We were able to get 6 investigators to church this week

Hey guys how are y’all doing? Man I was hoping to get home a lot earlier than 5:15 that is lame. I’ll just go eat Pappasitos in the Dallas airport when I get there. Happy Birthday Makenzie, I won’t be able to say it to you on Friday so I’ll say it now. I will just wait to speak a week when I get back so I can get my English back, but I’m down for whatever. I’m now the only American in Mao, out of the 4 missionaries I’m the only white one. It is way lame... 

It never stops raining here!!!!! And when it is not raining it is so hot!!!!!!! I’ll send you some pictures, our street turns into a river when it starts raining and we can’t even leave the house. 

But this past week was awesome other than that. We had our meetings in our ward for the first time in the 6 months that I have been here and what a great help it was. It is so nice to have some help now. It takes a real load off of our backs. We were able to get 6 investigators to church this week which is the highest that I have had here in Mao, and all of them showed up before the members and were ready to go. Jose and Isabel are doing really well and we are trying to get them to the judge this week so that they can get married and baptized. Winston went to church for the first time and it was a little different for him without all of the yelling and people "speaking in tongues" but he liked it. He felt a huge difference in our church and the other evangelical churches he has gone to in the past. 

We are supposed to get some good references this week to start completing some families which will be fun and we should have some success. 

So funny story, there is a ward temple trip next week so the bishop had our ward secretary pull up a list of people of expired recommends so they could get an interview with the bishop and the first person that showed up on the list was the Bishop, ha-ha and then he tried to deny it. Oh our bishop sometimes...

Well I’m glad that Dad and Brittney got home safe, and that all is well. I wish y’all the best of luck this week and hope that y’all have a great week!!!! 

Love,

Elder Smith

Watching the river run down the street

The street

The Zone

I’m happy here in Mao and I have Dr. Pepper so things can’t get that much better.

Hey guys how are y’all doing? I hope that y’all had a good week, congrats Makenzie for your achievements in track and in school. I hope that Dad and Brittney have a safe trip home from Utah. Here it has been raining everyday the past week but it looks like it has passed by. I’m either wet because I am sweating or because it is raining. I don’t know which one I prefer.  

This last week was hard with the rain and a little disappointing on the investigator side. It is like every one of our investigators is hitting a brick wall and just can’t quite seem to get over it. It is really sad when that happens. We are contacting a ton and we are not finding that many people. Yesterday we went back to some of the contacts we did and they had actually read the pamphlet which shocked me. Our Ward is having a ton of problems and the whole Stake Presidency has been at our ward the past 3 Sundays so there are some problems! I think we will have a new bishop pretty soon.  

Jose and Isabel have there papers they just need to got put the appointment with the judge. We are now teaching Arturo’s brother and he has been coming to church so he wants to get baptized so that would be good for Arturo to have more family in the church. The less actives here are really lame, they don’t want to do anything!!!!!!! But we keep trying, no one in our ward does visits so it is impossible to get them motivated.  

Yesterday was my comp's birthday so we had a good day. We left with some good members and had some great lessons. We ended the night off by getting some ice cream. For my birthday I don’t need anything really, I just want a phone and my old iPod when I get back home and I will be fine. So just save the money, I’m happy here in Mao and I have Dr. Pepper so things can’t get that much better. 

I would prefer to speak the first week I got back so I can just get it over with. It will be difficult but I think I would be able to pull it off. I just hope I don’t start going off in Spanish during the middle of my talk.  

So Nike is now starting to make the NFL jerseys? That is sweet!!!!! Well I hope that everyone keeps safe this week and that all goes well!!! Take care and have a great week!

Love,

Elder Smith

Santiago ruta, the car where you squeeze everyone into a 82 Camry

Companion's birthday treat

Walking up and down mountains all day is not the easy on shoes.

Hey guys how has your week gone? I can’t believe that my departure letter has come, but I’m still not trunky, well maybe a little bit. It looks like Jacob is starting to dress up with the fly sweater for Easter. I don’t think before my mission he would have worn that, haha. I hope that Easter was good, I don’t think the Easter Bunny visits the DR. We got to go to Santiago today so that meant McDonald's for breakfast and dinner, McDonald's never tasted so good!  

Elder Carrasco is doing well and he is a hard worker and has already gone through two pairs of shoes. Walking up and down mountains all day is not the easy on shoes. I hope that the shoes I have now will last me until I get home. He keeps me alive for the most part, even though sometimes I have to get him going. 

Still there are no marriages unfortunately :(, we are working and they are supposed to go put a date with the Judge today so hopefully they have the 3000 pesos. It is starting to get tough again to start getting investigators to go to church. They go one week and one week no. Our ward is having a lot of problems, someone is stealing the tithing money so someone is going to get a pretty big punishment.  I think a change is coming soon, the whole stake presidency came to interview everyone on Sunday so that is something that rarely happens. 

At least I got to give my talk this last week. My comp and I spoke. Elder Carrasco spoke a whole 2 minutes so I had plenty of time to fill. One of these days I need to get the topic for my homecoming talk but that is still a little ways away. 

Well I hope that you guys have an excellent week, take care! I love you guys a ton!!!! 

Love,

Elder Smith

"Don’t judge me because I sin differently than you"

Hey guys how are y’all doing? I see that Jacob was making Moro de habichuelas. It wasn’t quite cooked Dominican style, Ill show y’all how to do it when I get back. It looked like he did a good job and Ill still be down for some rice and beans when I get home. I hoped y’all enjoyed Conference it was really good this year. And yes we saw David Archuleta, we were watching the Conference online and one of the elders saw him and started screaming like a little girl so we rewound it and saw that it was him. It was lame we had to watch the priesthood session in Spanish which wasn’t as impacting as listening to the actual voice.  

I learned a lot during Conference. I liked the bumper sticker that Elder Uchdorf saw that said- "Don’t judge me because I sin differently than you" which made me laugh. I also like how they talked about how we can be active in the church but are we active in the Gospel. Elder Holland spoke pretty strong when he said it is getting late. 

We had Nino's baptism during the sessions of Conference on Saturday so that was cool that is brother could baptize him. Also it was special that we could do the confirmation on the spot. 

Jose and Isabel are working hard to get the 3000 pesos raised up, the Judge isn’t working this week so they couldn’t get married this week but we are pushing for next week. We are working hard and trying to meet as many people as possible.  

We never get invited to eat here, I have eaten in the house of a member two times in the 5 months that I have been here, the church is so not true here, haha. This week should be the most spiritual week of all, but here, everyone just gets wasted and goes on vacation making it one of the hardest weeks in the year. But we do get habichuelas con dulce this week a Dominican favorite during the holy week. I do get to talk this week in Sacrament Meeting which I am looking forward to here. 

Thanks for the Peyton Manning jersey, just keep it till I get home that will be sweet! I wanted a white one anyways. I hope that all goes well and that y’all have a great week!  

Love,

Elder Smith

Matthew and Francis

Nino's Baptism