HEADED TO IQUITOS

Sam will be flying to Iquitos on Dec 2.  I updated his address (to the right) for anyone who would like to send him a Christmas card!  Not sure how long a letter or package takes to get there, but after experimenting, we might have it down by next Christmas!  

TENACITY AND CHASTITY - WHO KNEW?

ook whats up eerybodddy??? whi duz evry1 keeep makiin fun of the way spel?? haha were pressed for time to write so i have to write fast no judging! anyways me and my comañero are now the zone leaders over half the north ameicans in the ccm which is cool but then again not really we dont do much. im not sure if i wrote home about this yet but its something we all need to know so gonna double check.. anytime you tell a latino your going to iquitos they do one of two things: 1st they fake fall over cuz of a heat stroke and tell you how hot its going to be or second they cover there eyes and scream "castidad!" (chastity!)  cuz apparently everyone walks around naked in iquitos. so ya thats gonna be sweet hopefully the missionaries really embrace the culture there. haha DAD i joined the choir! haha President Evans (head over all missionary work in the first quorum of the seventy) came to speak to us so they put together a choir and i totally rocked.  basically carried the team haha actually im not good we had so many good singers tho it was awesome.  we sang "señor te necesito" and it was so good.  president evans is such a good speaker.  so simple and so clear.  he spoke twice and in the first one he talked about tenacity.  weird right?  he said one night president Uchtdorf called him and asked about that word being a Christlike attribute which i thought was really interesting cuz it kinda seems alot like diligence but i dunno.  his talk was awesome he quoted President Holland who qouted an Olympic swimmer about how he became so good at swimming. he said "I kicked when i didnt want to kick. i stroked when i didnt want to stroke" such a good quote for missionaries.  In the second time he spoke he talked about repentence which was so money.  i wish i could write everything i have down about it it was so good.  but check out king benjamins speech in mosiah and look for scriptures on repentence there super good.  he talked about how we withdraw ourselves from the lord.  its not the lord moving away from us when we sin.  i think thats mosiah 2:36 not sure tho.  Has anyone seen Ephraims Rescue? awesome movie.  theres a quote at the end i want to leave you all with from President Thomas S. Monson. it says "when you have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to feel, you can reach out and rescue others." always remeber to serve love you guys have a good week

Always

Elder Smith

KEEP IT SIMPLE

ok ok ok so this week was sick.  Dad told me to tell about the life a CCM (spanish for MTC) misssionary so here it goes. wake up shower eat and then personal studying by 730.. grammer/spanish starts at 830 and thats mixed in with some simple lesson on the gospel.  usually at 11 we teach our first investigator.  This is the best cuz we actually are giving lessons everyday with our companions and its not scheduled out at all.  you just get two week for 2 investigators.. one morning and one at night and you just teach.  at twelve theres lunch and then we do this computer spanish study from 1 to 2.  2 to 3 is physical activity and then by 330 were companero studying or personal studying. 430 spanish again with other teacher and then dinner at 6.  then theres more spanish and our other investigator till 9.  then we plan for tomoro and then get ready for bed.  ya not very exciting but the teaching is going really good.  i think me and my comanion are the only ones to commit someone to baptism in our district which was sick. haha even is cool when its fake.  anyways the temple was great again today.  i had to lead around all the new north americans today while we were outside the ccm but next week well be on our own.  our new latinos in our room keep locking the door for some  reason and they locked themselves out the other night and were on the second story.  so we got a bench bullock (big marine kid) stood on it and i i stood on his shoulders then unscrewed the screen and climbed in through the window all just cuz we didnt want to disturb presidente.  mostly cuz he doesnt speak english so ya its hard to talk to him.  anyways that was cool.  o ya k so my teacher hermano granados told us this story about some guys who went to iquitos like 20 years ago.  this will probly seem like im making this up but its legit.  so some natives came up to this campionship and said there village needed help so the missionarys of course were like ok.  ended up traveling for 2 days down the amazon river to get there.  they get there and the natives tell them theres a giant snake that has eaten 4 of there people.  10 meters long and as big as a basketball rim around.  they missionaries had machetes and the natives gave them one rifle.  they circle the village for two days with a little native guiding them.  this was all in spanish but imma doing good at spanish so i think this is all right haha. anyways the snake some how swung down and smacked the little native breaking all his ribs.  this is where the spanish got confusing but all i know is the whole villege ate the snake for dinner that night so they killed it haha im not coming home till i have a story to top that. iquitos is gonna be sick.  we had a great devotionalk last night about how simple the message needs to be.  focus soley on the doctrine of christ and the spirit will do the rest.  it helps everyone here alot cuz all we can do is be simple here in spanish.  its humbling for me because i like to go deep but i love the change thats happening in my tstimony through the spirit.  ok im out of time but i love you all.  i got my email from speny but nothing from cj.... are you kidding me?!?! haha keep it simple

Always,

Elder Smith

TO MAKE DISCIPLES OF...OR...HACER DISIPOLES DE

holy benz you own!! I think the further i get away the better you race cuz every race i go to you dont do so hot haha so ya definitly a correlation in that. Anyways whats good??? All good here in Lima.  Today we went to the temple again.  then we went to Tottus, Metros, this little temple store, and garajes.  Garajes has sweet soccer jerseys for 20 sols which is like 7 bucks its rad.  i got guerreros jersey on the peruvian national team.  hes supposed to be awesome but peru kinda stinks at soccer so ya whatever its a dope jersey.  the temple store has sweet scripture cases and ties and coin purses that are super rad and then metros and tottus are like grocery stores.  the buses and traffic are so fun here.  basically trafic rules are dont get hit.  you seriously can just run across the street whenever.  and everyone just flies around and honks for no reason its awesome.  steve you were so right about the shower sandals.  there always still wet in the mornings so i picked up some sweet army crock thingys this morning to use for shower sandles and now the other ones are just comfy shoes haha.  also dad theres no choir here.  theres only like 130 people here total.  like 60 percent latinos and 40 percent americans.  and then one kid from england haha hes legit.  the north americans stay for six weeks and the latinos stay for two so we said bye to all the latinos we came with yesterday.  that was actually sad they all wanted to trade me ties and i was like nahhhh... just kidding i traded.  i love the latinos tho there so funny. this kid elder chacon used to yell out the window every night "I mees my yerlfreend ayudame!!" hahaha more of a had to be there moment but he was rad.  anyways to more important stuff.  PRAY.  my goodness is the ability to pray one of the greatest things the lord has given us.  Prayers have become so real. so essential for investigators and therefore essential for you. at first you realize how much you need the lord and your on your knees for 10 minutes begging him to help you and then all the sudden you get smacked in the face by a devotional from Elder Richard G Sott about gratitud and your on your knees for 10 minutes thanking the Lord for what youve been given. Theres so much to thank the lord for. I love it.  I love the scriptures the Lord really does speak back to us through the scriptures. you just gotta read. i loved being able to work in the temple before i left because i know exactly whats going on in the temple here even tho there speaking spanish. and is allows me to focus more on the spirit than the words. This temple is so cool. one srcipture I´d like to share that i thought was really cool is matthew 28:19-20  check the footnote on the word teach.  also in the spanish scriptures it says hacer disipoles de (i dont know why i cant spell disciples in spanish) but ya were not out here to only teach. were here to make disciples of others.  thats the issue here in peru.  you can baptize millions but its retention that is so dificult so they stress making diciples of investigadores.  anyways love you all speny if you dont write me im sending someone to take you out! Love you buddy

Always, Elder Smith

ADVICE FROM GRANDMA: If you eat every color of veggies - green, red, orange, yellow - you will be getting all the vitamins you need. Also fish for protein, bananas for potassium and nuts - walnuts, almonds - for all sorts of good things. What kind of fruit do they eat?

awesome grandma thankyou! all the fruit is really similar but they have this one fruit called granadas (i think) there so good! they look like little frog eggs inside of an orange peel haha you have to google them.  love you!