January 26, 2009

Dear Famiy,

Well i hope everyone is doing good that was kinda scary to hear about mac. I sure hope he is ok trust me we will be praying for him this week in my personal prayers and companion prayers. That is so scary, and then todd getting in a crash, whats going on. Ha ha crazy crazy crazy. Well atleast everyone is alive that is the good thing. So i think the shirts that i have are called stratford shirts. I really like them too. They have been working really good. But they are really nice and not to thick too. Thats so cool that justin went through the temple. Wow that doesnt seem that long ago but it really was a long time ago. Ha ha in june. 7 months ago i think. Wow time actually does go by fast in the mission. This next transfer i hit my 6 month mark. Wow. I think the address that i put on the letter is the better address. Becuase i took it right off the paper i have with the mission address on it. But who knows. I dont. That would be really nice to get something from me for brittany because elder morgan sent a package that weighed a half a kilo and it was 40 pesos. Expensive. But i am still going to do a little somthing for her with what i can. I havent even seen anything here that would be worth getting that couldnt be bought in the status. But i am always looking. Oh about your lesson. Ya it is hard to teach kids and make then realize the importance of the gospel. But we have a conversation with a guy saying he had the holy ghost. But the people are wrong. They can feel the holy ghost but they cant have it with them as a constant companion until they are baptized and confirmed. And then you have the gift of the holy ghost. And it is so important. I know it is hard to get it into their heads but all we can do is try. Oh and with chase judd is he is presidents secretary it either means that he will be traviling with the president or he works in the offices. It is good i guess he will be with the president more and if his president is like mine it is good. Ya today i will try to write weston a letter. That is sad i just realizad that me justin and brady will be gone. Man that is sad. Ya i will write him. So all i have heard this last week was ohbama obahma everywhere i went. One guy always says oohh the people of obahma. Ha ha but it is annoying. I start telling people i am from canada it is a lot easier. Ha ha. Oh and someone sent me a christmas card and with 5 dollars but i have no idea who they are. Who are the seiters???? So this week i did divisions with the zone leaders and i was with elder morgan. We had so much fun he is so funny. We messed with the little kids and just had a lot of fun. I also did divisions with lavalle and i was with elder Villalba. He is from paraguay. We were walkng down the road and theri was a store called Arizona. So i bought a water from him and asked who has been to Arizona. It was a kid who has about 25 years and he finished school at dobson hight school. It was wierd but cool too. So a bishop came to our pench to spray for bugs and didnt give us back the key but he gave it to elder berezay who we live with and we say elder berezay in the street and he said oh i lift the key on the front porch. But there is a note on the door saying where it is. I freaked out!!!! I was so glad my camera wasnt in there. Ha ha but they thing he said next brought me comfort. He said, oh it is ok i wrote it in english no will understand. Ha ha and it is true no one understands. Ha ha.

So ya on Saturday we had the baptism. And we were filling up the font. And i said esta agua es para limpiar el pezcado. After i said this my comp looked at me funny and then i thought i little bit. I sait this water is for cleaning fish. I wanted to say this water is for cleaning sin. Sin is pecado and fish is pezcado. Ha ah. Ya i felt stupid. Bu the baptism went really good. I was able to baptise him. His name is facundo Alarcón. It was really nice. A really good experience and we are also planning on two baptisms next week. The brother of facundo and a girl named belén. We are going to work hard for them both.

I will send some pictures. But i love you all so much i hope mac is better. Be safe i love you.

Elder smith




photos.

1. this word means a lot of waters. our name of our district.
2. our celebration coke. yum!!!!!!
3. this is the baptism photo. facunda has nine years.
4. waiting for the baptismal font

January 19, 2009

hello family,

so this week was really good and it sounded like yours were too. except being sick. hope you feel better mom and mac. but everthing else sounds good. bryce giving a talk and everything. crazy. well right now mom my clothes are fine for now. i dont know if i am going to keep losing weight fast or not. but we will see. i kinda hope so. ha ha. but thanks for sending the socks. it is kinda crazy. sometimes the sisters in the branch are fast with washing the clothes and sometimes they take a long time. these socks are going to help out a lot. ha ha because the other stuff i can wear more then once or twice. but everthing is going good. oh and mom it is ok that you didnt get that letter from brittany out. dont worry about it. but to answer some of your questions. i have seen 2 elders from the mtc. i havnt seen elder chase yet. and there are elders that havnet seen their mtc companion and they have like 18 months. so i hope i get to see him. ha ha funny story that made me feel good. we were walking down the street and this guy and this lady asked us what ward we were from. we said bermejo and i asked them where they were. and they said the ward that elder chase is in. so i said, oh i was in the mtc with him. how is he doing. she said goood he is doing good but you speak a litlle better than him. it made be feel pretty good. and my companion elder macias he is from tucuman argentina but his family lives in la plata which is in Good Air or Buenos Aires. ha ha but he is cool. he lives with him mom and 2 brothers and they are all members. his brother served in chilie and his other brother is getting ready to go. and at zone conference ya elder lewis is in maipu zone. the zone is a little different right now but that is good. one favor could you send me a picture of our house. thanks oh i showed some people the picture of grandmas house. everyone said. oh a mansion that is huge. ha ha they like their house. so in the past week we changed houses. right now we are living like three house down on the same street. but we are living with 2 others missionarys. josh and todd probably know but a 4 man pench is better it is so much fun. we can come home talk about the day and see who had more success. like yesterdday we had a competition who would have more in church. more investigators. elder berezay thought he would win but we beat him by one. they had 5 and we had 6.

ours were kinda miracles. we had facundo come and he is getting baptized this saturday. yay my first baptism. but we also had a member come up to us and say this is my granddaughter and she wants to be a member of the church. we jumped on that. got her address and are going to teach her. ha ha and then we were teacing princibles of the gospel class and a member came in and said there are 3 people waiting outside. so we talked to them and they wanted to know more. so we had 3 kids of about 19 years. and then a member brought her neighbor. yesterday was a good day in church. 6 i think it was the best in the zone. oh ya. so the elders we live with are elder berezay from canada and elder matson from californina. they are really cool. so how is it with a new president????? haha i want to know how it goes with him.

so we talked to a guy this week. and my companion he speaks spanish fluently and we were talking the this guy and this is what we got out of it. all we could understand was the work fifty ha ha so his name it fifty. but it was funny becasue he talked for like five minutes. and we didnt understand a thing. oh and we also saw a whole family of five on one motorcycle. ha ha argentina

so we have been working really hard with marcelo and araceli marón. for a while i thought they were goind down hill. but we gave them the testaments to watch and we were going to come back another day. we went saturday at 430 and when we got there the movie was almost done. and at the end when jesus heals his blindness and the spirit is way strong. marcelo said. oooh that was really strong. ha ha we said ya and we gave them a pictue. becuase at first they were reallly having a hard time with prayer until we had him pray with us. but we gave him jesus at the door. where jesus is knocking but there is no door handle for him we have to let him in. they reallly liked it and they are both way into everyting right now. we are ging to put a baptism date with them tongith for the 31 of january. but they are doing good. i cant wait to baptize them they are so amazing.

but i am glad everyone is doing good at home. i cant wait to see more pictuires of mac and i hope mac and mom get better. i love you all. so much. have fun be safe read the scriptures do whats right. les amo mucho y espero que esten bueno. esta iglesia es verdadera y tenemos la verdad.

edler smith



this is a picuture of centro mendoza and of me eating a really good hot dogs. with tomatoes. i actually reallly like them now. well i love you all so much.

elder smith

January 12, 2009

Dear Family,

Well this week was pretty good. and to answer your question mom it was steak, chicken and sausage on the grill. and it was dang good too. ha ha. but so how was atlanta?? and everything with the store. it sounds like you have been way way busy which is good. ha ha sounds fun too. it is weird that mac is already been blessed and everthing. and that is cool that this guy from the cardinals came and bore his testimony. so is bryce in school yet?? ha ha something funny, so bryce yesterday in church Gabriel didnt write a talk he forgot so 1 dont forget your talk this week and 2 elder macias had to talk. it was about goals and how important they are. i am glad you have already set the goal of getting Call of Duty 6 and that is in like 10 months i am glad you are thinking ahead. ha ha.

so lets see. brittany and mom. could you print out all the letters i send you and also all the letters you send me. my mail box is goind to fill up soon so i will have so erase some of them. thanks a bunch. so lets see this wee. we had zone conference. it was so good. hermana lindahl talked about turning the corner so you cant look back on your old life, the mistakes that you made or the things you wished to change.. we are on missions we need to turn the corner and look forward. no looking back. look forward and create your life for the best. she did so good. she had an amazing spirit. and her spanish is coming along so fast. but so i bought The Testaments for like 2 dollars which i really liked and i also got the liahona for november. the confernece talks.. i guess we dont get ensigns outside of the us. so i will only get liahonas. oh well. ya so before the mission i wouldnt read anything in the ensign if i didnt have too. i really didnt realize the importance. but teaching the restauration and how we actully have a prophet on the earth and i now see the importance of this i have been starving for the ensign. elder macias and i read like 3 talks a day. i love reading the talks, the talks i esspecialy liked. was of elder aidukatis about the book of mormon and elder scott about the priesthood. oh they were good. and i love reading these talks.

so guess what. i hit two months in argentina yesterday. ya crazy. it have been both fast and slow but ya two months here in argentina and four months from home. so i think is was wednesday we were in a neighborhood. and it started to pour. it was raining so hard. and there arent any members that i knew in this neighboorhood. so we just stood under like a little roof that stuck out about a foot and tried not to get wet. ha ha but we did we got pretty wet. but it was fun becuase then when we were walking home we were slipping all over the place in the mud. ha ha it was good. and then last night it raing pretty hard too. we were about 15 minutes from the appartment and we had to walk back in the rain .. we were soaked but it was fun. ha ha it was fun.

so on saturday we had an activity with the young single adults in the stake. they are helping go around and make sure if the ward list is right. to see if they still live there and if there address is right to we have an upto date ward list. and we helped show them around bermejo. so it was pretty fun to be with all them.

so last night we did a thing that elder macias really wanted to do and so did i. we went to an evangelist church. ha ha we were waitng outside for the pastor and this like 8 year old came up and started talking to us about our beliefs and everything so he went to get the pastor. he took us in his office and we talked we said we were just here to see how your church was and if you want us to read something from the bible we could. he didnt want us to talk so we just watched. buut before he showed us the church and we invited him to come see our church. we taught him about the church and had a short lesson with him. we then watiched the service. i know so much more stronger that we have the truth. wow is this church true. so they started out by having one guy at the front and they sing songs. everyone stood up and had there hands in the air and were singing. abre mis ojos oh cristo. abre mis ojos te pido yo quierro verte. ha ha it means open my eyes oh christ open my eyes i ask thee i want to see you. but to see a fourty year old man getting really into it was just funny. but at the same time really sad. because these people are mistaking a good feeling with the spirit. we did now feel the spirit at all. i cant wait for this pastor to come with him family and actually feel the spirit. it was good because ha said if we come back next week he might let us get up in front and talk to the congregation. i cant wait. ha ha we are going to baptize him his family and his church. ha ah no but really we have the truth.

so i just want to tell you all i love you so much and how much you mean to me. i love you

elder smith

here are some more picutures.

5. me and elder rossi, he is from paraguay
4. me and elder rossi again
3. here are two zones. guaymallén and San Luis
2. me and elder macias with the same tie that we gor at the christmas party
1. edler elford and me he is from canada.

i love you elder smith

January 5, 2009

Dear Family,

how you all doing? i am doing just great. so these past two weeks have been hard in the missionary work category becuase of the holidays. argentines love hollidays. and they love not being in the streets or opening doors on holidays either. so it was a slow working weak but this next week will be amazing. we are goind to work hard and find a lot and get a lot in church. so lets see. new years was ok. we are dinner and la familia colloa our branch president. we ate chicken and it was pretty good. we ate ate 930 and had to be in the appartment by 1030. but and 1200 we were woken up by all the fireworks. i mean a lot of fireworks. it was way crazy. ten times worse then christmas. but it was cool to watch them from our window. but this week was also really good becuase we finally have a fridge. it is nice to have cold water and today i can buy milk and yogurt and all sorts of good stuff i am pretty excited. ha ha so some funny stuff that happend this week. elder macias and i were walking in this neighborhood and a little kid yelled to his mom. mama mire un grande y un pequito. ha ha he said look mom a big one and a little one. it made us laugh pretty hard. and made me feel tall for once in my life. ha ha. hhmmm what else. or we went to visit this inactive family and she gave us milk. not just any milk she put three scoops of baby powder milk in a cup with two spoonfulls of sugar and then really hot water. we hat to drink hot baby milk. it was gross thinking about it so i just hurried and downed it really quick. ha ha wierd. so there is an elder in the mission his name is elder jensen. and we always hear his stories. but one of his stories is that a little like 14 year old kid walked up to him and asked him how to say a really bad word in english. he told him oh the worst word in english is ¨nice tie¨ ha ha so the next day this group of friends go up to them and yell ¨nice tie¨ and he yelled thank you and the group of kids ran away. so ya i thought that was way funny. nice tie. another funny thing was we were walking home and there was this only lady sitting on the ground so we asked if she needed help she said ya a fell and i cant get up. ha ha so we helped her up and that was that. but she had fallen and couldnt get up. ha ha i thought it was funny. one more thing so pedro our landlord thinks i look like russel crow. so he is always calling me. gladiator. so my new name for him in gladiator. ha ha i dont think i look like him do i? well not much has happened it was a slow week. but next week we are going to see miracles. i love you so much family.

elder smith

here are some pictures. a picuter with a family in the branch familia marañon. me with a drunk pig. elder macias and i. elder matson, gasser lewis and i and can rember the other but here it is. love you

December 30, 2008

so i have a couple of minutes left. but i will hurry and tell you a little bit about this week. well i loved talking to you all so much. it was amazing. i loved hearing all your voices. well officailly elder lewis and i are not companions no more. right now i have a different companion them elder smith too. president made a lot of changes. i am with elder macias he is from tucuman argentina. so i have a latino companion now. i am way excieted for my spanish to improve. but other then that not a lot has happend i loved talking to you. sorry my email disappeard. it really stinks. but i love you all so much. sorry brittany i did write to your three sisters too but it all got errased. so love you so much. i love you family write you next week.

elder smith

so my comp is only five foot two. ha ha yay i am taller than a comp. love you all bye. oh mom can you send me a couple pairs of those thick socks form pomeroys in a little bubble envelope package thanks i lov eyou.

December 30, 2008

well i am really mad. i just got done writing you a letter and i didnt send and i couldnt get it back. so i am so sorry . but i will have to wait til next week but i love you all so much i cant wait to write you next week i will send some pictures.

love elder smith

December 22, 2008

Hello Family,

so it sounds like every one is good at home. that is so crazy about brother uptain. he killed a guy!!!! wow but it is a cool story. wow that is crazy. so ya christmas is thursday it doesnt feel like christmas becasue it has been hot. it was 38 degrees on saturday which is like 100 farinhight. it was hot hot day. and people just dont celebrate it the same here. they dont have christmas music going and they dont do christmas lights like they do in the states. but i guess it is good becasue it doesnt make me home sick. but ya. so i will getto talk toyou on thursday andi can ask how all the christmas things go then.

so a little about the week.

so lets see this week was good but not as good as the past weeks. we had a lot of appointments and they just all fell through. we are working hard but they people we just not receptive this week. we still havent gotten to talk with araceli and marcelo marón so we are going over tonight. i think satan has been working hard on araceli. man missionary work is hard. so we ate lunch at la familia adrover this week and had some meat from the tail of a cow. it wasnt gross it wasjust weird. he gave us so much food i thought i was going die. it is so horrible to have to walk to the chapel after eating. oh that was horrible. so it rainedreally hard on thursday. really really hard. ha ha and we had a meeting at the church for some activity they are doing next week. and so we went and no one was there. i guess argentina has an unwriten rule. if it is raining. everymeeting is canceld.so only we were there. wet. but we had fun almost slipping in the mud.

so on saturday there was a soccer game on. boca vs.san lorenzo. they twofirst place teams right now. the streets were deadas could be. no one would even answer there door. it was horrible soccer here is horrible for missionary work. but oh well.

so for christmas the kids here do fireworks all night. i am so not lookig forward tothat. i want to sleep. but i hear i wont be able to. horrible.

so last night we went to the state center to practice our songs for the party on tuesday and we had to help unloadevery ones packages. so we were slidding them down the hallway andi saw mine. i cant wait to open it on christmas. so i guess if you send like those envelope kind of packages that i dont have to pay for those. so if i need anything i will just tell you and you can ship it is those. but the other packages are good for birthday and christams. just is i need somehting small.

so i hadmy first division with a latin this week. elder rossi. it was hard but it helped my spanish a lot. he dosnt know much english. but it was fun. i had to speak spanish and listen toa native.. so over all it was helpful.

so elder lewis and i play a game. it is call never would see that in the states.. something like 3 people on a little motorcycle and one of them carrying a bike. they do some crazy stuff here. but it is fun.we see something turn to eachother and just say never in the state.

so ya this weeek was good and some what dissapointing. but we will have a good week. well we are trying to figure out the calling thing for thursday. i might email you again today or we might have to call you tonight. we are not sure but keep your cell phone on you. well i love you all and will talk to you on thursday. ok i found the number to the appartment. ok you need to call it tonight between like 730-830 ithink that is the time difference. look on¡line and see what time it is there when it is 1030-1130here. thats when we are in our appartment. so you need to call me then and i will give you the number to where you will call me on thursday. ok so the number is. 6021563 you will have to get on line and see howto call from the us to mendoza. but i think it is 01005402613021563 but check on line tomake sure. on how to call to mendoza. but here is elder lewis´s momc cell phone so you can ask her if she figures itout andif you dont get this letter you can call her and ask here. 4805777134. talk to you tonight.

elder smith