Friday, June 17, 2016

EARTHQUAKES!!!

June 15, 2016

 JK on the subject line, I didn´t even feel them haha
    Right now the internet´s down so I´m writing this on Microsoft Word and I´ll just copy and paste this.  Keep in mind that all of this is being written without having read any of your emails.  
   So… we had a pretty good week.  On Thursday and Friday we had the last Multizones which ran very smoothly, but went pretty long.  Friday was the day for our zone so we actually participated as much as time participated in the various classes and sat in when we could while President and Sister Russell were talking.  This, you could say, was President´s goodbye.  He explained how the mission is like a train that never stops, but we as missionaries (and mission presidents) just get off and on and depending on what we do is how fast the train goes.  So President´s just about to step off the train and President Brown´s about to step on.  President also did a brief introduction of the Brown family.  President and Sister Brown are young, President went to BYU and Sister Brown went to Utah.  The four kids range from ages 4 – 14.  Nobody actually knows when exactly President Brown will come and replace President Russell.  President Russell explained to us that one day someone will call him and President Brown will pick up instead of him.  Then at the end we all got the opportunity to take pictures with President and Sister Russell and for most of the missionaries say their last goodbyes.  The office staff didn't really say last goodbyes because we´ll be seeing and working with President Russell until the end so we can do it later.
 Internet Came back!!
    On Saturday we were actually able to get out to the area for a good chunk of time and contact.  We had an awesome lesson with an awesome lady and she was crying and knew there were a lot of things she needed to change.  And then on Sunday she lied to us three separate times, and wouldn't go to church and eventually sent out her husband to lie to us some more.  That was extremely disappointing.  But we did get a new person we have been teaching, named Hazel, and her daughter to come to church with us.  The daughter loved it but I don´t really think Hazel did.  Yesterday Hazel said she might be moving in the next couple of weeks because of some family problems but I´m hoping she´ll stay and keep progressing obviously.  Please pray for her.
   The real miracles started coming after church on Sunday.  The second counselor in the Bishopric, Hermano Castro is kind of notorious for giving a lot of really crappy references to us.  Which isn't a bad thing at all, but we´re kind of skeptical when he gives us references.  Well, on Sunday he took us to the house of a 40 year old lady named Carmen whose mom got baptized several years ago and went with the missionaries to church several times in the past.  She readily accepted a fecha for the second of July and her daughter Guadelupe who also went to church previously with her grandma happily accepted the same fecha.  So we´re really excited for them and grateful to Hermano Castro.  But, yesterday we came by for the appointment we set with her and she wasn't there so I´m hoping she´s not hiding or anything.  Then yesterday we went by the pulperia (food store) of Hermano Castro to buy a gatorade and he´s like, ya I´ve got two more references.  So he showed us to the house of two people that had been doing some work in his house that went to the church several times with the missionaries in the past.  They were just awesome in the lesson and really really really understood the restoration.  We put a fecha with the dad, Darwin José, for the 19th of July and tried to do the same with the son for the same date.  Well, he said no because he´s leaving to work in a farm out in the middle of nowhere on the 28th of June.  So, because he´s been to church more than two times already, we think we can get permission to baptize him on the 25th if he goes to church on Sunday and is keeping the commandments.  So we proposed the 25th as a fecha.  A fecha for 11 days in the future would freak a typical Nica out but this guy was really cool and was like, ya of course I will, and of course I´ll go to church on Sunday.  This is very important.  So we´ll see what happens with him.  Needless to say we´ll be working a lot with him and praying a lot.  Thank you Hermano Castro.  The lesson of the week to everyone is.....  GIVE REFERENCES TO THE MISSIONARIES!!!  It really really helps.  
    Also, there was another huge huge huge huge immeasurably huge blessing we saw this week.  President and Sister Russell were cleaning out their freezer and called me and Elder Petty over and sent us with a huge cooler filled with crap from their freezer and boxes of other crap.  It included Frozen waffles, frozen pizzas, frozen pancakes, gallons of ice cream, Hamburger patties and hot dogs and they had left-over buns and condiments and spices so we pulled out our grill and charcoal and had a barbecue.  It was awesome!  We literally ate a fridge full of crap in like one day. President and Sister Russell were very impressed (like mom was always impressed with how I ate after swim practice haha).  But I actually think they were more disgusted.  Today we also got a lot more crap like easy mac, serial, mashed potatoes, and crap like sticky notes.  I also got a couple micro fiber towels.  Heck ya!!  
 So ya, it was a good week and it´s been a lot better since we don´t have to worry about any big meetings this week.  
 I read your emails, and since May 31st I haven´t felt any earthquakes...  I didn't even know about the big earthquake on the border.  I think it´s funny that all the mission mom people were freaking out because none of us really even knew about it.  They just need to take a chill pill I guess.  
 I´m glad Peyton had a great birthday!  Happy father´s day dad!!  Congrats on the hole-in-one!!!  That´s awesome!  I´m jealous you did it without me there...
 Love you!
 Elder Smith



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