Taking off the skirt

February 6, 2017

Hi family!

  So yesterday I completed 18 months and took off my skirt, which is a mission-term meaning that we Elders that serve 2 years instead of 18 months have become real men and entered into a time that sister missionaries just can't understand and will never have the pleasure of experiencing.  Since I couldn't buy anything yesterday, I'll be celebrating my 18 month mark with Papa John's.  WooHoo!!  If I was a sister I'd be going home on Thursday.  But I'm not a sister and I've got the best 6 months ahead of me still! 

    So this week was kind of tough.  We found a lot of new investigators and got a lot of references from the ward.  Basically everyone initially accepted us well but decided they weren't willing to do anything about it.  I  encourage everybody who reads this to be doers and not just listener.  As it says in Matthew 7:21 "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."  

 Anyway, church yesterday was very interesting...  There was a big leadership meeting with all of the local stake presidents, the two mission presidents in Nicaragua, and an area 70 so all of those guys were in our ward on Sunday to take the sacrament before their meeting.  We've been teaching a very sick inactive lady but she's been too sick to go to church but she has a brother who is perpetually drunk.  He told us all week he was going to go to church and then he pulled through and showed up.  Unfortunately he was drunk.  Towards the end of testimony meeting he went and bore his testimony.  It was very interesting.  He told a story of how he went to the beach to sin and then got bit by a cobra and everyone told him he was going to die until he ran into the missionaries and God saved him (If this story actually has any sort of truth to it he was talking about different missionarires because I've definitely never seen this guy with a snake bite nor have I seen him anywhere near a beach) After going on and on the bishop stood up and kindly invited him to take his seat in the congregation and he happily complied.  This guy picked the perfect Sunday to pull this so all of the church leaders in Nicaragua could see him.  

   We've had a lot of really great spiritual experiences this week, a lot of them actually came when we were teaching with members and they testified of the restoration and shared their own conversion stories.  There were a lot of people this week that were very prejudiced against us without even knowing anything about us, just because of the crap the other churches say about us but simple testimony about the restoration and support from their member friends was able to help a lot. 

   Elder Gonzales got his first experience with the unseen forces of parasites and bacteria.  Poor guy.  

   This week we have changes.  I'm not sure if I'll have changes, or if Gonzales will, or if neither of us will.  We'll see where the Lord wants us. Have a great week!

Elder Smith

Today's lunch.  It is called indio viejo.