Monday, June 22, 2015

NEW FOUND STRENGTH

Alright.  well this week was a good one.  First of all happy fathers day.  Secondly happy bday to benz y ray.  You guys rock.  Yesterday was the dedicacion of the trujillo peru temple.  The stakecenters down here were converted into extensions of the temple and we all got to watch the transmissions.  President uchtdorf and elder bednar and elder teh came down to dedicate the temple, but also the area presidency was in the temple as well.  President useda, elder waddell, and elder godoy.  It was so special to experience the spirit of the temple again after a long while without going to the temple at all.  The spirit was very strong.  The construction of temples is such a huge sign of progress in the work of the Lord.  There were three dedicatory sessions but we only had permission to go to two of them.  All the missionaries were pretty bumbed to miss the third session and work instead because it was fathers day and everyone knew that everyone was going to be drunk and it was gonna be really hard to find lessons but me and my comp decided venga lo que venga disfrutalo. (come what may, enjoy it.)  Entonces (then) we prayed for a miracle.  To find lessons in between all the loud music and partying that was going on that day.  And we did.  It was so cool we were more productive than usual and found some pretty awesome people to teach.  I know it doesnt sound that cool but really it was something special for my companion and me because we were pretty bumbed about missing the last session but the Lord blessed us when we decided to work.  But moral of the story- Go to the temple! haha no but ya i miss the temple alot.  Its a huge privilege to have a temple close to your home.  Every time you go to the temple you will leave with a new found strength to keep pressing forward.  Its the house of the Lord. hope all is well at home
Always 
Elder Smith

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

STEP BACK AND TAKE A LOOK

Wulp i fell in.  Nah just kidding but i did break a bridge.  I was walking along this little skinny part right by the edge of the water and the bridge broke, but i jumped for it and made it to the dry land so its all good.  Anyways this week was full of good work.  We had a great sunday.  We got to church and we had a good amount of investigators and less actives who showed up so we were really happy. I still havnt met the bishop of my ward cuz hes been out of town for the last month or so.  And things have been a little out of order.  Anyways after the passing of the sacrament the first councilor got up and said were now gonna have two talks and then the closing song and prayer.  hmmm a little strange only two talks. The two speakers are gonna have to talk for a while.... "and the first talk will be given by elder smith and the second by elder portocarrero"  youve gotta be kidding me...  my comp and i looked at eachother across the chapel and both just laughed.  I took my Libro de Mormon with me and ya started to talk.  I talked about the sacrament for fifteen or twenty minutes and then my comp got up talked about how the members could contribute the missionary work in our ward for like 6 minutes.  Ughhh so ya they ended the sacrament meeting 10 minutes early.  I wanted to get up and talk again but ya now its in the past.  Then we went into gospel principles in the second hour.  We talked about the creation of the world and asked all the class to share what their favorite aspect of the world was.  All described beautiful things but it almost brought me to tears when the middle aged blind women weve been teaching stood up and described the noises of the birds in the amazon she hears every morning she wakes up.  It made me so grateful for this beautiful world.  You really can see the Lords love for us just stepping back and taking a look at the earth He created for us.  Im so grateful to live in the world.  and to be in this part of the world for these next two years of my life.  Hope everyone gets the chance to see the world in His way this week.  much love.
always
elder smith

Monday, June 8, 2015

LOWER WATER LEVELS MAKE HIGHER BRIDGES

Ya so everything is going good.  Right now the water is starting to go down so we can finally get to a new group of people whos houses are further out in the water.  Its super sketchy right now because the bridges are super high above the water because the water was super high and ya as the water goes down the bridges get more and more unstable.  Alot of bridges break and few missionaries have fallen in the amazon. haha i am yet to fall but i kinda wanna just so i can say ive swam in the amazon. haha well see.  I just got a letter from grandma myra (handwritten letters are the bomb thankyou grandma!) If i read it right scout is the name of chris and nicoles baby. But it may have been scott... not sure.  I go for scout because tkam is one of my favorite books.  Also i couldnt make out the name of rachels baby but someone let me know.  And did kyle and amy move into our ward?  If so heck yes there better be a five guys opening up real close by.  Also this week we had some pretty good service projects.  Me and my comp changed the wood floor for one of our investigators who lives in the water.  Im now basically a machine with a hammer, saw, and machete.  haha also with all of the missionaries in iquitos we passed out like 14000 liters of purified water to all of iquitos.  Not even kidding. the water was in 7 liter bottles and we definitly passed out more than 2000 bottles.  It  was super cool as well.  As always the work is going well.  We get to teach so many people every day who have so many different points of view.  Gods children vary in so many different ways but i know He loves each and every one of them individually.  Me and my companion do our best to help them understand that.  There is nothing they need more than to know that what they do matters and why. I hope all is well at home.  something we like to say down here is "el que no sirve, no sirve" see if you can figure that out.  Its kinda like a pun haha anyways go and serve!
Always
Elder Smith