I felt my first earthquake

Hey guys how are y’all doing? Only one more week..... But yeah I’m doing well for the most part, and the area is doing pretty good. It’s good to hear that y’all are doing great! I felt my first earthquake Monday afternoon when I was out in Sabaneta, so that was a new experience. The earth has shaken 5 times in the past three days, so I hoping nothing big hits.

Hey if the power goes out today due to the weather just be glad that it isn’t 100 degrees outside with 100% humidity.

We have our baptism this week! So we went to go check out the baptismal font and it was filled with dead lizards so we got to get that cleaned up before Saturday. Our ward is actually starting to have their meetings and things are getting better and they are getting more enthusiastic to leave and help us out. We have some awesome families and we are finding someone new everyday. Arturo is pumped for his baptism and his brother and his family are getting a little more interested in our message. We have transfers next week so we will see what happens to me, if I will stay or if I will go. It is crazy to think that I only have 4 more transfers left!!!! But we are still working with the families that we have, each of them has their own difficulties and problems and I enjoy watching them progress more and more every week.

I hope that y’all have some good weather so that Dad can go and do his flight. It looks like another rematch in the Super Bowl and we will see if the Giants can do it again. I love y’all all a ton. Take care and have a great week!

Love, Elder Smith

Matthew in Mao

Matthew's companion, Elder Leiva

Ward Christmas party

More Ward Christmas party

Scenery in Mao

We are finding a lot of new families out here

Hey guys how are y’all doing? Crazy news, Elder Bednar is coming to speak to our mission on the 13th of February! So that will be awesome. Yesterday I had a meeting with President Lee to discuss all of the problems that are going on in the wards and branches out here, why does the church have to have so many problems here??? We also had a sweet capacitacion (training) afterwards.

So I guess the Broncos and the Texans won’t play each other that’s a bummer. Tim Tebow forgot to read his scriptures or something.

The baptism that we were going to have last week was cancelled and we are going to do it next week. He was drinking coffee but after not passing the baptismal interview he got right to work and stronger. He is really excited for his baptism next week and is reading and praying more than ever. But news, the Polanco Family in Puerto Plata that I was teaching is getting married and baptized in 2 weeks so they can complete the family!!!!! I got to see them in Santiago today with Elder Montepeque and Elder Feliz so that was awesome. Here in Mao we have dates for 2 families to get married in the middle of February. We are finding a lot of new families out here and the work is so much better when you are teaching families. We have a lot of dates for people to get baptized and we are about to put a bunch more in this week that comes. Life would be so much easier if everyone was already married.

Unfortunately things aren’t getting better with Elder Leiva, he just wants to sleep all day and I’m sick of dragging him around like a little kid. I’m trying my best to help him out and push him more he just doesn’t want to do it. So my patience is very thin with him. At least I just have to survive 2 more weeks.

We had our p day in Santiago today and it was sweet to see all of my old comps and my family out in the Plata. I hope that y’all have a great week, and good luck in all that y’all do!!

Love, Elder Smith

It’s getting down to the 4th quarter now!

Hey what’s up guys how was your week? It’s getting down to the 4th quarter now! My week was pretty good, we met about every one of the goals we put for the last week. I’m jealous that Megan is going to be out in Punta Cana that is the nicest tourist spot in this country, and it has one of the best golf courses in the world. You should tell them to give up the beach for a day and come out to the desert in Mao. I’ve got couple of comebacks for Jacob when I get home, so don’t worry.

Things are still pretty rough with my comp but they are slightly getting better, I have never seen anyone move so slowly in my life. But we had a great week, we had a ton of people in church and we were able to put 2 dates for families to get married. We had an awesome lesson with Jose and Isabel last night, and we put a date for them to get baptized and married in the middle of February. I felt kind of like a priest last night asking them if they were willing to marry each other. This area is starting to progress. We have Arturo's baptism this Saturday and he is a stud and is ready to go.

The members here are starting to work with us more now, but it kind of sucks during the lesson when they start talking and won’t shut up and start bringing in random topics. But it is better than nothing. I’m excited for the new Elders Quorum manual, I was kind of getting over the Gospel Principles book for both classes.

Man I can’t believe that the Broncos pulled the upset on the Steelers. That would definitely be a shock to see the Broncos playing against the Texans in the playoffs. I played basketball for the first time in a couple of months today and it showed. I’ve got a lot of work to do when I get home.

Take care guys. I hope y’all have a great week and that all goes well.

Love, Elder Smith

I’m finally feeling better and have all my strength back

Hey guys how are y’all doing? I’m finally feeling better and have all my strength back, last week was not a fun week for me. Also I finally got my packages from y’all!!! Thanks a ton, now I’ve got snacks and beef jerky for weeks to come. The nerf gun helps me try to wake up my comp in the morning. That’s a bummer that Jacob broke his finger, I remember when I broke my thumb during football season it was a huge downer.

I have already started a countdown until the end of this transfer, only 4 weeks to go. There are definitely a lot of challenges in our companionship right now. Yesterday we had a good 2 hour talk on how we can improve things. I feel like I am babysitting and he is just starting to get on my nerves!

But on the bright side yesterday we had a couple tell us that they want the blessings of being legally married and of baptism and told us that they are working on getting married. They shared with missionaries about 20 years ago, and now they are in position in which they feel comfortable to get married. We are finally starting to find people again after the holidays and people aren’t with their families getting drunk and playing dominoes. We should have our baptism next week. We are working on making sure that he is converted before he makes the covenant of baptism. There are a couple of people that I don’t want to stop teaching but we are going to have to if they don’t start progressing anytime soon.

I hope everything is going well at home in work, school, and in home. I love y’all a tons and take care!

Elder Smith

It was awesome to get to talk to y’all on Sunday!

Hey guys, it was awesome to get to talk to y’all on Sunday! And yeah my comp got to talk to his family. Well after an awesome Sunday when it hit midnight I got really sick and started throwing up every half hour until 6 in the morning. So that was not a very good way to top off my Christmas. I spent all of Monday in bed, and at least yesterday I was able to leave in the afternoon. I’m still feeling kind of sick, I just feel really weak seeing how I haven’t eaten much the past couple of days. At least it got me out of a meeting Monday.

But we had a solid day yesterday, and we are making progress with one of the families we are teaching. The dad of the family needed to get a social security number and he was finally able to get one yesterday and we are working with a lawyer in our ward now so they can get married and baptized. I might actually marry a family on my mission!!! We weren’t able to pass by a lot our investigators because I was sick but we are going to pass by tonight and tomorrow.

I really don’t have much to say seeing how we talked for a while on Sunday, but thanks for everything that y’all do and the love that y’all show me. I hope y’all have fun at the football game! Take care guys and enjoy y’alls vacation!

Love, Elder Smith

Four More Days

Hey guys, only 4 more days till I get to talk to y’all! I hope y’all are enjoying your Christmas vacations together. I didn’t get transferred today, but my comp did so now I have a new comp named Elder Leiva and he is from Honduras so another tally for a Latin comp...... I guess the Lord really wants me to learn Spanish or something. That’s scary what happened to Grandpa Brink, but I am glad he still has his sense of humor.

We are working hard here and we are overwhelmed with the work that we have to do here. The area here is so big and we have so many people to teach that we are just getting lost in it all. We are not going to do our baptism this weekend, it is just too crazy here on Christmas Eve and Christmas to do it, but we have plans to do it soon. My companion is a little chunky so I am sure he will lose some weight walking up and down the hills here. We will see what we can do this week, Christmas time here in this country is the worst time for missionary work unlike the states.

I can’t wait to see y’alls faces this Sunday on Skype. I will work on getting everything squared away this week so we don’t have any problems here. I really hope the power doesn’t go out that could be a real bummer but usually it doesn’t go out on Christmas day. The package got held up because they can’t deliver packages that are worth over 200 bucks to the office so they sent in a copy of my passport but as of yesterday they still hadn’t taken care of it as of yesterday, so I am hoping that it gets taken care of.

I hope that y’all enjoy the week, and we will talk on Sunday!

Love, Elder Smith

Last Friday was a crazy day, I had to do 5 baptism interviews in 3 different cities

Hey guys how are y’all doing? We had a pretty good week for the most part, it was really busy and hectic with a lot of work and traveling.

The Texans won the AFC South! Wow that’s crazy and the Broncos are doing well, where have I been for the last 17 months?

Hey thanks for the package and I’m sure my comp will love what y’all sent him! We have transfers next week so I hope the package gets here before Wednesday, it will be weird having a transfer during the week of Christmas.

We were going to have a baptism this week but we moved it forward to the next Saturday on Christmas Eve, so we will see if we will be able to do it on that day. We are working hard here trying to find new people and trying to fish out some references from the members. This time of year is really hard for the mission work in this country. I saw a statistic the other day that said the DR has the lowest marriage rate in the world! So that didn’t surprise me when I saw that stat. We have a lot of families that we are teaching now so we are trying to get them up and going and progressing. It just seems like every family has problems that are getting harder and harder to resolve.

Last Friday was a crazy day, I had to do 5 baptism interviews in 3 different cities. It was weird being on the other side of the table during and interview but it was a cool experience. Some of the candidates were part of a family and it was cool to hear their conversion story and how the gospel has blessed them in their own lives. My District had 6 baptisms this past weekend and this District is one of the Districts that baptize less in the mission but they are working hard.
On Saturday we had a joint ward activity in Mao with the Elders Quorum and they had a dominoes tournament to invite all the less actives, members and investigators. So they did a random pairing for the tournament and my partner and I won the tournament! I beat the Dominicans in their own game. Instead of a fellowship activity it was an activity filled with contention kind of like church ball back home. It was funny to see the faces of the people when they got beat by a gringo. So I got a cool medal, I was lucky that I was playing with someone who knew how to play.

I hope that y’all enjoy y’alls vacation coming up and I can’t wait till Christmas to talk to y’all! Take care!

Love,
Elder Smith

Santa Clause came for a visit and I won a sweet tie in a scripture mastery contest.

Hey guys how are y’all doing? I hope that y’all are having a good week and surviving the cold weather. It’s getting pretty cold here in the morning, it’s kind of like camping when you go to bed it’s hot and when you wake up you are freezing. I’m glad that Jacob and Makenzie are doing well in basketball. Today kind of sucked, the power was out all day so I couldn’t go get my hair cut or do anything else so we just played dominoes all day. Yesterday we had a zone conference and I got to see a lot of friends in the mission and it was a spiritual experience. Santa Clause came for a visit and I won a sweet tie in a scripture mastery contest.

It looks like next week we will have one baptism with an investigator named Arturo. He was a contact we did my first day here. He has two friends that are less active and they are starting to get active as well and we are starting to work with their families as well. It’s getting harder and harder to find people to teach and teach the people that we have. The good thing is that we have a lot of families, but the only problem is that none of them are married so we will see if we can pull of a Christmas miracle. I am enjoying the area here and it is definitely helping me keep skinny.

This weekend I get to do 6 baptismal interviews so it will be cool to get to interview people and help them make the covenant of baptism. My district is working hard and we are getting a lot done.

I’m counting the days down as well until we can Skype on Christmas day, I hope I stay here and don’t get transferred 4 days before Christmas. I can’t believe we are already in December it still feels like it is summer. I hope all goes well in work, school, and sports. I love y’all a ton, take care and have a great week!

Love Elder Smith

Thanksgiving in Mao, Dominican Republic

Hey guys, I hoped y’all had a good Thanksgiving. It looked like it from the photos from Disneyland and the dinner. We had a good Thanksgiving, we had a ton of turkey and mashed potatoes so we ate really well. It was a normal day for the most part other than what we ate for lunch. We had our p day today in Santiago and it was a fun day. We didn’t do much but when we went to the mission home almost all of my old comps and many of my good friends in the mission were there so it was fun to talk with them and chill with them for the day. Elder Montepeque had to get an ingrown toenail taken out at the mission home, and Elder Reyes was there with his comp so it was cool. Today I got to hang out a bit with my trainer and his wife and was weird seeing him outside of the mission. He has a lot on his hands right now, he has a great job, and was just called as Bishop in his ward, and his wife is now pregnant so it looks like I will have a little bro or sis before I leave the mission. We got Papa Johns for lunch so it was good to have some American pizza.

This past week has been really busy with being district leader and having to travel a lot and having to do exchanges with the missionaries in my district. It was cool to be on an exchange with Elder Jimenez who was my old comp out in Sabaneta and work with him and the families that they have. I walked in front of Wandy Rodriguez’s house, he lives out in Santiago. When we were passing by his house, the member with us asked me if I knew who he was and was like yeah he is on my team. So he lives out here in the off season. Our area is keeping us busy and especially my legs moving. We are continuing to work hard with the families that we have and other investigators that we have. It looks like we are going to have to start working on trying to marry people which will be a pain but we can do it. I am hoping that this transfer we will have 2 baptisms and the next transfer we should have quite a few. There are a lot of people that have needs and we have to teach them to help themselves out to overcome their weaknesses.

But yeah we are now into the Christmas hymns, here in the DR they start playing Christmas hymns in the middle of October so I am still working on getting the rhythms down on all of the songs. The mornings and nights are really nice here now, I actually wake up cold here in the mornings. I love sleeping with my big blanket with the fan it feels great with the cooler weather. My comp has been a little sick this past week but now he is feeling a lot better. That’s funny that Coach Miller was reffing Makenzie’s game, that must have been a joke. But hey I hope y’all have an awesome week! Love y’all a ton!

Love, Elder Smith

Thanksgiving feast in the DR

Matthew and a past companion, Elder Jimenez. They were doing exchanges together in Sabaneta.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hey guys, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope y’all had a safe and good trip to California. We just got done buying our turkey for tomorrow, and man are they expensive it was like 40 bucks! Good thing there is four of us. But I am glad that y’all are doing well in basketball and I hope that y’all have a good season.

Everything here is going pretty well, my legs are a little worn out but there is a lot to do. Elder Castillo and I are working hard and we now have a lot of people and families with baptismal dates (fechas) so we are working hard to focus on their needs and help them in everyway possible. We have some special people that we are teaching and people that are actually reading and praying so that makes the work easier. We can tell that our investigators are feeling the spirit and we can tell with the comments that they make and how they express to us the way that they are feeling.

We have a guy name Dany that is working really hard to overcome his addiction to drinking, he is struggling but we gave him a blessing and he has the desire so we have the faith that he will get over the hump soon. Also we have a guy named Richard whose wife is a member and now he has more desire to do the things than her. We also have a guy named Wildi who was a reference and has come to church quite a bit and we have a date with him to get baptized in a couple of weeks. The work here is fun. Our Bishop is a funny guy and is lying down taking a nap during sacrament meeting. At least his counselors and some other guys are strong leaders.

I hope that y’all have a good Thanksgiving dinner with the family and have some fun watching some football. Have a great week and a safe trip home.

Love, Elder Smith