for the package those Skittles and Swedish Fish really made my day Saturday. I taught a mission high of 38 lessons last week so that was my bright spot for the week. I sent 2 Cd's of pictures home last week so y’all should get them soon.

I’m dying here little by little in this area. Yesterday was one of my hardest days in my mission when every one of our appointments fired and there was just no one to teach. There was a lot of walking involved and getting rejected by the same people over and over again. It doesn’t help when I have to babysit my comp all of the time. I just want a normal missionary as a companion. Now he has got a thing for a girl in our ward and I just can’t seem to catch a break. On top of that the mission is barely giving me any money to cover his expenses so I am barely surviving.

At least we have some good things going on in our area so those are keeping me alive. We have the baptism of Victor next week so we are finishing preparing him and helping him get ready. We had success working with the members this week in helping Felix go to church. He showed up early for his first day all dressed up with a white shirt and tie! He liked it a lot so I am hoping this helps him get closer to baptism. We are struggling a bit with the people that we have and trying to find new people.

I hope that Dad has a good birthday, and y’all can enjoy Pappasitos for me. Good luck tonight in your football game Jacob. I love y’all, take care and have a good week!

Love, Elder Smith

A kid asked me if I had been shot at yet.

Hey guys how are y'all doing? Conference weekend was way sick even though the power and signal kept going out. Every time there was a good talk the power or satellite would go out so that wasn’t too fun. But I enjoyed a lot of the talks and I learned a lot of things I can teach to my investigators. So I got the letters from the Primary kids and my favorite one was one that a kid asked me if I had been shot at yet. So they were fun and good humor. So did BYU really pulled Heaps out, dang he must have not done very good then.

But things are going well down here with the mini, he has learned a lot in the past week and it helps that he was the Ward Mission Leader before. He is 18 and is expecting his mission call in these coming weeks! The transition from being at home and in the mission the next day was a little rough for him but he is starting to adjust, he is dead at the end of the day. He is doing really well and I can almost teach with him as if he was a normal missionary. I have to put a lot of the work on my shoulder but it is fun having someone who is new in the work. He doesn’t know any of the rules so I had to help him out there. The first couple of days he would ask me if he could use the bathroom, and I would tell him dude you don’t have to ask me.

Our area is doing pretty good, I am slowly dying as I don’t know where there are any more we can contact seeing how I have contacted it multiple times. We should be able to baptize Victor next week if everything goes smoothly with him. We still have the problem of trying to get people married but I think we will be able to pull off the marriage of Alberto y Linaori soon. But we are trying to meet as many new people as possible.

But I hope everything keeps going well back at home and that temperatures cool off there and here! Have a good week and take care!

Love, Elder Smith

Hermano Reyes and Matthew

View of Matthew's house from the gondola

View from the top of the gondola