November 30, 2009

Hola Familia,

Wow, today is the last day of November. It went by so quickly. Before I start off, where is Tyler Sherwood going? I never found out. That sounds so nice that it has been raining. It is pretty warm here, not to bad. The only bad thing is that there is always a really strong wind. It is a good thing that I don’t have allergies because this wind is killing the elders with allergies. The other problem is that it is always blowing dust into our house. We have to sweep all the time to keep the house clean. It is a pain; the argentines aren’t very good about closing all the little holes off in the houses. There are huge spaces under the door and the dirt just flies right through. So be grateful for the rain. But at least in the nights it cools off really nice. San Rafael is actually the coolest place in the mission. But it will still be really hot in January.

Our turkey day was just like any other day here is the mission. They do not even know about Thanksgiving Day here. We told the members and they had no idea. But at least we ate a really good lunch with the Lorca Family. We had a food called Ñoquis. It is pretty good. It is mashed potatoes with an egg and flour and they turn it into a pasta like thing, put some pasta sauce on it and with some meat. It was pretty good but not like a big old turkey. It sure was weird though thinking that it was my last Thanksgiving in the mission and before you know it we will be at Christmas. Man time is flying by.


That is really weird that all the Wells except the mom moved to Colorado. I know they got a divorce but for all the kids to go to Colorado is weird. I thought Logan was better with his mom. That kind of stinks that he is in Colorado and also not very good if they are going to open up a Wing Restaurant. They are all pretty big guys already. I feel really bad for the mom, all her kids away like that. I hope she is ok. Say hi to here for me.

I have also been thinking about how much bishops do. In the ward that I am in right now, Balloffet, it is the most organized ward that I have been in the mission. It is really nice. It is amazing when you do what is asked and the ward works well. Well, Balloffet is a really organized ward. We had ward council last night and we talked about our investigators and the ward Christmas party. I respect bishops a lot more now that I have been working with them more. They have a lot to do. Sometimes I think we take advantage of the bishops some times. They do a lot of stuff.

I am not going to lie, that makes me feel good that people at Lehi Valley asked about me. Next time you go in tell everyone hi for me. How’s Weston doing? Hopefully everything is ok. So I got a letter from Justin. He is serving in the Bronx. Can you imagine little tiny Justin in The Bronx. I can’t see him there in that big old city talked about the gospel. But he is.

So about this last week, Elder Quebbeman and I are still together. We will be together for another 6 weeks. We got a new zone leader with us, elder Roy. He is really cool, he reminds me of Jordan Jones. The first couple days of the week were pretty slow. We had to help with transfers and we had to clean the house, but overall a pretty good week.

They lady that is already reading the Book of Mormon, Mariela, is progressing but slowly. Her husband is kind of holding her back. Hopefully we will be able to talk to him a little bit and tell him about the church. Patricia, Lucian, Mathias, and Kevin that went to church last week couldn’t make it this week. But they are still going to get baptized either the 12th or the 19th. We are really excited. Especially Elder Quebbeman. HIS FIRST BAPTISM!!!!! We are doing everything possible to get one in December. We have the people we just need to help them. But they are doing well. We taught the Plan of Salvation and talked about the Celestial Kingdom and how the families can be together for ever. They all want to go to the Celestial Kingdom and they are all excited about their baptisms.

Yesterday we had Esteban and Francisco at church. I think they really liked it. They like that we don’t scream and jump and do weird things. Like a lot of other churches. The mom couldn’t come because she was sick but next week they will. Esteban at first was really against us teaching but right now he is slowly liking what we have and noticing the truth. It is awesome. We actually have a lot of people that we are teaching right now. We are teaching Vanessa and Agustín right now. We went last night and we saw through the window that she was reading the pamphlet and her little 2 year old kid was feasting on the words of Christ. I mean really he was eating the book!!! Ha ha but she is really a nice lady and really can use a life style change. We will help her out a lot. We put our goal as 6 baptisms in December. We are going to work like crazy for it.

There is a new elder here and he is pretty home sick. It is really sad because it is because of his girlfriend. I wish he would just figure it out now that it is now worth it. I hope she leaves him soon. That sounds mean, but he will be able so focus so much more.

Well I hope I have more to write about next week. I love you all so much. MOM GET SOME MORE REST!!!!!!!!! Everyone tells me you are tired. It wont kill you to get a couple hours of extra sleep every once in a while. I hope everyone gets well and enjoys the Christmas season.

Elder Blake Smith