Cody's Mission Blog: Happy Birthday Dad!!!!!!!!!!!!

January 18, 2016

Well it was another great week.

On Tuesday I did divisions with Elder Avila again for a while and it was cool. Elder Avila is a cool guy. On Wednesday for my birthday the whole mission had a giant party and went to the beach. Well... we went to the beach to celebrate reaching the goal for last year but it was still my birthday. I didn't want to be on the wrong end of the tradition of smashing eggs on peoples heads for their birthday so I didn't tell anyone and I swore Elder Nave to secrecy. But President and Sister Russell knew so they wished me a happy birthday and a lot of people overheard them and found out. But nobody had eggs to smash on my head so it was all good.

So our zone took a bus to a beach called Playa Gigante which is really close to San Juan Del Sur and president and Sister Russell had rented a resort thing and we had a big American BBQ. It was refreshing to have a real burger and hot dog and chips. Then we changed into p-day clothes and went out to the beach to do activities like soccer, volleyball, ultimate. but nobody took it very seriously. It was just nice to be out on the beach. Then we got back together and president gave us the goal for this year, 2,600 baptisms. We`ve got a lot of work to do haha. It kind of sucked having to put our missionary clothes back on to go home because we were so sandy but it worked out.

Then the rest of the week was really just focused on the baptisms. Erica and Dominga both got baptized without any sort of problem. Also Efraìn is progressing well and should get baptized this week. Hopefully his testigo family doesn't give us a problem. In church we had Erica, Dominga, Erica`s mom, Efraìn, Jonathen, Luisa, Julio, Lucila, and Urania. Please pray for all of them. Jonathen is a friend of a member who we've been teaching, Luisa is family of a member and we've been teaching her and her sister. Julio and Lucila are brother and sister and their mom is Urania. Urania is the sister of a recent convert here. Really everyone we`re teaching is a reference from the members. This ward is amazing and with the recent success here they`re starting to get pretty excited.

So this week please pray for everyone who came to church and especially for Efraìn. We have changes this week. I`ll probably stay but we`re not sure if Elder Nave will be staying.

I had a great birthday and I`d like to thank everyone for their continued thoughts and prayers. I love you all and I hope that you know that you`re in my prayers.

Also everyone tell Dad happy birthday tomorrow!!

Love you!!

Elder Smith