8 Months

April 6, 2016

Hello Family!!

  It sounds like you had a pretty good week.  Mom and Dad, sorry about the Bo incident.... It sounds like he does deserve to sleep outside for a little while... But not too long!!  and not in the rain!  Speaking of rain, it rained for the first time of the year this week.  Luckily it was only one morning, but the rainy season is coming and I´m not too excited for it.  It actually seemed to cool down just a little bit this week.  But maybe not idk.

   So the highlight of the week was obviously conference!  What I heard I greatly enjoyed and I'm excited to go back and study what I wasn't able to hear.  So on Saturday morning we didn't have any investigators that could go so we couldn't either.  Saturday afternoon we got Maria Del Carmen to go and she really liked it.  Now she´s been to church twice and we´re hoping that she can get baptized the 16th.  But because we didn't bring four investigators on Saturday afternoon I couldn't stay and watch conference which was sad.  For priesthood session we went with Stanley (the 83 year old guy that got baptized in January before I got here) and Kirby.  Stanley was kind of out of it but Kirby thoroughly enjoyed it!  It´s been really amazing to see the change in him and his family since we met him and he got baptized.  On Sunday morning we had four investigators come (we could've stayed anyway because it was a freebie session) but it was nice to feel like I had "earned" getting to stay at that session.  It was wonderful to hear the prophet speak and I was especially excited for dad when he announced the Quito temple.  I was sitting on the edge of my seat hoping that they´d finally announce one here in Nicaragua but it looks like we´ll have to wait at least another 6 months.  The four that came on Sunday morning were Javier and Celeste Robleto, a new lady named Rosa that we contacted last week, and Kirby´s mom, Nancy.  Rosa is just a little shy old lady that hardly ever says anything but when she does say something it amazes you because she really is listening.  On Sunday afternoon we brought four people as well and so we were able to stay and watch that session.  We brought Fabricio, who I explained last week, his sister Areceli (sp?), His nephew Justin (12 yrs old) and Justin´s friend Osmar (maybe Omar, not sure).  They really liked it though Fabricio definitely stayed more focused than his sister or the kids.  

   So it was great.  We have lots of new people that went to conference that are now progressing investigators.  Please pray that they can stay positive and go to church this week as well.  Conference in Spanish isn´t too hard to understand for me if I´m really focused.  So as long as I was really putting in the effort to listen and understand I got everything.  I even got Elder Uchtdorf´s joke in spanish in Priesthood session!!  I´m just excited to go back and listen to Saturday.  Also I don´t think I understood Elder Holland´s talk too well, I´ll probably look that one up as well.  

   This coming week is actually pretty normal, there´s nothing big or exciting going on in the mission at the moment like multizones or changes.  But changes are starting to creep up on me (they´re on the 20th) and the next week will start getting a bit crazy.  I've had a tiny bit of a cough for a bit but it's starting to go away which is nice.  

   Sounds like Prom was fun Peyton!  You looked really beautiful!  Good job with doing wedding crap Delaney and Rich.  Good luck with finals! Sounds like the concert was fun mom and dad.  Good job beating up all the thugs Matt.  Nice. 

   Well sorry this is kind of a short email.  It´s been a pretty normal and uneventful week.  

Love you,

 Elder Smith