So that will be a cool way to spend my birthday.

Hey guys how is y’alls week going? It looks like there is a lot going on with the summer coming up. I’m getting excited to be able to talk with you guys next Sunday for Mother’s Day!!! What time do y’all have church right now? Congrats to Makenzie for her throwing and Jacob looks pretty studly with that bow tie. I have a bow tie Ill bring home with me and Jacob and I can go to church with bow ties.  

So we were going to have a wedding today but there was a little problem with the birth certificates, they only had copies but they needed the originals so they should have them today. They went on Monday to go apply for them. So it looks like Jose and Isabel will be getting baptized next Saturday, the 12th of May!!!!!!!! So that will be a cool way to spend my birthday. They are doing really well, we went with our Elder's Quorum President to their house last night and we had a good lesson with them.  

Also we are teaching a member's wife that isn’t a member and she now has a desire to get baptized and it is a young couple and the husband is a return missionary so we will get to complete a family! Also Winston is doing really well but his extended family is giving him some heat for going to our church.  

This Sunday we get to give a class to the Ward about how they can participate in the missionary work so that will be good help for us. At least the rain has stopped for the most part and we haven’t had any problems with that this week.  

The photo book is really cool! This week one of the missionaries in our Mission finished his mission and his homecoming ward is my ward so it was weird being at his homecoming party seeing Elder Perez for almost my whole mission and now he is home so it trunked me out a bit but not too much. 

Well I hope that all keeps going well and 11 more days till Mother's Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Take care and have a great week!!! 

Love,

Elder Smith

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

I still can’t quite say that all is well in Zion, but we are fighting.

Hey guys how are y’all doing? Everything is going well down here for the most part. I still can’t quite say that all is well in Zion, but we are fighting. So you are the pianist again, that’s a bummer that it is Relief Society and not in the Primary. The Primary would be so much more fun. I’m glad that Makenzie is doing well in shot and discus, keep working hard!  

So this weekend we have Nino's baptism and it will be cool seeing how we are going to do it Saturday after a session of general conference. We will have all of the members there and there should be good support. We had a good lesson last night with Jose and Isabel. They are some of the first people to get to church on Sunday and they get there 20 minutes early in the same seats every week and act as if they had years in the church. They even read the manual for the classes on Sunday. We are working hard for their baptism next week. I don’t know what more to teach them, they know more than most of the members here. 

So we have a problem with a member in our ward who is always offending members in our ward and now is starting to offend some of our investigators which isn’t cool at all. So I’m pretty ticked with him. 

On Sunday there is this guy that we contacted about 2 months ago and we left him a Book of Mormon with the time of church inside of it. We tried passing by a couple of times but he was always working and we could never find him. So this week he found the Book of Mormon in his house and started reading it and he liked it and saw the schedule of church inside of it and showed up during Sacrament Meeting with the book in his hand which kind of shocked me! He asked us why we never passed by and we said we did so we are working with him now. That has never happened to me on my mission. 

On Saturday, Zoraida and Otoniel got married and Zoraida got baptized! They were the family that I was teaching in Puerto Plata and they had to go through a lot to get Otoniel divorced and them married. I wished I could have gone to the wedding and baptism. They are just the coolest family ever and they are going to be strong in the church. 

This weekend is my last General Conference in the mission!!!!! What a better way to celebrate it than having a baptism :). I hope y’all enjoy listening to our living day prophet! Take care and have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Smith

A lot of times I miss home but I know that this is where I need to be.

Hey guys how are y’all doing? Peyton is a Bronco!!!!!! That just makes me so much more excited for football when I get back home. That is crazy, I never saw that coming. So what are they going to do with Tebow then? I’m glad that y’all survived trek and glad that y’all enjoyed the rodeo. Training is rough but it is fun. It makes me remember how little I knew when I started the mission.  

We pulled a little prank on the new guy last Friday and it was so funny. We went with our 1st Counselor to go to a reference that he gave us (Richard a member). So we get to the house and we knock on the door and his wife answers the door and lets us in. So we hear Richard in the other room and his wife tells him to come out. So he starts saying that he is drinking and doesn’t want to come out. So I get him to come out and he comes out with red eyes and a sweaty face with a huge beer bottle in his hand (filled with sprite). So we are doing the best to keep from laughing. So he starts saying that he doesn’t want to share with us and just wants to drink. He then asks us if we can drink in the church and our first counselor said no and he said he still didn’t want to share with us. So I tell my comp that we are going to teach the word of wisdom so my comp is freaking out and pulls out a pamphlet. So Richard tells us that he will share with us if we take a drink of his beer. So Christian (1st counselor) tells Elder Carrasco and I that we have to take a sip or there is no chance with him and takes a big gulp. So my comps eyes got big and started sweating a starting thinking wow what apostasy there is here in Mao. And then I take a big gulp and Elder Carrasco really starts freaking out. And I give the bottle to him and I said hey man you got to take a drink, just a little bit. And he sat there for about a minute thinking about it and finally went and took a sip to find out that it was just sprite and we busted up laughing. So he was really worried for a moment, but it was a good prank, haha 

Elder Carrasco is a stud and his working hard. The first day our working he got a blister on his foot so that wasn’t fun but he kept fighting. He isn’t afraid to open his mouth but sometimes that’s not a good thing either but at least he is talking and teaching even though he does teach a lot of apostasy. He just doesn’t know how to explain things sometimes but he is learning. It is difficult having to be a perfect example in everything. Whatever I do he does. But I’m learning a lot from this experience as well. It is helping me be the best missionary I can be. 

Our family that we are teaching has a date to get married the 6th of April and get baptized the next day so they have time to raise 3000 pesos. We might have Niño’s baptism during the sections of General Conference which would be cool. I have always wanted to do that. He is the first counselor's brother. We will see if we can teach him everything before that date. We are contacting like none other and we are finding new people. We kept the people that are progressing and the others we dropped and we are working like crazy. I have never been so tired in my mission. 

I hope everything keeps going well at home. A lot of times I miss home but I know that this is where I need to be. Take care and have a great week!!! 

Love, Elder Smith

The Zone last transfer

Rice fields between Navarrete and Mao

15/15

Hey guys how are y’all doing? So today I got my kid and his name is Elder Carrasco. And yes he is Dominican as usual. That means that I will have 15/15 transfers with a Latin comp. I don’t know what I did to my mission president to deserve this. He seems pretty excited to be out here, he is the only member in his family so it will be a little tough being out here for him. He is a smaller guy and it will be fun being able to help him learn and progress. It was weird for me being in the grocery store and having to tell him everything that he needed and didn’t need. And it is a little weirder seeing how he doesn’t really know how to use a computer and trying to teach him how to use it.  

So I’m not district leader anymore so I’m okay with that. I can just focus on my companion and my area. It’s weird I can say that I have 20 months in the mission. It has passed by fast but I still feel like I have an eternity left. I’m glad to be staying, I might just even ask to finish my mission here. A part of me wants to go to Santiago and go serve in my trainer's ward. 

Our area is doing awesome. Jose and Isabel got their birth certificates ready to go and they had to work a lot to be able to get them that fast. They know the commitment they are making is not with us but with God and for that they are working hard to live according to the commandments. I asked them why they wanted to get married and they said to live the law of chastity so they can get baptized so that when they die they can enter into the celestial kingdom. I was amazed by their answer, there are few people that can put that connection together. We have some other people that are progressing too. I’m excited to get out and start being able to work full out with Elder Carrasco.  

The Colts let go of Peyton Manning? What are they thinking? Well that would be legit if he went to the Broncos and maybe they can put Tim Tebow at tight end, haha. Well BYU might have won their first game but they are going to choke as always. 

I hope that y’all enjoy y’alls spring break and that y’all will be blessed in all aspects of your lives!  

Love,

Elder Smith

I'm getting a kid but I don't know who the mother is....

Hey guys how are y’all doing? I’m getting a kid but I don’t know who the mother is, ha-ha! Imp going to train next transfer, and yes that means freedom from my comp in a week!!!!!  

That would be sweet if Mike and I were roommates. He was asking me about it today so that is legit. I told Andrew if we didn’t room we would be right next to each other. 

Dang spring break is coming up, that will be fun.  

So I am going to have to step my game up a bit this transfer. I’ll start training next week. President called me Friday night and we had a meeting in Santiago yesterday. And my favorite part of the meeting was Pizza Hut. So Elder Leiva is out and we are going to work hard here. There is so much to do! We should have a good number of baptisms together. So I only have 3 more transfers left in the mission and I will train for at least 2 so I might die being out in the country my whole mission. I’m glad I’m out here in Mao, it has everything that I need and want. I can keep adding to my Dr. Pepper tower. 

Our ward is helping out Jose and Isabel a lot, our Bishop even gave them a ride to Santiago because Isabel had to go to the doctor. So we are pushing them so they can get the papers settled as fast as possible. They are converted and you can see the change in them. We also have our 1st counselor's brother that will be a sure baptism in a couple of weeks and went to church the full three hours his first time. We have an investigator named Winston that we contacted a couple of weeks ago but his Aunt is Adventist and wouldn’t let us into the house. But this week we passed by and she let us in and we were able to teach the Book of Mormon to him and he accepted it really well and was like this is even better than the Bible which was nice for a change. We are trying to use the doctrine of Christ as much as possible and but dates with the people we teach. 

I hope that all is going well back home and that y’all will have the spirit in all that you do! 

Love,

Elder Smith

Pictures from the wedding reception of the Bishop's daughter

Matthew and his companion

Matthew, his companion and the Bishopric

Matthew and Moroni
And you thought only people in Utah named their kids Moroni

Papolo and Matthew

Moroni
"Isn't this kid fly?" The quote Matthew used to describe him

Furnace of Affliction

Hey guys how as y’alls week been? It sounds like everything has settled down a bit with not having all of the sporting events to go to. And yes there is only 2 more weeks in the transfer.... So what more does Dad need to do to be able to get his license? Man I can’t believe that Corbin is driving my baby, man do I miss having my dodge. I will love being able to go to the supermarket and back without having to carry all of the bags with me and I can just throw them in the car. It’s starting to get hot here and is becoming the "Furnace of affliction" (1 Nephi 20:10).  

But this past Monday was Independence Day in this country so it has been a hard past couple of days. For Jose and Isabel to get married we need to get her birth certificate and then we will be good to go. They are doing awesome and will be firm members of the church after their baptism. So we have found out in the past couple of weeks that Wilson, one of our investigators, has 2 women and has another family and kids but is always at Morena's house. So my comp and I told him that he couldn’t do that after explaining the law of chastity and for not being able to describe it in other words he got pissed! So he doesn’t want to share with us anymore but Morena wants to throw him out and get baptized. We are also working with our American Dominican, Luisandro, but he is indecisive between our church and another evangelical church. We are trying to find new investigators because we need them. At least we are teaching our 1st counselor's brother and he has a ton of desire to get baptized so hopefully we have his baptism in a couple of weeks.  

Tonight Elder Leiva and I are going to go and crash our Bishop's daughter's wedding in the chapel. We at least we are going to go and eat cake so that will be good enough for me. I hope that everything keeps going well and that y’all have a great week! 

 Love,

 Elder Smith