September 14, 2009

Dear Family,

WOW, I HAVE A YEAR IN THE MISSION!!! It went by really quickly. I am half way done already. It is really weird. I remember when I was new in the mission and I look at the people that had a year and I look up to them. Like they were more than a person. Ha ha I don’t feel like that right now. But me and elder hinojosa are doing really good. He is from lima peru. He comes from a really humble family. His dad is a chef and he worked for the church washing cars. Also he was a janitor in a school. Ha ha he is really innocent. He is teaching me all the primary songs in Spanish. He knows a lot. But I love it. He is so much fun. He is going to be my favorite companion I think. He is always smiling and laughing. Oh so you wanted to know where I live I live at 866 Buenos Aires, San Rafael, Mendoza. Try putting that into google earth because I don’t know the zip code. But I guess the people say it is a lot prettier because they have a lot of peach trees and plum trees and well it is a lot better looking because all the trees have there leaves on it. All the streets here have trees on both sides. So when you go to the down town. The mail road have big trees on both sides and it makes a big tunnel for the road. It is pretty cool. When they trees have leaves I will take a picture of it. Right now we are leaving with two other missionaries and I am loving it. Elder medina is awesome. We have so much fun together. He is from the province of Buenos aires. He is a really good elder and he is teaching me a lot about how to cook meat. Ha ha for my year night we had a lot of meat. We did an asado al horno. Just cooking big chuncks of meat in the oven. It was amazing. It was so good. I have a picture of it. I will sent It later.

Ok. I know a lot of things change while someone is on the mission, but, WESTON WENT OF A DATE?????? DID HE ASK HER?????? That is absolutely amazing. Ha ha I am so happy for him. They are a really good family too. I sure hope he asks her out again. That is so crazy.

Well this week was pretty good. When I got into this area they recently dropped almost all of there investigators. When I got here we had about three. Yesterday we had to drop these three. We went to their house and the grandma lied but we asked the little niece and she said that they were there. Well a little five year old can not lie. It was really sad but now we know that they are not ready. So we are trying to find new people. We are opening the mouth with people in the street and we are knocking a lot of doors. We got into 11 houses this week. Which is pretty good for this area because it is a rich area. So we are sad that we have no one but this week we should have people to teach. Elder hinojosa is awesome and he has a ton of faith and doesn’t let people push him around. Ha ha it was so funny this week. We were talking with an old couple and the guy started get mad. Which was ridiculus because he was pretty much getting mad at himself because we didn’t say anything. Then like all argentines he asked us if we believe in the virgin mary. We said, ya she is the mother of jesus. And this guy said, no she is so much for then jesus. Like more important. Edler hinojosa´s face changed like I have never seen it. And said ´sorry, what did you say´ and then he went off on how that is so wrong. I was just enjoying then kid go off on this guy. I know we aren’t supposed to get mad when we teach. But really what this guy was saying got us both a little upset. When elder hinojosa said I think made him think about his beliefs and didn’t want to talk more. He will think about what we said and change with time. But we have been having fun with mean people this week. I have been, not arguing but having fun with some old catholic people. Ha ha.

This ward is really really small. I think we are going to start trying to get people active again. Yesterday we had 24 people in church. 24 is a really small number. I don’t know how we are going to do it but we are going to do it.


Today for pday we played risk and monopolie. I lost at both so I started playing soccer. I can now do like 12 juggles with the football. Ya I know, I all really good. I still cant get close to a latin but I am trying.

I am really excited for this week. We are going to be working hard and try to get people to listen to us. We will see. Jenna, sorry about the school thing and everything. But just read ether 12:27. I am sure that you already know it, but just read it. It was werid, because I was planning for my district meeting and I read it this morning. It talks about how, oh man I don’t know it in English. That god gives us weaknesess so that we can be stronger in the long run. I don’t know how it is in this situation but just keep reading your scriptues and everything will be ok. Well I love you all so much. Les amos muchísimo. Espero que tengan una semana muy buena y que siempre hagan sus oraciones y sus estudios de las escrituras. Estas cosas van a ayudarles con todos sus problemas. Chau chau.

Elder smith

Ps. The people from my house think josh and dad look more latin then American. Ha ha.